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.