As a professional athlete, I am beyond blessed to be able to play a game and get paid for it.  It is almost every kid’s dream to play in the pros, and, when you make it there, it doesn’t get old.  Sure, there are days where it is tough to hobble down the stairs and get to your 7 am workout, but, all in all, the lifestyle is everything you think it would be.  As someone who has been a “journeyman” between the NFL, CFL, and the “real world” as a Financial Advisor, I have a unique perspective regarding the financial challenges facing professional athletes today. 

They may differ from the challenges of a newly-wed couple just out of college balancing student loans and a mortgage, but each situation shares similar emotional and psychological stress.  I’ve identified three key reasons why pro athletes need to partner with someone throughout their career in order to maximize the opportunity that they have in front of them.

1. Building Good Financial Habits

One of the biggest financial advantages of playing professional sports, is the amount of money an athlete is capable of earning at such a young age.  Most players find themselves fresh out of college where they were living on refund/housing checks, to then receiving their first signing bonus and having a couple hundred thousand dollars in the bank.  The harsh reality is that most pro football players don’t come from a prosperous upbringing.  They haven’t been exposed to that type of wealth and often don’t know anyone that can help them manage it.  

It is important for athletes and, any college grad for that matter, to develop good financial habits early.  Learning the difference between necessity and luxury, how to use a credit card properly, the benefits of both leasing and owning when it comes to vehicles and houses, how to manage debt, how to invest, and the list goes on.  There are numerous apps, blogs, and books that can help develop the foundation to a solid financial future, however in my personal opinion, nothing can replace human interaction when it comes to this.  It is much easier to wire yourself money from your retirement account to buy a new Audi S5 than it is to call your financial advisor and say, “hey can I take a 10% penalty and with drawl $50k from my IRA that we agreed I wouldn’t touch?”  As you could imagine, the conversation alone would discourage the occasional spending spree.  

In the age of technology, where “doing it yourself” is getting easier by the day, the value in working with a financial advisor is becoming even more important.  We are experts in our field just as athletes are experts in theirs.  We are experts, not only in terms of managing investments, insurance, and taxes, but also in terms of managing human behavior.  Just as most athletes need a personal trainer to hold them accountable and also to maximize their athletic ability, they also need a financial advisor to hold them accountable to paying their bills, saving for their child’s education, saving for retirement, and to maximize the passive earning ability that comes with earning large amounts of money. 

2. Opportunity of a Lifetime

Many young athletes will not realize it until their playing days are over, but the concentrated rate at which an athlete gets paid is par to none.  An entire year salary (NFL minimum is $450,000), is paid out per game in a four months span of time.  That is over $100,000 per month.  It takes the other 99% of the population years, decades, and even lifetimes to earn that amount of money.  The thing that athletes and the general population should understand though, is that the average career length in the NFL is 3.4 years and also that the contracts are NOT guaranteed (unlike the MLB, NBA).  

The opportunity that NFL players have if they are able to live responsibly and invest an appropriate amount of their money, is that they can maintain their wealth throughout their life and beyond.  By utilizing a specialist, such as a Certified Financial Planner® to help create a plan to grow your savings throughout your life, can be immeasurable.  Proper wealth management in this case, can set athletes up to be able to live comfortably during their playing career, post career, retirement, and many cases will take care of their children as well.

3. Life after Sports

The transition from getting paid to play a game that you love to anything else is tough.  Almost every pro athlete is subjected to, and often experiences, employment instability throughout their career, and all share the inevitable, that their career will end at some point.  It’s hard to put everything you have physically and mentally into playing your sport, and then also plan for the future.  Very few athletes have a clean cut retirement from sports like Peyton Manning, who was able to win a Super Bowl in his final game to cap off an illustrious career as he rode into the sunset.  Many will be caught off guard or be injured and have a period of uncertainty that will force them into the next chapter of their lives. 

As a pro athlete, it is important to not only save for the future (retirement at 65), but also to save for the transition time between the end of the pro sports career and the start of the next chapter.  Whether that next chapter is coaching, broadcasting, or some other unrelated field, it is important to understand that although you may have some reputational value (which diminishes over time), you will be getting paid a lot less than in your playing days.  This is the time when a financial advisor should be able to help you come up with an income strategy that will supplement your income in the 5-10 year period following your playing days.  

In conclusion, there are countless ways that a financial advisor can provide value to professional athletes.  As someone who is a part of both sides of the business (finance and football), I realize how fortunate I am to be able to help guide not only myself, but my friends to living a life like no other.