February 8, 2007 – Most professional athletes suffer from young person’s disease — invincibility. They feel as though short-lived careers will happen to the other “guy” or the other “girl”, not him or her, and consequently fail to adequately manage their finances during their often, very short-lived, prime-earning years. Of course, there are always exceptions, such as New York Giant’s running back Tiki Barber, who has decided to walk away from the game during the prime of his career to preserve his health and pursue other professional interests such as broadcasting.
There are others that also take an active interest in the management of their money, stay involved every step of the way, and retire in a great position for the rest of their lives. However, the opposite side of these stories are far too common — stories of star athletes whose careers are cut short by injury, stories of star college athletes that never make it professionally (think 1986 Big East college basketball Player of the Year Walter Berry, a highly touted player who lasted less than 3 seasons in the NBA), and the most widespread of them all, stories of athletes bilked by their trusted advisors.
So let’s examine the 10 reasons why a professional athlete needs to spend as much time searching for the proper financial advisor as he or she would spend searching for the right person to the rest of his or her life with.
(1) Most professional athletes believe that their careers will be much longer than the probabilities dictate. The average professional athlete’s career lasts only 4 years. According to the National Football League Player’s Association, in the NFL, the average career is 4 years. In Major League Baseball, for pitchers, it is 4.8 years; for hitters, 5.6 year. In the NBA, it is 4.7 years.
(2) While average salaries are high, $1.4MM in 2005 in the NFL, and $2.7MM in 2006 in major league baseball, many players believe that their careers will last much longer than 4 years. They figure that it will always be the other guy that is out of the profession soon and not him, so they fail to not only preserve wealth, but also they fail to grow what they already have.
(3) Major injuries often cut a professional athlete’s career short, leaving those that depended on their bodies their entire lives for earning potential without an adequate alternative skill to earn money after their professional sports careers end.
(4) Many athletes live above their means, blowing huge percentages of their salaries on expensive cribs and rides (just watch MTV cribs) because their cash flow at the times seemed limitless. A good financial advisor will ensure that an athlete has a plan “B” to deal with unforeseeable circumstances.
(5) Many athletes spend more time searching for the perfect ride than they do finding the perfect financial advisor. Given that this decision will impact the athlete’s life more than any other decision he will ever make, the process of finding a financial advisor should be rigorous.
(6) Many athletes give their financial advisors too much unsupervised control over their money. An inordinate amount of professional athletes don’t take a personal interest in the management of their assets, leaving management of their assets to a “trusted” advisor that more likely wants to bilk the athlete than help him. A great financial advisor will insist that the athlete understand why he or she is making certain investments on behalf of the athlete. A bad financial advisor will tell the athlete, “Trust me. This is the best thing for you to do,” thereby securing liberty to invest the athlete’s money into products that will make their wallets fat.
(7) Fairytales like Jerry Maguire don’t happen very often in real life. Though they do happen, the opposite case scenario of being the number one receiver to being out of the NFL the next year scenarios happen far more often.
The last three reasons center around the hazardous world that is the one of professional financial advisors and consultants. Think of the agent from Spike Lee’s movie “He Got Game” that was trying to lure Ray Allen as a client, and you have a fairly accurate picture of the level of deception and greed that is common in the world of investment advisors.
(8) Since so many professional athletes in the NBA, NFL, and MLB are minorities, advisors play the race card all the time to gain the trust of clients. Many athletes fall victim to this pep talk of “we got to stick together”, fail to adequately screen a financial consultant, and place their trust in incompetent advisors. Case in point.. When rapper mogul Master P’s No Limit sports agency was able to convince University of Texas star running back Ricky Williams to be a client, they negotiated, on Ricky’s behalf, an eight year contract that had very little guaranteed money and was instead dependent upon numerous incentive clauses that had very low probabilities of achievability. Consequently, Ricky never was able to earn money that should have been guaranteed in the first place given his status coming out of college. In fact, the negotiated contract was so bad that other agents called Ricky’s employer and congratulated them for getting a top NFL prospect for close to nothing.
(9) Many minority financial advisors again play the race card to gain enough trust to bilk their clients. Calvin Darden Jr., a 31-year-old stockbroker, gained the trust of New York Knick Latrell Sprewell, and then proceeded to steal $300,000 from him. Sprewell, compared to the great number of athletes also robbed by their financial advisors, actually got off light. William Black, stole more than $11,000,000 from New York Giants star Ike Hilliard and other athletes whose money he handled. See #(6). No matter how much money you have, the only way someone can steal millions from you without your knowledge is if you give someoene too much control over your money.
(10) Situations # 8 and # 9 happen because most professional athletes have no idea what questions they need to ask a financial advisor to understand if he or she is competent or incompetent. Many instead, focus on irrelevant things like the type of car the advisor drives, what kind of suits he or she wears, and what kind of watch he/she wears. I’ve had several meetings with professional athletes regarding management of their assets and they definitely did not ask any questions that would remotely help them gather enough information to make an informed, intelligent decision about whether or not I would be the right financial advisor for them.
If athletes let financial consultants control the information exchange in meetings, they will get burned because the best financial consultants are experts in sales strategy, game theory and persuasion techniques. They can and will pick the proper strategy to use for each client, choosing to pander to the race card, fear of losing money, or greed, depending on the client’s identified weakness. Some professional athletes decline advisors for ridiculous reasons like the car driven by the advisor was not the “right” kind of car or the suit worn by the advisor was not the “right” brand. I have seen advisors mortgage their financial future and liquidate their retirement accounts to buy expensive cars. I have seen other financial advisors lease expensive cars they couldn’t afford to impress clients. Yet some athletes would decide to place their money in the hands of these types of advisors that make foolish personal financial decisions rather than place their trust with much more competent advisors that would manage their money infinitely better. This can only happen by not knowing what is truly important in selecting a financial advisor.
Athletes need to learn what questions they must ask financial consultants during meetings so that they can determine the level of competence of the advisor. Often, athletes will meet with an advisor for two hours and at the end of the meeting, still know nothing more than they knew at the beginning of the meeting that will enable them to make an informed decision about who to select as their financial advisor. One must ask good questions to receive good answers. To learn ten questions that will help you identify a competent advisor, visit the blog at maalamalama and search the link for Educational Resources.
[tag]how to find a financial consultant, financial adviser, sports, sports agent,wealth literacy[/tags]
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J.S. Kim is the founder and Managing Director of maalamalama, a comprehensive online investment course that uses novel, proprietary advanced wealth planning techniques and the long tail of investing to identify low-risk, high-reward investment opportunities that seek to yield 25% or greater annual returns.
