Junior Bridgeman.
All they had to do was invest the money. Live at their parents, or rent a cheap place for two seasons, and invest the money. Make use of accountants to minimize the tax load.
Charles got the message.
“Luck is the residue of perseverance”
</huh?>
My advice to young professional athletes is to take your signing bonus and a substantial portion of your first year wages and make a downpayment on a well-located, fully occupied (but for one unit) apartment building. Hire competent management. You only need a break-even cash flow. Living there instead of a McMansion cuts your expenses. If things go south due to injury, management change or other cause, you have a place to live, plus an income, probably for life.
How refreshing to read an ESPN article about basketball players and money that is NOT about race.
Awesome quote. Words of the wise.
I had a neighbor who was with the NBA for six years where I lived -- we shared a fence so we knew his lifestyle. He always had his "posse" at the house, had a black Escapade and a Hummer, loud music from the cars whenever they came in at 2 a.m., parties by his pool, dope smoke and women, 'livin' the life'. After he was dropped, he played in China for a year, then the last I heard, was broke and arrested in Atlanta for stalking an ex-girlfriend. I doubt he had a father figure in his life, let alone a good one like yours.
Rob gronkowski never spent a penny of his NFL earnings. He lived off endorsements, and he lived cheap. He invested all of his salary (which got to be a lot of money) and now there will be enough to fund several generations of little Gronks.
I worked in the towns where many of the 1986 Celtics and Red Sox lived. I’ve been in some of their homes (I managed the CATV company there and would go on installs to some of their homes.) I was surprised at how “normally” most of them lived, albeit in multimillion dollar homes.
They are not all idiots.
For a start with these guys....take a percentage of your income every year - say even just 5% - and buy an annuity.
With what they make if you just do that year after year and blow the other 95%, you’ll still have enough to live decently.
are those earnings top-line numbers (before agents and taxes)?
Bridgeman deserves all the credit in the world for his success - it was well-earned. But note also - he grew up dirt-poor in a blue-collar town in what appears to have been a stable family environment with a dad who worked 40 years at tough jobs, and with Bridgeman himself as a kid doing the sort of work many of us did at that age - that back story I think may have been as much responsible for his success as anything.
Too many poor kids nowadays grow up in broken families, with no good adult male role models, and with little opportunity to learn hard work as paper boys or delivery boys or whatever as kids - they never really learn how to be responsible as adults.
The NBA as well as the NFL and all pro sports teams have required financial courses that the players take advising them how to protect, spend and save their money.
Tim Duncan wisely followed this advice, yet a financial advisor still stole 20 million bucks.
“Negro rich”...
... Look it up
Junior Bridgeman is highly respected in Louisville. My daughter met him when he actually visited one of his franchises (Blaze Pizza, I think).