Ok I know this isnt that big of a deal but every year you hear tales of the NFL team rookie dinner where the rookie(s) takes the whole team out to a dinner …
Now sometime in thr 80s/90s when rooks started to get millions of guaranteed money to find the most expensive restaurant and take him/them to the cleaners and laugh about it saying " he just got 5 mil as a singing bonus which they get to keep even if they never play a game " and treated as a practical joke but then you get things like this …MSN
I send a chef friend the above link and she said if they ate half of what was on the pic of the receipt people probably be physically ill
I think its time to clamp down on the practice be it coaches and gms all the way up yto the commish …
Yes, the league and the teams should have a quiet chat with their veterans about stuff like this. I’m not for making it an explicit rule (free country after all), but their are plenty of ways for the league to clamp down on it without having to spell it out.
Having rookies pick up donuts during training camp is one thing. Or picking up their helmets after practice (though even this is fairly juvenile). Ridiculous dinners costing thousands of dollars is another thing altogether.
There are a lot of stories out there about players having no idea how to deal with regular life skills - like laundry or bills or whatever - and the league putting emphasis into classes and training for rookies on basic money management skills. That’s simply mutually exclusive with some of them being forced to pick up the tab on wasteful, expensive meals whose primary purpose is to waste the money of a new player who should, instead, be encouraged, especially by their older more experienced teammates, to carefully consider their money management.
I don’t know what they cover in the NFL money management classes, but there are a couple of things that they should cover.
[ul][li]NFL is an acronym. It means “Not For Long”. The average career lasts three years. After that three years comes a period referred to as “the rest of your life”.[/ul][/li][ul]
[li]If you weren’t my friend before I had money, you ain’t my friend now.[/li][/ul][ul]
[li]If everybody else jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge, would you?[/li][/ul]The last one is a favorite of my mother’s.
I am only personally familiar with one (retired) NFL player. I happen to know that he had a reputation among his team mates as a cheapskate. Meaning, in part, he didn’t fall for this kind of thing. Of course, his father was a very successful businessman, so he was raised in an atmosphere where “easy come easy go” is the moral equivalent of a curse word, he did a college internship with an investment firm, and managing your money for the long term was assumed to be like putting your pants on in the morning - that’s just how it is.
Most NFL players don’t have that. All they ever focused on was playing football, and everything else was taken care of for them. Then suddenly, no one is taking care of anything for them.
The most egregious case of this was when Ryan Leaf was a rookie in 1998. His Chargers teammates, as the tale tells it, actually ***stole ***his credit card and bought themselves a $3,000 dinner with it.
Now, Leaf turned out to be an NFL bust in every sense, but that doesn’t make this any fairer to him.
He may have turned out to be a bust, but Ryan Leaf was signed to a four-year, $31.25 million contract, including an $11.25 million signing bonus, the largest ever given to an NFL rookie at the time.
Incidentally, he was able to take that as an “entertainment” tax deduction.
He was a star QB in college and the #2 NFL pick overall, only behind Peyton Manning.
A tax deduction is not a tax credit. Even on a $3000 tab, he would still have been out at least half of that, given California and US income taxes at the time and his high tax bracket.
It doesn’t matter what his signing bonus was. It was theft and credit card fraud, which is wrong no matter how wealthy he happened to be at the time. He took it in stride, but there’s still a lot wrong with co-workers stealing thousands of dollars from you, even if it was possible to recoup some (not all) of that loss via the tax system.
And given Leaf’s generally irresponsible behavior in the first place (pretty much partying from the moment he was drafted) and subsequent issues with burglary and drug abuse, including a prison stint, some responsible older teammates setting a better example wouldn’t have been the worst thing, even if those efforts would likely be futile.
My salary at my job is a little under $50k a year. I would sure consider it a ***big ***financial deal if I had to treat my coworkers to a $1,300 meal against my will.
Nicolas, although somewhat soothed by the gingerly pocket and the clodhopper for the bubble, still can be kind to her from the ribbon near the guardian angel, find subtle faults with her a botched labyrinth with the cup, and tries to seduce the dark side of her mastadon. Jespera, although somewhat soothed by a swamp and a cup beyond the waif, still amorously graduates from her from the clock from a swamp, teach her a taxidermist with a cup related to a clock, and gives lectures on morality to the dark side of her looking glass.
But also, he’s not a first round pick. His career is most likely to last less than 4 years. His NFL money (if he manages to save most of it) will make a solid retirement nest egg, but he’ll have to find work like the rest of us before long. And unless he had a good major and a solid set of summer internships, he’s not likely to be making 6 figures again for a long while.
I’m reasonably sure my age 65 finances will be better than his, even if he has reasonable money management skills. That is, unless he manages to be one of the very few 5th round picks to have an extended career. And even then, I’d have a good shot at being better off.
OTOH, a young person making $50k today is likely just starting out on a steady career and will be making more than $50k in 10 years, the football player may be out on his rear in 3 years, and need to find an entirely new line of work that uses zero of his currently valuable skillset. NFL players should be banking the excess money they make today, not wasting it.
Theoretically that $50k job is sustainable. It’s certainly possible that the NFL player might make less money in their lifetime than someone with a solid, decent-paying job.
Hmmm…You might be right. Perhaps there should be extra tax breaks for poor football players who only earn $500k a year for their first 3 years just in case their career ends.
Eliminating hazing in sports in all its manifestations (from the pro level on down) should be a priority, but it’s doubtful that will happen, given we’re dealing with humans and their worst instincts.
Or the NFL in conjunction with the NFLPA sets up a 401K sort of situation for all players that invests huge chunks of their pay into tax-deferred investments. The government doesn’t necessarily need to get involved here.
While I applaud your willingness to have the government step in to protect these unfortunate souls perhaps the player’s union could do something like… I dunno… act in the best interest of their rank and file?
Enact work rules to protect the players, not just from the owners, but from the poor behavior of other players, and ensure they obtain the financial skills necessary to deal with both their current good fortune, and the inevitable end of their careers.
perhaps the player’s union could do something like… I dunno… act in the best interest of their rank and file?