Radio Interview with Billy Corben, director for ESPN 30 for 30 documentary 'Broke'

SportsUnplugged. “Sports Unplugged: 30 for 30 Director Billy Corben talks about ‘Broke’.” YouTube. 2 Oct. 2012. Web. 22 Apr 2013 

 

                The next video I found was a radio show that interviewed the director of the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary ‘Broke’. Billy Corben the director discussed the reasons why many professional athletes end up going bankrupt or broke. First, he credited that when most people stop working at the age of 30 they would run out of money as well. The average career of an NFL player is 3.5 years. Most athletes don’t make a lot of money from playing in the NFL.  A former coach Herm Edwards was quoted in the documentary as saying that the NFL was not a career, but an opportunity. Also most athletes are very young when they are coming into the different leagues and are overnight millionaires. So most of these athletes think they will be set for life and always want to give back to their communities and families and neighborhoods. The problem is most athletes are very generous and give a lot of money to friends and family that won’t pay them back, and eventually they run out of money. In college the focus of these student athletes are on athletics and not academics. Most don’t have a college degree or even know how to manage their own money. Colleges should take more responsibility to help these athletes become financially smart and help these athletes get a degree for life after sports. Corben also said that the financial issues started during the financial boom of the 1990’s when the salaries of athletes rose by a lot. The advice he gave at the end of the interview was to say no to everyone, and obtain an un-related trust worthy financial advisor.

                 I think that this was a very well done interview. The source was good because of the guest on the radio show, an ESPN documentary director Billy Corben who directed the documentary ‘Broke’. This got a lot of attention because it was one of the first documentaries to show the problem many athletes have. I agree with many of the things he said, and I agree that Colleges should do more to help prepare these athletes for the future, and put more of a focus on academics. Athletes will spend more of their life out of professional sports than in them, and they should learn how to be financially smart and make good decisions. I’m not saying that athletes shouldn’t give to charities or help out their family, but be smart about it. Make sure that the athlete can both help out and have enough invested and saved to take care of themselves after their career in sports. I also think that the professional teams that sign the athlete to their contract should provide a financial advisor for them to help make the tough financial decisions and help keep them out of trouble. I hope that colleges will begin to help out their student athletes and begin to care about the actually athletes instead of the revenue that they bring in each year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJq2bEX7ILw

How Athletes go Broke with Jalen Rose

GrantlandNetwork, “How Athletes Go Broke.” YouTube. ESPN, 3 Oct. 2012. Web. 19 Apr 2013.

 

                This YouTube video included Jalen Rose a former NBA player and current analyst for ESPN talking about how athletes go bankrupt and why. He explains in the video that when rookies get their first contract you have family you never knew coming to ask you for money. That athlete also wants to help their mother and father buy a new house, help their siblings reach their dreams, and then help themselves out. He also says that every friend always has a brilliant business idea; they just need your money to fund that idea. The three business investment he says to avoid are record labels, clothing lines, and restaurants. Many athletes have tried their hand at these investments and failed.  He also mentioned in the video that if athletes are fortunate to get a second contract that they begin to mature and not loan out any more money after realizing they spent their whole first contract helping others and themselves. Another way that many athletes can get into trouble financially is having too many children and having a messy divorce. Both can cost a lot of money especially if that athlete is paying child support for all their different children.

                I thought this was a very informational video even though it was short. It was a YouTube clip on the Grantland Network which is a sports website sponsored by ESPN. Having a former professional athlete on the clip to share his experiences first hand was also very interesting. He explained all the different people that will come to you asking for money once you get your contract. Athletes all want to buy their immediate family something to help them achieve their dreams, while also dealing with added pressure from others competing for the athlete’s money as well. I was glad to see that bankruptcy is beginning to get more attention from the media and the large sports networks. ESPN also made a documentary on athletes called “Broke”. They discussed the documentary vaguely in the beginning of the clip and both the sports writer and Jalen Rose seemed to like the film. I hope that former athletes begin to speak up about the many financial dangers that will threaten the athlete throughout their career.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-362OfeM9OQ

Why Athletes Go Bankrupt Continued

Buschman Vasel, Kathryn. "Why Athletes Go Broke." Fox Business. N.p., 01 Feb. 2013. Web. 14 Apr. 2013.

