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If any of this is at all interesting to you, I'd recommend checking out the very excellent ESPN documentary "Broke": http://www.espn.com/30for30/film?page=broke

by holman 8y ago

If any of this is at all interesting to you, I'd recommend checking out the very excellent ESPN documentary "Broke": http://www.espn.com/30for30/film?page=broke http://www.espn.com/30for30/film?page=broke ESPN's 30 for 30 docs are really great, even if you're not particularly huge into sports. Broke is one of my favorites (after a "The Two Escobars"). It goes into a lot of detail about how ill-prepared many professional athletes are for the lifestyle, how they overestimate their net worth and their projected career duration, and digs into all of the different pitfalls new signees might face as they enter sport. It's easy to blow it off and say "whatever, they're all soft, tattooed millionaires anyway", but there's a lot of heartbreaking instances where people did the right thing and still ended up bankrupt. Anyway, worth a viewing.

acchow 8y ago
Can you give some examples of "did the right thing and still ended up bankrupt."?
- TwiztidK 8y ago
  So, doing the "right thing" might not be the way to phrase it, but there are many athletes who lived within their means themselves and were taken advantage of by people they trusted. A recent example of the is Jack Johnson [1], whose parent's spent all of his money and left him $10M in debt. [1]: https://deadspin.com/how-jack-johnsons-parents-screwed-him-and-left-him-mill-1663583325 https://deadspin.com/how-jack-johnsons-parents-screwed-him-a...
  - iamatworknow 8y ago
    Tim Duncan's another example: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nba-duncan-adviser/financial-adviser-sentenced-to-four-years-for-bilking-nbas-tim-duncan-idUSKBN19J2PZ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nba-duncan-adviser/financ...
    - meestaahjoshee 8y ago
      he got screwed over but he's far from bankrupt.
      - iamatworknow 8y ago
        Fair, I somehow missed that word my first time reading the comment, but he's an example of someone who "did the right thing" and still got "punished".
loso 8y ago
This is my favorite ESPN documentary. It was so good. I met Bernie Kosar among a bunch of other athletes and celebrities during Super Bowl XXXI. I was working security. I had to walk him around for a few hours. He was a real nice guy. Real accommodating to all the fan request. Even the crazy ones. So when I saw him on the special I could see how he could be taken advantage of. He seemed like a guy who was too eager to please.
thaumasiotes 8y ago
> there's a lot of heartbreaking instances where people did the right thing and still ended up bankrupt. What exactly do you mean by "doing the right thing" here?
DanielBMarkham 8y ago
I used to like watching those fluffy biography shows where they talked about people who hit it big and got rich and famous. Sometimes it was overnight. Sometimes it took them years. Most of the people had already died. Some were still alive. The ones that were still alive, you could tell that they tried to "fluff it up a bit" -- not get too critical. But in almost every instance? If you hit it rich (famous makes it even worse), you might as well become a drug addict or shoot yourself. It tends to destroy lives. There's nothing happy about it. On reddit awhile back there was an "AskReddit" about what to do if you won a bunch of money in the lottery. The best advice was sobering: it is a minefield of self-deception and manipulation. What's so weird to me is the huge chasm between the reality of getting rich quick and the way the general public views it. We've glamorized it way too much.
npsimons 8y ago
> "whatever, they're all soft, tattooed millionaires anyway" Despite my disdain for spectator sports "soft" is never a word I would use for their athletes. If anything, I would expect those who have had to work so hard and stay disciplined would be able to roll that discipline over into fiscal responsibility.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
duxup 8y ago
NPR had a story where an NBA player described his finances. He is basically on an allowance and money shows up in his checking account each week. His advisor seemed like a good guy and talked about the dangers of family asking for money and hangers on. His advisor acted like the bad cop and actually did the rejections for requests and even introduced the player to other players who made good choices and could be a mentor/friend. Outside the allowance if he wants a new car or vacation he calls the advisor and they tell him yes or no or later and help him get a good deal if yes. He talked about having no financial clue early on and straight up didn't know the value of say $20k because he had never been exposed to dealing with money in that way. He also talked about teammates blowing through their money like crazy and meanwhile he saves. He did a stint in the NBA d league for rehab at one point and bought a not so great car (relative) because he thought having his usual car there would be embarrassing as it was quite a contrast relative to his d league teammates. Finally one of his teammates asked why he was driving that boring old car, so he had his car brought to the local city so his teammates could drive it ;) Granted this guy has several houses, bought stuff for family and can spend like crazy on his allowance, but within some level of reason. Dude was lucky he got a good advisor and was smart enough to listen.

by holman 8y ago

acchow 8y ago

Can you give some examples of "did the right thing and still ended up bankrupt."?

