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Today's tax day, and while that means a date with either a CPA or an EZ form (or an extension) for most of us, for others it's a little more complicated. We've recently done stories on NBA players going broke, and NFL players, too. You may be asking yourself how multimillionaires can go broke, saying "If I ever made $5 million in my life, much less one year, I'd make it last." But maybe it's not quite so simple. 6 Magazine's Richard Boadu gives Six Reasons Why Pro Athletes Going Broke Shouldn't Be a Surprise.
RELATED: A Recent History of NFL Players Going Broke
RELATED: A Recent History of NBA Players Going Broke
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Hip-Hop Culture
Since '80s, pro athletes have wanted to be rappers and rappers have wanted to be pro athletes. Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant, Allen Iverson and more have all released rap albums. Master P, a hip-hop mogul, chased his lifelong dream of being an NBA player and was actually on the Toronto Raptors and New Orleans Hornets pre-season rosters for the 1998-99 seasons.
In terms of spending money, the lifestyles are relatively the same: pop bottles in the club, do everything you can to get on MTV Cribs, and have the minimum requirement of 200 pairs of Jordans in your closet. The only problem is that the longevity of the average rapper is longer than that of the average athlete. A rapper may be old, washed up and no longer making albums but he can still go on tour and get money. Once a pro athlete is done, he's done.
No Degree/Experience
One and done. As in one year of college and you make the leap to the NBA. For the NFL, it's three years and done. Either way, if you're the average pro athlete that was awesome in college you probably don't have a college degree. And even if you do have a degree, you most likely don't have any experience in the field you majored in because, well, you've been busy being a professional athlete.
Take a regular Joe Schmoe, say he got a degree as a chemical engineer, but he takes a job as a fitness trainer after college for five years and then he wants to finally go into engineering. On top of not having any experience, he's spent five years out of the loop and is not aware of the new advances in the industry. Good luck getting hired. The same goes for athletes, sure you have a degree but you have no experience—start at the bottom with an internship that pays little to nothing is a hard pill to swallow for someone that was recently making millions.
Baby Mama Drama
“Have a baby by me baby, be a millionaire, I write the check before the baby comes, who the fuck cares” is the line 50 Cent uttered in the song "I Get Money." Pro athletes seem to think they have the same invincibility with women and children. New York Jets cornerback, Antonio Cromartie, has 10 kids by eight different women. 10 x 8…..he's married to one of the mothers so he escapes one child support payment, but the other seven women get $3,500 a month which adds up to $294,000 a year. Luckily, Cromartie is actually a good football player and can afford to make these payments, but what's going to happen when he's not playing ball anymore? He's surely not going to be making seven-figure NFL money. Those child support payments can drain you for millions in no time. Word to Travis Henry.
Change in Lifestyle
If a pro athlete is making $6 million a year and they stop playing for whatever reason, the chances of them continuing to make $6 million as an analyst, businessman, etc. is very low. Warren Sapp makes $540K as an analyst for the NFL Network, and that's barely more than what he'd make if he was being paid NFL veteran's league minimum of $355K.
It's easy for people who don't make this kind of money to sit back and judge, but if you've been living on seven figures for several years and all of a sudden you have to live off of six figures and most likely five figures for the rest of your life it's going to take some time to adjust to your new lifestyle. Unfortunately, many pro athletes don't adjust to their new income and they simply go broke trying to still spend what they clearly don't have.
Breadwinner for All
Being a pro athlete can sometimes be more of a burden than it is a blessing. Many times these athletes become the breadwinner for everyone in their family and beyond: nephews, uncles, parents, kids, baby mamas, friends, etc. They are supporting 10 or more people on 3 million dollars a year, which is very feasible if everyone lives a modest lifestyle. But c'mon, the athlete is a millionaire so everyone gets chinchillas and diamond earrings for Groundhog Day. It's easy to see how this money doesn't last long.
Lottery Winner Syndrome
It's a bit of a slap in the face to compare pro athletes to a lottery winner. The athletes have been working hard since they were kids to reach their dream of being professional athletes, but the windfall of money that comes their way once they are drafted is a lot like winning the lottery. The scary thing is that 75% of lottery winners are broke within five years.
According to Sports Illustrated, 78% of NFL players are divorced, unemployed, or bankrupt two years after leaving the game, and MSNBC reports that one in four NFL players live paycheck to paycheck.
Take a look at those two facts and then remember that the average NFL career is only three years, it becomes easy to see why professional athletes go broke.
The term “act like you've” been there before is often said to professional athletes who may celebrate a little more than is necessary. They are pro athletes, they've been scoring touchdowns, hitting home runs, and dunking basketballs before they hit puberty, they should have some class and act like they've been there before because they have. Financially, many of these athletes “haven't been there before” when it comes to being a millionaire just like many lottery winners.