            The conventional wisdom is that all professional athletes are making millions of dollars every year. However for most athletes that’s not the case. Most make around $300,000 every year. Now that is still more than most of America makes in a year by a lot but if you look at how long most of these athletes are working it doesn’t add up to a lot. Most athletes will have retired by the age of 40, and that is if they had a long career and were somewhat successful. For the rest of the athletes the average NFL career is 2.5 years. So this also contributes to the absurd number of professional athletes that end up in some type of financial distress. If you compare how much the professional teams and owners make each year from all the revenue they bring in with being a team it is somewhat ridiculous that these teams can’t help the athletes that have worked hard to keep their fans entertained for many years. Although it can also be the athletes fault that they go broke. Whether it be poor investments, wasting money that they don’t have, or surrounding themselves with the wrong people. When it comes down to it the professional teams will always to be able to have enough money, hopefully they will begin to aid players in need.

            This is another article that reiterates my point that these athletes need some help from either their former teams or the leagues in general. Most people make some sort of financial mistake in their lifetime, for these players whose careers are only around 15 years long one mistake could be very costly.  I think that this is an issue that needs to be brought up in all the professional leagues. Many of the leagues have some financial training and help but it is clearly not enough when so many players are in financial stress. I hope that there is some type of research being done, and will come up with some sort of a solution to the problem currently residing with these athletes. It was consistent throughout the articles I read that there is most likely a combination of reasons why athletes go bankrupt. It could be from poor investments, not knowing what to do with the money, a bad entourage, or it could just be bad luck from injury or not having a long playing career. I think that all athletes should get a degree so if their sport does not work out they have something to fall back on. I hope that the professional leagues come up with a solution soon so that the young athletes of today can feel confident of playing the sport they love.

           

 

Why Athletes Go Bankrupt

Burke, Monte. "Curt Schilling And Why Athletes Make Such Poor Financial Decisions."Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 25 May 2012. Web. 14 Apr. 2013.

            Have you ever wondered why so many athletes go bankrupt or are under financial stress? It has been a question on a lot of athletes and fans minds for the past few months, so many of our favorite athletes go bankrupt after they retire. There are many different hypotheses to why so many athletes are going broke and why. One reason is the fact that some athletes grew up poor so they don’t know how to manage money. The problem with that theory is that some of these bankrupt players grew up with money so that shades some doubt on that conclusion. Another is the fact that many athletes have “yes men” around them. These people will never tell the athletes not to buy something or tell them they need to save money for the fear that they will get kicked out of the athlete’s entourage. Others believe that it is because of the come down from leaving the bright lights. Once they are retired money is a great distraction from the abrupt career end. Then once they spend all this money they aren’t making as much as they used to which could lead to financial stress. There isn’t just one main reason why so many do eventually go bankrupt, but it is something we need to fix because 78% of NFL players and 60% of NBA players go broke or have some type of financial stress within five years of retiring from the league.

            This article came from a very good source, and was a very well written article that provided many different examples of bankrupt athletes. I agree with the reasons that the author gave for the athletes going bankrupt. Most family and friends of these players don’t want to be left out of their circle or go against what the athletes say even if it would help the athletes in the long run. Especially with the many financial decisions athletes will make. I hope that the different professional sports leagues step up and try to provide these athletes with more financial counseling and try to help them if they are in need. These players provided entertainment for the fans and brought in more revenue for the teams, so the least the teams could do would be to help out these athletes. I hope that this trend of bankrupt and financially stressed athletes starts to decline, and more young athletes will surround themselves with the right people and make the right investments after their career is over. Because I for one don’t like to see my favorite athletes who provided me with many years of entertainment go bankrupt.

 

Is America crazy?

Wold, Rita. "Sports Fans Keep Spending out of the Park." Denverpost.com. Denver Post, 13 Sept. 2010. Web. 12 Apr. 2013.

Everyone knows that sports fans can get a little crazy. That trend is continuing even with the down economy. Many sports fans still continue to purchase team apparel, tickets to the games, and the huge cable and satellite packages to watch the games. In a survey done by the Denver Post 76% of those surveyed didn’t cut back on sports spending while they did on other things. Most fans didn’t even feel guilty about not cutting spending on sports. Even local sporting apparel stores aren’t feeling the heat of the downed economy. Sports fans are crazy about their teams, and even with a bad economy they are still willing to do almost anything to watch and cheer their teams on to victory.

