not smart enough to put some away for a rainy day??? 
Posted on 06/14/2015 11:29:02 AM PDT by nickcarraway
You are barely out of your teens, and have been signed to a multiyear, multimillion-dollar contract by a pro team. You can expect another $20 million to $30 million in endorsement deals, and are positioned to become a brand unto yourself: another LeBron, Brady, Kobe, Jeter.
What’s even more incredible? If you were to find yourself in this scenario, you would most likely wind up dead broke, if not bankrupt and homeless, by the time you turned 40.
“Lots of players are having financial trouble, but they won’t talk about it,” says ex-NBA player Adonal Foyle, author of the new book, “Winning the Money Game: Lessons Learned From the Financial Fouls of Pro Athletes”.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
not smart enough to put some away for a rainy day???
Buried way down in the story is actual wisdom from a good person who became a wealthy pro athlete:
“I always looked at each contract as my last,” he says. He talks about being the lone guy in the locker room not to buy a luxury vehicle. “I didn’t care what others thought of me when I drove a Toyota 4Runner my rookie year,” he writes. “It was what I could afford.”
I live in Jacksonville Fl and you can always spot a Jaguar because they are the one’s driving Lambos, McClarens, and gold-plated Escalades in a town full of Hyundais and Kias and Chevy trucks.
I used to live in Aiken SC where a pro football player from that town was building his mom a mansion but his career suddenly ended and she wound up living in a mobile home next to a half-finished shell of the mansion she almost had.
Crazy chicks, “give me” family, drugs, stupid “friend has no no lose” investments and failing to save at least 50% of what you are making...
The new thing is professional athletes who have their money stolen by their parents. One hockey player had to declare bankruptcy in the middle of a large contract. His parents bought a giant mansion in Malibu for themselves with his money. They took out these loans with usurious amounts due and he didn’t even know about them.
No car, mansion, clothes or anything else feels as good to me as a sizable amount of security in the bank.
Good points raised in both of these articles including the aspect that the mind-set & personality types (Type 'A') of a pro-caliber athlete is very different from money conserving type. Mike Tyson & Warren Sapp are good examples of this. The point of child support for children getting into big money also applies to the above personality as well.
I know that the various players' associations are trying to help their members here but that too has its own set of problems. Try telling a 20yo with a single mother and 5 siblings that he needs to watch his money, not give it to those who have supported him all his life! Add his extended family, friends and neighbors and money flows like water!
As a kid most of us dreamed of being pro athletes. But, gee, there are so many downsides.
I once spent a couple of hours with a great player who was smart, had a great career, and a full career after sports. But, he was most famous for playing the worst game of his life when it mattered most. And he couldn’t stop talking about it. It was like he was in a trance. He sounded like the brainwashed guys in MANCHURIAN CANIDATE. It was sad. It really damaged him.
It’s hard to feel sorry for millionaires. But, they’re people too. And they have a lot of problems we don’t think about.
You met Bill Buckner?
No. But I hear he was even worse.
They had a great segment on ESPN with a financial planner on this subject a while back. The pointed out that one of the challenges with professional athletes is that their careers are “backwards” from a financial planning perspective. With almost any other career, a person doesn’t enter their peak earning years until they are in their 40s and 50s. With an athlete, their peak earning years can be over by the time they’re 30-35. As a result, even good financial planners would often make mistakes when advising their clients on protecting (and growing) their assets for the rest of their lives.
Some of these guys haven’t thrown it all away - Junior Bridgeman had a 12 year NBA career mostly as a sixth man, he and three other guys were traded to Milwaukee for Kareem in 1975. He currently owns over 100 Wendy’s restaurants and is worth over 400 million.
I remember that game. OH MAN!!
You are barely out of your teens, and have been signed to a multiyear, multimillion-dollar contract by a pro team. You can expect another $20 million to $30 million in endorsement deals, and are positioned to become a brand unto yourself: another LeBron, Brady, Kobe, Jeter.
...
Brady is smart. He married a woman with more money than himself. Problem solved.
Ground ball between his legs game 6 World Series?
Part of it was luck. But Ty Cobb was baseball’s first millionaire. Being from Georgia, he invested in Coca-Cola early. Then, playing in Detroit, he got in early in the auto industry.
If I where to advise an athlete with a BIG contract is to take a good chunk of it and invest it in a high quality Municipal bond fund. They pay around 4% TAX free.
Jack Johnson, Columbus Blue Jackets defenseman. He signed a big contract when he was with the Los Angeles Kings, but turned control of his finances over to his parents. They borrowed against the entirety of his contract, spent it all on themselves, and now Johnson is basically playing out his career for the Jackets for free.
I will give the Blue Jackets credit, though. When Johnson became aware of his financial problem, the club stepped up to provide him with legal representation, and tax and accountant advice to try to salvage something of his finances.
As you might imagine, Johnson wants nothing to do with his family and has no contact with them except through his attorneys. It’s very sad and I do feel sorry for him. The last people you would expect to screw you are your parents.
No one "plays" accountant or roofing installer. That's work.
The biggest problem I see with the wasted fortunes of athletes is the ignorant ones who grew up living for the "now" of their fame and fortune.
The ones who squander their money on bling, fast cars, mansions and whores..
Not surprising is the vast majority of these squanderers are blacks...It's apparent that not even their "Agents" can control their clients and thus they end up in poverty.........
Almost every single professional athlete makes more in a year than I've made in my entire life............
I have no sympathy for those idiots......
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