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Being a generational running back with a huge NFL contract makes it much easier to invest like this than the average back who only lasts a couple of years in th

by greedo 1y ago

Being a generational running back with a huge NFL contract makes it much easier to invest like this than the average back who only lasts a couple of years in the NFL. Plus Barkley is also the beneficiary of plenty of endorsements. When the average player is out of the league in 3 years, often due to injury, it's not unexpected that they may have financial difficulties. Most of the degrees they get aren't worth much, and while the minimum salary looks enticing, the taxes eat it up quickly, as do all the people clamoring for a cut.

NickC25 1y ago
This x1000000. He's a generational talent who signed a $30 million rookie contract. I know guys who played in the NFL and they got paid a sliver of that, at best. They are out of the league. 99% of guys who make it aren't Saquon Barkley. Shit, 99% of guys in his position aren't at his level. RBs do not last at the NFL level for very long. There's always some young new hotshot out of the college game who is faster, younger, and not beat up. The big issue is that most of those guys spent their entire lives to that point to play in the NFL. They didn't challenge themselves in high school or college from an academic standpoint - they focused on football. They took home through that 3 year rookie deal MAYBE $200k-300k total after tax, outside training expenses, agent expenses, etc.
- acedTrex 1y ago
  How is that possible when minimum rookie deal in the NFL is 4 million over 4 years?
  - Q6T46nT668w6i3m 1y ago
    You’re not drafted and languish on a practice squad.
  - myvoiceismypass 1y ago
    Except for those drafted in higher rounds, most of the years on these rookie contracts are not actually guaranteed. Also, you can expect to lose maybe 15-20% of your roster to injury over the course of the season, so teams are often signing guys from the practice squad to weekly contracts. Practice squad salary is like 200-400k per season depending on tenure.
- jimt1234 1y ago
  > They didn't challenge themselves in high school or college from an academic standpoint... A slightly different perspective: they weren't challenged academically, primarily because they excelled at footballs/sports. I had a friend in high school (back in the 80s) that was, coincidentally, also a star running back, broke rushing records, played for a good college, all that. However, he never made it to the NFL. He coasted through high school because everyone wanted him on the field and didn't care at all about his education. College was even worse. He told me for most semesters he didn't even know what his classes were; he was there only to play football, and that was made very clear to him from the start. It's easy to point the finger, like, "You should've challenged yourself in high school!", and that's true. But for a lot of these kids, "the system" either simply looks the other way or actively discourages them from education. Fortunately for my friend he landed a job in the football program at a small, private college, where he also was able to actually attend classes and eventually get a degree. I think he's retired now, though.
  - NickC25 1y ago
    Perhaps I should have worded my statement differently - it's not that the players deliberately didn't challenge themselves, it was more that they were "encouraged" to focus on football. Especially in big time high school and college programs where there's just too much money and prestige involved for anyone to rock the boat or, god forbid take anything off the main focus of football. For some players, too, they know the allure of the NFL can outweigh anything else, especially if they can run like the wind and ain't too smart but come from a really poor background. The school might know football is their best way out. Sad but true.
darth_avocado 1y ago
It also always help to have generational wealth before ZIRP pumped up all asset prices to the moon. If I was an average Joe with $100k to invest in 2017, I’d be a multimillionaire right now. This is based purely on the public investments I made with the little money I had. If I had access to private markets like startups, it would be worth even more.
- Esophagus4 1y ago
  I… am skeptical of your numbers. $100k invested in 2017 turning into $2m in 2025 implies a 46% annualized return over 8 years. Those numbers are not realistic from even the world’s top hedge funds. That begs the question of what magic well of oil you struck to yield those numbers? The only public investment I can see is TSLA. And I would not recommend an average Joe YOLO $100k into TSLA.
  - blonder 1y ago
    Bitcoin was in the thousands for most of 2017, that as a booster to a tech heavy portfolio would have done extremely well.
    - Esophagus4 1y ago
      That’s true… BTC returned 100% per year since 2017 (thanks to ChatGPT for the math). But I would presume a regular Joe didn’t YOLO $100k into that, either. I guess my original point was: there is no realistic way a retail investor walked away from a $100k investment a multimillionaire after 8 years unless they took an enormous, absurd punt.
      - darth_avocado 1y ago
        If you invested $100K in Microsoft (one of the safest and most valuable and boring company in the world at the time) in 2017 and held, you’d not be a multimillionaire, but you’d be a millionaire. People really underestimate how crazy the asset bubble has been over the last decade.
Aurornis 1y ago
Being a famous sports figure in general makes it easier to invest in these assets. Many VCs will bend over backwards to have a famous sports personality involved in their firm or investments. Even a non-famous person with ~$20mm to invest (somewhere around the after-tax amount of his rookie contract) would not get a seat at the table at these VC firms.
- slg 1y ago
  Yeah, it seems like these "investments" are halfway to endorsement deals. He endorses the companies for marketing purposes and is paid in access to investments that typically aren't available to someone of his specific tier of wealth. I also see no real indication that Barkley is especially good at what he is doing here. Is there a reason to believe that anything but luck separates his investments, including in crypto, from deals his peers like Tom Brady and Steph Curry made with FTX that got those guys pulled into the company's legal problems?
bena 1y ago
The "average 3 year" career is a bit like medieval life expectancy, it's pulled down by people dropping out early. For players on the roster opening day, the average career is 6 years. For players with 3 years of experience, the average career is 7 years. First round picks have an average career of 9.3 years. And if you make a Pro Bowl, your career average is 11.7 years. League minimum is $840K. Cut it in half for taxes and agent fees and that's still $420K.
- sema4hacker 1y ago
  You're still talking about exclusive clubs. The PERCENTAGE of NFL players that meet those criteria is relatively small. The majority aren't dropping out early, they're replaced as soon as possible.
  - bena 1y ago
    Their point is that the length of career is due to injury rather than ability. And making an opening day roster already puts you 2x longer than the overall average.
jimbob45 1y ago
His change of direction, elusiveness, and vision are all generational. His durability is not or at least he has not displayed it yet. I don't think anyone would put his durability up against AD, Frank Gore, or even Derrick Henry and come out on top. Bold statement two hours before kickoff but I'm expecting a significant regression this year and for him to be out of the league in two years.
- ethbr1 1y ago
  >> high-growth startups in his portfolio include Anthropic (currently valued at $183 billion), Anduril ($30.5 billion), Ramp ($22.5 billion), Cognition ($9.8 billion), Neuralink ($9 billion), Strike (~$1 billion), and Polymarket (~$1 billion) > His change of direction, elusiveness, and vision are all generational. I hear he's pretty good at football too.
jgalt212 1y ago
> Being a generational running back He won ROY, and last season was amazing, but the rest of his career is far from generational level production.

