Pro Athletes Must Carefully Vet Financial Advice or Risk Losing It All

Professional athletes in major American sports leagues command enormous salaries, with contracts often in the multimillion-dollar per year range. Endorsement deals can make those salary figures look small by comparison, in some cases doubling or tripling the earnings of already well-compensated athletes. The income numbers can sound outrageous in comparison to the wages an average American worker lives off of comfortably. So, why do so many of these high-earners end up broke?

A massive body of evidence suggests that most pro athletes fail to make good investment decisions with their high incomes. NFL players end up bankrupt within two years of retirement. With NBA players, that count is three