TwiztidK 8y ago
So, doing the "right thing" might not be the way to phrase it, but there are many athletes who lived within their means themselves and were taken advantage of by people they trusted. A recent example of the is Jack Johnson [1], whose parent's spent all of his money and left him $10M in debt. [1]: https://deadspin.com/how-jack-johnsons-parents-screwed-him-and-left-him-mill-1663583325 https://deadspin.com/how-jack-johnsons-parents-screwed-him-a...
- iamatworknow 8y ago
  Tim Duncan's another example: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nba-duncan-adviser/financial-adviser-sentenced-to-four-years-for-bilking-nbas-tim-duncan-idUSKBN19J2PZ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nba-duncan-adviser/financ...
  - meestaahjoshee 8y ago
    he got screwed over but he's far from bankrupt.
    - iamatworknow 8y ago
      Fair, I somehow missed that word my first time reading the comment, but he's an example of someone who "did the right thing" and still got "punished".

loso 8y ago

This is my favorite ESPN documentary. It was so good. I met Bernie Kosar among a bunch of other athletes and celebrities during Super Bowl XXXI. I was working security. I had to walk him around for a few hours. He was a real nice guy. Real accommodating to all the fan request. Even the crazy ones. So when I saw him on the special I could see how he could be taken advantage of. He seemed like a guy who was too eager to please.

thaumasiotes 8y ago

> there's a lot of heartbreaking instances where people did the right thing and still ended up bankrupt. What exactly do you mean by "doing the right thing" here?

DanielBMarkham 8y ago

I used to like watching those fluffy biography shows where they talked about people who hit it big and got rich and famous. Sometimes it was overnight. Sometimes it took them years. Most of the people had already died. Some were still alive. The ones that were still alive, you could tell that they tried to "fluff it up a bit" -- not get too critical. But in almost every instance? If you hit it rich (famous makes it even worse), you might as well become a drug addict or shoot yourself. It tends to destroy lives. There's nothing happy about it. On reddit awhile back there was an "AskReddit" about what to do if you won a bunch of money in the lottery. The best advice was sobering: it is a minefield of self-deception and manipulation. What's so weird to me is the huge chasm between the reality of getting rich quick and the way the general public views it. We've glamorized it way too much.

npsimons 8y ago

> "whatever, they're all soft, tattooed millionaires anyway" Despite my disdain for spectator sports "soft" is never a word I would use for their athletes. If anything, I would expect those who have had to work so hard and stay disciplined would be able to roll that discipline over into fiscal responsibility.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

duxup 8y ago

NPR had a story where an NBA player described his finances. He is basically on an allowance and money shows up in his checking account each week. His advisor seemed like a good guy and talked about the dangers of family asking for money and hangers on. His advisor acted like the bad cop and actually did the rejections for requests and even introduced the player to other players who made good choices and could be a mentor/friend. Outside the allowance if he wants a new car or vacation he calls the advisor and they tell him yes or no or later and help him get a good deal if yes. He talked about having no financial clue early on and straight up didn't know the value of say $20k because he had never been exposed to dealing with money in that way. He also talked about teammates blowing through their money like crazy and meanwhile he saves. He did a stint in the NBA d league for rehab at one point and bought a not so great car (relative) because he thought having his usual car there would be embarrassing as it was quite a contrast relative to his d league teammates. Finally one of his teammates asked why he was driving that boring old car, so he had his car brought to the local city so his teammates could drive it ;) Granted this guy has several houses, bought stuff for family and can spend like crazy on his allowance, but within some level of reason. Dude was lucky he got a good advisor and was smart enough to listen.