Although this article was two years old it still gave a lot of information about the sports culture of the United States. People are always checking the scores of the game on their phone and need to be updated the second their teams does just about anything. I fit in with this sports culture, almost everyone is in a fantasy football league, fills out a March Madness bracket, or does something with sports. It is not just males either; many females are beginning to become part of the sports culture. People pay probably more than $15 extra just for more sports channels and coverage. But I mean who wouldn’t want NFL Redzone to see every single touchdown every Sunday during the season. That is the culture of sports in America, Sundays have become football day, and March has become March Madness. So that is why none of these sports fanatics chose to cut their spending on sports, it is a part of them and their culture, and it will continue to be this way for a long time.  Are these people crazy? I don't think so, we are just very passionate about the entertainment that these professional athletes provide.

Bankrupt Athletes

Schottey, Michael. "ESPN's 'Broke' Barely Scratched the Surface of Athlete Bankruptcy Discussion." Bleacher Report. N.p., 03 Oct. 2012. Web. 11 Apr. 2013.

            Going back to the athletes that do go bankrupt, many make poor financial decisions regarding buying luxury things like cars, houses, and going clubbing. But there are others that go broke just because they are too generous. Some give their families and friends money that the athletes will never see again. That’s when some family and friends and ex-wives can take advantage of the very rich athletes. There are also those athletes that can go bankrupt because of injury. Their insurance companies will not pay for the athletes with pre-existing neck, brain, and other injuries. This article also criticizes the ESPN 30-or-30 documentary Broke. It states that the documentary was well done, but only scratches the surface of the problem of bankrupt athletes. There was an interesting statistic that 78% of former NFL players are either bankrupt or under financial stress due to joblessness or divorce. This shows that there really is a problem with these athletes. The NFL and other professional leagues have financial training for the incoming athletes and the programs have continued especially with the current situation with many former NFL players. The article also calls for the discussion of bankrupt athletes to continue if we are ever going to fix it.

            I really like this article. It was very well written is a great support piece for my project. I think that there are too many former professional athletes that go bankrupt. I do not like to see my favorite players go bankrupt after they retire. I agree that there needs to be more public awareness about this topic. ESPN did a nice job of getting the idea out there, now there needs to be more discussion about it. Have all players entering the draft take a money management course, and have each team assign them a financial manager they know will help the player out. I know that the professional teams can afford that, and they will only be helping out their ex players. There could also be different types of job services that could help out ex professional athletes. Athletes retire around the age of 40 and make more money than most people make in a lifetime, and yet many continue to go bankrupt. Another issue is that many athletes only spend one or so years in college and do not get a degree. Some of those athletes get a degree online or in the offseason of their sport, but many still do not have one. This will hurt them if they are looking for a job in their future. I agree with this article 100% and I think that more should be done to make this a public issue and more should be done to help current athletes so that they do not end up like the financially stressed athletes of today.

           

Bankruptcy Provention

Gerber, Ross. "Learning from Athletes That Go Broke." Learning from Athletes That Go Broke. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Apr. 2013.

 

                                Have you ever wondered why so many professional athletes go broke when most make many million dollars a year?  Well in this article it explains some of the reasoning behind athletes and how to help them fix it. This article was very helpful in explaining why some athletes end up going broke, it is because they have bad business managers and live very lavish life styles. Many athletes like to go and spend their money at the clubs and buying expensive things for themselves and their families. This means they won’t have much money left to pay things like taxes and fall behind on paying taxes which leads to more fines and legal issues. Many athletes also choose bad business managers who can take advantage of the athletes and squander money from them. Also, these bad business managers can lead the athletes to make poor business decisions, and once these athletes retire who are used to making millions of dollars a year suddenly have no income. They want to continue to live the lavish life style and ignore good business managers who try to budget their money. The athletes end up not being able to pay for things and eventually go bankrupt. So, star athletes should have knowledge of what they are investing in, learn to budget their money, and hire good business managers to help take care of their finances.             

