8 ms·

Love hearing about professional athletes taking their finances seriously. Based on the article, seems like he's taken the same approach as Rob Gronkowski--inves

by dkurty 1y ago

Love hearing about professional athletes taking their finances seriously. Based on the article, seems like he's taken the same approach as Rob Gronkowski--investing all of his NFL contract, living only on endorsements.

NickC25 1y ago
Easier to do when you're an extremely relevant person in your sport. Not all NFL athletes have a shot at getting any endorsements at all. In fact, most don't. Be a star player or famous role player on a very successful team, that's way different than some backup lineman who is out of the league by the time their rookie contract ends. American football is by and far the worst culprit - in all the other big or semi-relevant american sports - baseball, basketball, hockey, etc, you can make a decent living playing overseas. Not huge, but decent enough. Can't do that with football.
- dkurty 1y ago
  100% agree with you. Median salary is $800k, which is amazing, but if you only get 2-3 years out of it, need to index the take-home and live like a college student to make it worth anything after compounding.
  - NickC25 1y ago
    But that's also before tax. A lot of these guys play in high tax states. Then they have to pay agent fees. Then the expenses related to their jobs - food, training, etc. Shit ain't cheap. And before you ask - no, not all NFL teams really provide a ton to their players. My local team, Miami, has the best nutrition and food staff in the league. Players love it. Other teams don't provide much besides Gatorade on game days or other shitty protein snacks provided by league sponsors. Forget about full nutritious meals. Then you've got some teams with a great strength and conditioning staff. Other teams simply don't, which leaves players to find their own private solutions. This all adds up.
    - AaronLasseigne 1y ago
      Even worse, they have to pay taxes in every state they play in because they're working in that state. It's called the jock tax. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jock_tax https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jock_tax
      - toast0 1y ago
        That's not that unreasonable... they're working in the state, they should pay income tax for the work they do while in the state. Many (but not all) states have tax credit arangements with other states so you wouldn't pay full tax on all income to your state of residence as well as the taxes owed to the states you worked in.
- wubrr 1y ago
  The median NFL salary is like 850k/year, and the average is ~3million/year. Seems like a lot for playing with a ball, while producing exactly zero in practical value (other than advertising and distraction, which is a net negative for society arguably).
  - gdbsjjdn 1y ago
    People who play professional sports basically sacrifice the first 20 years of their life for a lotto ticket to get, on average, 2-4 years of playing time. There's a high risk of debilitating injury even if they're successful. As other people have pointed out that salary is before you consider any professional fees for agents, etc. I do also have to remark on the irony of someone on the "250k a year to type prompts into a AI to get the wrong answer" website complaining that athletes are overpaid and don't contribute anything to society
    - gooosle 1y ago
      'sacrifice' what exactly lol? Going the athlete route is generally easier and requires less time investment than going the academic route.
      - tomjakubowski 1y ago
        No, I don't think so. Including practice squad players (who are paid peanuts), the NFL has about 2,240 roster spots. About a million US high school students play football any given year. The average NFL career is 3.3 years. So from 3.3 graduating classes of a million high school football players, you'd expect somewhere around 0.07% to make it into the NFL. Fewer even will have something resembling a successful career. Then look at how many high paying "smart person" jobs there are. There are about a million doctors in the US, two million engineers, and four million computer professionals.
        wubrr 1y ago
        Your logic/math doesn't make any sense. Almost every student studies math, almost none of those ever become a mathematician - who are compensated much less than NFL players. > There are about a million doctors in the US Comparing # of doctors to # of NFL players is a very false equivalence. Try comparing # of athletes in all sports combined to number of doctors - that would be more reasonable. Or compare the number of brain surgeons to the number of NFL players - and the difficulty/time in becoming either. Being a doctor is a much more stressful and difficult job, which requires more years of training/education and provides far more real value for society.

by dkurty 1y ago

NickC25 1y ago

Easier to do when you're an extremely relevant person in your sport. Not all NFL athletes have a shot at getting any endorsements at all. In fact, most don't. Be a star player or famous role player on a very successful team, that's way different than some backup lineman who is out of the league by the time their rookie contract ends. American football is by and far the worst culprit - in all the other big or semi-relevant american sports - baseball, basketball, hockey, etc, you can make a decent living playing overseas. Not huge, but decent enough. Can't do that with football.

dkurty 1y ago
100% agree with you. Median salary is $800k, which is amazing, but if you only get 2-3 years out of it, need to index the take-home and live like a college student to make it worth anything after compounding.
- NickC25 1y ago
  But that's also before tax. A lot of these guys play in high tax states. Then they have to pay agent fees. Then the expenses related to their jobs - food, training, etc. Shit ain't cheap. And before you ask - no, not all NFL teams really provide a ton to their players. My local team, Miami, has the best nutrition and food staff in the league. Players love it. Other teams don't provide much besides Gatorade on game days or other shitty protein snacks provided by league sponsors. Forget about full nutritious meals. Then you've got some teams with a great strength and conditioning staff. Other teams simply don't, which leaves players to find their own private solutions. This all adds up.
  - AaronLasseigne 1y ago
    Even worse, they have to pay taxes in every state they play in because they're working in that state. It's called the jock tax. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jock_tax https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jock_tax
    - toast0 1y ago
      That's not that unreasonable... they're working in the state, they should pay income tax for the work they do while in the state. Many (but not all) states have tax credit arangements with other states so you wouldn't pay full tax on all income to your state of residence as well as the taxes owed to the states you worked in.
wubrr 1y ago
The median NFL salary is like 850k/year, and the average is ~3million/year. Seems like a lot for playing with a ball, while producing exactly zero in practical value (other than advertising and distraction, which is a net negative for society arguably).
- gdbsjjdn 1y ago
  People who play professional sports basically sacrifice the first 20 years of their life for a lotto ticket to get, on average, 2-4 years of playing time. There's a high risk of debilitating injury even if they're successful. As other people have pointed out that salary is before you consider any professional fees for agents, etc. I do also have to remark on the irony of someone on the "250k a year to type prompts into a AI to get the wrong answer" website complaining that athletes are overpaid and don't contribute anything to society
  - gooosle 1y ago
    'sacrifice' what exactly lol? Going the athlete route is generally easier and requires less time investment than going the academic route.
    - tomjakubowski 1y ago
      No, I don't think so. Including practice squad players (who are paid peanuts), the NFL has about 2,240 roster spots. About a million US high school students play football any given year. The average NFL career is 3.3 years. So from 3.3 graduating classes of a million high school football players, you'd expect somewhere around 0.07% to make it into the NFL. Fewer even will have something resembling a successful career. Then look at how many high paying "smart person" jobs there are. There are about a million doctors in the US, two million engineers, and four million computer professionals.
      - wubrr 1y ago
        Your logic/math doesn't make any sense. Almost every student studies math, almost none of those ever become a mathematician - who are compensated much less than NFL players. > There are about a million doctors in the US Comparing # of doctors to # of NFL players is a very false equivalence. Try comparing # of athletes in all sports combined to number of doctors - that would be more reasonable. Or compare the number of brain surgeons to the number of NFL players - and the difficulty/time in becoming either. Being a doctor is a much more stressful and difficult job, which requires more years of training/education and provides far more real value for society.