The life of an athlete is not an easy one. It consists of constant travel and exercise routines that anyone would say are not possible. Sports with high physical contact (basketball, football, etc.) can result in severe injuries accumulating for 5 years or more. But these sacrifices bring with them a great reward, one that most athletes can not control: money. The problem of money in major leagues like the NBA and NFL is one of the most common for players. Statistics easily prove this with 60% of NBA players going bankrupt in the first 5 years after their retirement and about 75% of those in the NFL going bankrupt [1]. The major leagues have implemented resource management classes for the novices before their first game but this has not changed …show more content…
The minimum wage in the United States is $ 81,400, 80% less than what a regular player in the NBA earns. And yet very few players earn minimum wage, most winning more than two million, making the above said more impressive. With many players earning over $ 20 million, it is very difficult to believe that more than half of the players in the league are seriously at risk of bankruptcy, but this is largely due to a very common problem in athletes. They simply have nothing to do other than their sport. They take so much time training and practicing that they forget that after the sport they have more than half of their lives to live. Many players think they would last in the league more than 10 years, enough time to meet their needs after retiring, but seeing the life expectancy of an athlete's career, this is very unlikely. The life expectancy of an NFL player's races and that of one in the NBA are 2 and 3 years, respectively [3]. Michael Seymour, founder of Philadelphia-based UNI Private Wealth Strategies, describes this problem very well in this sentence: "There is a much shorter period of gains in sports than in any other profession, and in many cases they lack the time and Desire to understand and monitor their investments.