                                This is a great article written by an investing firm that all athletes should read. These athletes that come from nothing suddenly earn millions of dollars and don’t know how they should spend it. The athletes need help from business managers and others who can help them invest smartly and manage their money wisely. I think that when teams sign athletes to long term deals, they should provide a business manager to them that has been proven to be good with investments and can help out the athletes. This could help prevent many athletes from one going out and blowing a lot of money and could end up in trouble, and it could teach them how to manage and budget money which would help these athletes in the future. Athletes have a lot on their minds and have a lot of focus on their jobs. Having a financial manager provided by that team would eliminate the athletes from choosing a bad manager and could make a difference in how they manage money if they have money for the rest of their lives.

Some Schools Spend 10 Times More On Athletes Than Students

 

 

                When you actually think about it, division one colleges spend a lot more money on athletes especially football and basketball than they do on academics. This article shows that most schools spend about six times more on athletics than they do on academics. It makes sense with all the full scholarships many athletes get to go and play at that school, and you don’t see that many kids getting a full ride to a school for just academics alone. Some fbs schools spend about ten times as much on athletics as on academics. This graph shows the spending difference in spending over the course of three years. The southeastern conference spends about 10.8 times more on athletes, and that makes sense due to the recent success of many of these schools especially on the football field.

                I was very shocked when I looked at the actually numbers of some colleges spending. I knew that colleges spend a lot of money on sports, but to spend ten times more on athletes as on academics and other students.  That just blows my minds, most college athletes don’t make it to the pros, and we are spending all this money on them when we could spend more on preparing students for the work force. This proves just how much sports dominate our culture. We love spending our money on season tickets, special television packages, parties for big games, and sports related apparel. This type of spending not only occurs in the pros but also for many colleges. This article was a little outdated being from 2010, and predicted school spending would top $250 million. Sports are a huge part of our culture and will continue to be for many years.

 

 

Finnegan, Leah. "Some Schools Spend 10 Times More On Athletes Than Students: Report." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 21 June 2010. Web. 10 Apr. 2013.

 

 

Sports Economics: NFL, MLB, NHL, and the Effects of the Depression

Economics affect every type of business in the world, and sports are a business that can be affected by the economy. According to this article many of the smaller less popular leagues like the NHL and NBA could lose both fans and teams to the recession of our economy. This would be similar to how the NHL and NFL lost teams in the 1920’s during the great depression. The NFL today wouldn’t have to worry about losing teams because of the current popularity of the sport. It will all depend on how these leagues that are in trouble develop new revenue streams and expand the support for their league. The MLB should be fine as well even though there are a couple teams that are struggling with attendance. The professional sports leagues are much like the other corporate businesses of America, when the economy is in recession the professional sports leagues struggle as well.

                This article did not surprise me when it listed the current professional leagues that may be in trouble. Although this article was written in 2009 it is still a great example of how the economy affects sports. It stated that both the NHL and the NBA had the greatest threat to losing fans and teams because they have the least amount of popularity in the United States, where sports like the NFL and MLB are still popular and fans will attend even with a bad economy. However, we know now that no leagues lost any teams and the popularity of sports didn’t change due to the economy. It would have to be very hard times in the economy for professional teams to have to declare bankruptcy because of how popular sports are in our culture. Even though this article is a little outdated it still provided a great example of how all types of business are threatened by a recession in the economy, and hopefully sports never have to lose teams or fans like they did during the great depression.

Williams, Jonathan. "Sports Economics: NFL, MLB, NHL, and the Effects of the Depression." Bleacher Report. N.p., 27 Feb. 2009. Web. 10 Apr. 2013

Do homework before giving

                Most people give to charities or specifically athlete’s charities they are expecting the money to go to whatever the foundation stands for or donates to.  Whether that cause being helping fund cancer research, or giving supplies to needy children people like to donate to help out the cause. However, sometimes athlete’s charities are not as they seem. According to this article “Do Homework Before giving” on ESPN.com, many charities do not donate any money at all, in fact 74% of the 115 athlete charities studied fell short of acceptable non-profit standards according to three charity watchdogs. For example, Lamar Odom’s charity which was founded for his mother who passed away from cancer says it donates money for cancer research and underprivileged kids. However, over the eight years the charity has been running it has not donated a single dollar to a cancer entity. Instead the money has gone to funding an AAU basketball team and a tax exempt salary of a Golden State Warrior assistant coach. Even though there are many bad examples of athletes misusing charities, there are still many athletes out there that care about a cause and actually give to the cause the charity stands for. People should still give money to charities, just be careful about which athletes or charities that you give money to.