by greedo 1y ago

NickC25 1y ago

This x1000000. He's a generational talent who signed a $30 million rookie contract. I know guys who played in the NFL and they got paid a sliver of that, at best. They are out of the league. 99% of guys who make it aren't Saquon Barkley. Shit, 99% of guys in his position aren't at his level. RBs do not last at the NFL level for very long. There's always some young new hotshot out of the college game who is faster, younger, and not beat up. The big issue is that most of those guys spent their entire lives to that point to play in the NFL. They didn't challenge themselves in high school or college from an academic standpoint - they focused on football. They took home through that 3 year rookie deal MAYBE $200k-300k total after tax, outside training expenses, agent expenses, etc.

acedTrex 1y ago
How is that possible when minimum rookie deal in the NFL is 4 million over 4 years?
- Q6T46nT668w6i3m 1y ago
  You’re not drafted and languish on a practice squad.
- myvoiceismypass 1y ago
  Except for those drafted in higher rounds, most of the years on these rookie contracts are not actually guaranteed. Also, you can expect to lose maybe 15-20% of your roster to injury over the course of the season, so teams are often signing guys from the practice squad to weekly contracts. Practice squad salary is like 200-400k per season depending on tenure.
jimt1234 1y ago
> They didn't challenge themselves in high school or college from an academic standpoint... A slightly different perspective: they weren't challenged academically, primarily because they excelled at footballs/sports. I had a friend in high school (back in the 80s) that was, coincidentally, also a star running back, broke rushing records, played for a good college, all that. However, he never made it to the NFL. He coasted through high school because everyone wanted him on the field and didn't care at all about his education. College was even worse. He told me for most semesters he didn't even know what his classes were; he was there only to play football, and that was made very clear to him from the start. It's easy to point the finger, like, "You should've challenged yourself in high school!", and that's true. But for a lot of these kids, "the system" either simply looks the other way or actively discourages them from education. Fortunately for my friend he landed a job in the football program at a small, private college, where he also was able to actually attend classes and eventually get a degree. I think he's retired now, though.
- NickC25 1y ago
  Perhaps I should have worded my statement differently - it's not that the players deliberately didn't challenge themselves, it was more that they were "encouraged" to focus on football. Especially in big time high school and college programs where there's just too much money and prestige involved for anyone to rock the boat or, god forbid take anything off the main focus of football. For some players, too, they know the allure of the NFL can outweigh anything else, especially if they can run like the wind and ain't too smart but come from a really poor background. The school might know football is their best way out. Sad but true.

