Broke on 30 for 30

[swede]

According to a 2009 Sports Illustrated article, 60 percent of former NBA players are broke within five years of retirement. By the time they have been retired for two years, 78% of former NFL players have gone bankrupt or are under financial stress.

Replace "retirement" with "college graduation" and those numbers are par for the course for young people nowadays. [/sarcasm]

I thought Patler made an excellent point about conflating the huge number of former players who had minimal salaries and minimal years of service with the smaller number of veterans who stayed in the league long enough to become vested in the pension and benefit from a second or third contract. Those are very different groups of "former players".

[pbmax]

I think failure rates like that show that sustained success (outside of one's original area of expertise) takes a significant amount of support and context. It is often over stated (or perhaps over assumed) how many elite level athletes come from ultra poor backgrounds. People often recall Al Maguire's famous admonishment for hardship draft status "look inside these kid's refrigerators" but subsequently make too many simplistic assumptions. Such as the general belief that the Fab Five were all from relatively poor backgrounds (or urban poor) when they enrolled at Michigan. Chris Webber's childhood was fairly typical middle class with access to good schools and both parents involved. Webber himself at times encouraged this view when it helped make a point for him.

But even players from ordinary and successful childhoods can have trouble adapting to the demands of such large amounts of money. I know that its a problem most would be happy to take on, but its more challenging than simply a matter of self-restraint. There are precious few role models from the players own lives who are prepared for such a drastic change of circumstance. Its easy to scoff, but its harder to manage than most would admit.

[Pugger]

interesting show. so was the "a football life" about the cleveland browns.

That show about Cleveland was so SAD. I remember hearing all the flowery speeches about Modell when he passed away and I kept thinking that guy was a creep for moving that team to Baltimore and leaving those fans heartbroken like that. Thank GOD that can't happen to us.

[Pugger]

I think failure rates like that show that sustained success (outside of one's original area of expertise) takes a significant amount of support and context. It is often over stated (or perhaps over assumed) how many elite level athletes come from ultra poor backgrounds. People often recall Al Maguire's famous admonishment for hardship draft status "look inside these kid's refrigerators" but subsequently make too many simplistic assumptions. Such as the general belief that the Fab Five were all from relatively poor backgrounds (or urban poor) when they enrolled at Michigan. Chris Webber's childhood was fairly typical middle class with access to good schools and both parents involved. Webber himself at times encouraged this view when it helped make a point for him.

But even players from ordinary and successful childhoods can have trouble adapting to the demands of such large amounts of money. I know that its a problem most would be happy to take on, but its more challenging than simply a matter of self-restraint. There are precious few role models from the players own lives who are prepared for such a drastic change of circumstance. Its easy to scoff, but its harder to manage than most would admit.

pb makes a good point. So many of these kids get big contracts but have no clue on how to manage it. They should be more frugal and invest most of it but 20/21 year old kids don't think about the future. To them the future is several lifetimes away so they spend it all on themselves and their families.