                I was generally shocked when I first saw this article. I couldn’t believe that so many athletes would misuse something as good as a charity. A non-profit organization that donates money to a cause, and they used it for buying sports cars or to help their business. But after reading this article it does not surprise me that so many athletes go bankrupt after they retire, they make very poor decisions regarding money. The amount of athletes that end up going bankrupt is ridiculous. I hope that none of my favorite athletes are involved in the fake charity game. That is also what is so bad about the players doing this, many of these athletes are role models to children, and when they see the athletes exploit charities and other organizations it really lets down the children that looked up to that player. This article was very well written and used multiple sources very nicely. I hope that the many athletes that actually run their charity how it is supposed to be run continue to do so and touch the lives of many people that need it.

Tim Keown. "Do Homework Before giving." ESPN. ESPN Internet Ventures, 02 Apr. 2013. Web. 08 Apr. 2013.

In America, it's win or go home

 

                This ESPN article was just the type of thing I was looking for on sports culture in the United States of America. While many agree with the idea of the “wussification” of America especially in youth sports, this article claims that the sports culture for at least college and professional sports is winner take all. In the last 50 years the sports organizations have been slowly but surely eliminating the consolation and third place games. College basketball and the NFL both have eliminated the consolation games from their playoff system because the only important thing to the athletes is winning the whole thing. Since Vince Lombardi coached and preached winning the culture of professional sports has completely changed. The best players now are the players that can win championships, Lebron James was highly scrutinized because he was the best overall player, but he couldn’t win a championship, until this past year of course. Even though most consolation games have been taken away, there are still many out there, including the World Cup and the Olympics. Many have called for the restructure of the bowl system in college football, and that is related to the fact that all the bowl games except for the national championship are basically consolation games. That is a main reason that many people are calling for a playoff system in college football. In America only one thing really matters in professional sports, winning.

                This was a very well written article, and I think a very important article to my research on sports culture in America. The article includes a link to learn more about the other and other articles he has written. The article appeared in ESPN the magazine and there was a link leading to that issue of the magazine. I agree with the article and I was not surprised to see the connection between consolation games and bowl games. I for one am a strong supporter of a college football playoff system, especially with the recent domination of the national championship game by one team, Alabama. This article reminds me of the movie Talladega Nights the ballad of Ricky Bobby, where Will Ferrell took to heart the phrase, “If you ain't first, you're last”. This saying definitely reflects the attitude of many professional and college athletes in America.

 Cyphers, Luke. "In America, It's Win or Go home." ESPN.com. N.p., 23 Mar. 2011. Web. 05 Apr. 2013.

Today's American sports culture is out of bounds

                Today in the United States sports and athletes are a huge part of our culture. They entertain fans at least once a week for a season, and make millions of dollars doing so. They are the role models many children look up to and strive to be. Every year the Super bowl is one of the most watched televised events. According to this article however the sporting culture is getting out of hand. Many athletes today have made mistakes, some are forgivable, and others will lead to scrutiny for the rest of their lives. For example, many baseball players have been charged with using performance enhancing drugs, the best golfer fell out of everyone’s good graces when he cheated on his wife, a lot. Now he has to fight to get back on the good side of the fans, as do many of the other plays charged with using PEDs. But, this article claims we look into and rely on sports too much. Our youth look up to these players that are constantly in the news for doing something illegal, or wrong, or just plain old cheating. If the athletes can’t live up to being role models, than maybe we shouldn’t let our youth look up to them.

                I both agree and disagree with this article. At first I was shocked and remembered how many star athletes have screwed up at some point. They are constantly on the news and always doing something. But we have to remember these are athletes and many of them came from having nothing to more than a million dollars in a matter of months. They may not know how to handle the money or the fame, and do what they were shown to do growing up. This relates to my point that many athletes don’t know how to handle fame and fortune, and many athletes end up blowing away all their money and end up bankrupt. However, there are still many professional athletes that our children SHOULD look up to. They are great athletes, leaders, charitable, and show how a true professional should be. We should not be so quick to throw away these role models, and not lose our faith in professional athletes.

"Today's American Sports Culture Is out of Bounds." NY Daily News. N.p., 08 Jan. 2010. Web. 05 Apr. 2013