darth_avocado 1y ago

It also always help to have generational wealth before ZIRP pumped up all asset prices to the moon. If I was an average Joe with $100k to invest in 2017, I’d be a multimillionaire right now. This is based purely on the public investments I made with the little money I had. If I had access to private markets like startups, it would be worth even more.

Esophagus4 1y ago
I… am skeptical of your numbers. $100k invested in 2017 turning into $2m in 2025 implies a 46% annualized return over 8 years. Those numbers are not realistic from even the world’s top hedge funds. That begs the question of what magic well of oil you struck to yield those numbers? The only public investment I can see is TSLA. And I would not recommend an average Joe YOLO $100k into TSLA.
- blonder 1y ago
  Bitcoin was in the thousands for most of 2017, that as a booster to a tech heavy portfolio would have done extremely well.
  - Esophagus4 1y ago
    That’s true… BTC returned 100% per year since 2017 (thanks to ChatGPT for the math). But I would presume a regular Joe didn’t YOLO $100k into that, either. I guess my original point was: there is no realistic way a retail investor walked away from a $100k investment a multimillionaire after 8 years unless they took an enormous, absurd punt.
    - darth_avocado 1y ago
      If you invested $100K in Microsoft (one of the safest and most valuable and boring company in the world at the time) in 2017 and held, you’d not be a multimillionaire, but you’d be a millionaire. People really underestimate how crazy the asset bubble has been over the last decade.

Aurornis 1y ago

Being a famous sports figure in general makes it easier to invest in these assets. Many VCs will bend over backwards to have a famous sports personality involved in their firm or investments. Even a non-famous person with ~$20mm to invest (somewhere around the after-tax amount of his rookie contract) would not get a seat at the table at these VC firms.

slg 1y ago
Yeah, it seems like these "investments" are halfway to endorsement deals. He endorses the companies for marketing purposes and is paid in access to investments that typically aren't available to someone of his specific tier of wealth. I also see no real indication that Barkley is especially good at what he is doing here. Is there a reason to believe that anything but luck separates his investments, including in crypto, from deals his peers like Tom Brady and Steph Curry made with FTX that got those guys pulled into the company's legal problems?

bena 1y ago

The "average 3 year" career is a bit like medieval life expectancy, it's pulled down by people dropping out early. For players on the roster opening day, the average career is 6 years. For players with 3 years of experience, the average career is 7 years. First round picks have an average career of 9.3 years. And if you make a Pro Bowl, your career average is 11.7 years. League minimum is $840K. Cut it in half for taxes and agent fees and that's still $420K.

sema4hacker 1y ago
You're still talking about exclusive clubs. The PERCENTAGE of NFL players that meet those criteria is relatively small. The majority aren't dropping out early, they're replaced as soon as possible.
- bena 1y ago
  Their point is that the length of career is due to injury rather than ability. And making an opening day roster already puts you 2x longer than the overall average.

jimbob45 1y ago

His change of direction, elusiveness, and vision are all generational. His durability is not or at least he has not displayed it yet. I don't think anyone would put his durability up against AD, Frank Gore, or even Derrick Henry and come out on top. Bold statement two hours before kickoff but I'm expecting a significant regression this year and for him to be out of the league in two years.

ethbr1 1y ago
>> high-growth startups in his portfolio include Anthropic (currently valued at $183 billion), Anduril ($30.5 billion), Ramp ($22.5 billion), Cognition ($9.8 billion), Neuralink ($9 billion), Strike (~$1 billion), and Polymarket (~$1 billion) > His change of direction, elusiveness, and vision are all generational. I hear he's pretty good at football too.

jgalt212 1y ago

> Being a generational running back He won ROY, and last season was amazing, but the rest of his career is far from generational level production.