30 for 30 Broke

Sarah Wade
Block C

Athletes all over the world are going broke. Why? Because they don’t know how to handle their money. If you were completely and totally broke one day and a millionaire the next, what would you do? Would your first thought be to save all your money for your retirement and the off season, or would it be to spend it all? Would you get some nice clothes, shoes and jewellery that you have never been able to afford? Would you buy a nice house, a nice car? These athletes, every single time they get a pay check they spend it right away. This eventually leads to going broke. When they have these huge houses, it’s expensive. If every month they have to pay a lot of money towards that along with money for people to upkeep their houses. They buy their parents big houses too. So that’s double the cost of your mortgage. Athletes have multiple cars. More money for the insurance. The bills just keep piling up. What happens when they stop making money? They haven’t put any money aside.They go broke. Eventually their income fails to keep up with their expenses.

In the 1990’s the economy was in really good shape. That meant for athletes a ton more money than they were making before. This time period brought on the term “keeping up with the Joneses”. This is what people called it when athletes competed with their money. Players that didn’t play as much, got less money than people that did play. They didn’t want the public to know that though. So they dressed the part. They wanted to look just like the athletes that did play. They bought the most expensive and trendy things. Things that would make them look rich.

Something that everybody can learn from this is that you need to put money away. Once you have put money away, you can buy all of those extra things that make you look rich, but don’t buy things that you can’t afford. The most efficient way to avoid bankruptcy is to consistently put money away.

If I were a financial planner I would make sure that my clients put enough money away for retirement and for the off season. I would also ensure that they bought a house within their price range. If they didn’t have a family they would only need 1 car. This car could be fancy though. I would allot them a bit of money every week for buying their extra things. This way they would have enough money for their luxuries and necessities.
The worst financial decision any of these athletes could do, is to buy out of their price range. They just wanted to look like millionaires even if they didn’t have the money backing them up. The other big issue was not saving any money. These two things added together resulted in bankruptcy for multiple players.