Not instead, but over: suit jackets.
Joe Louis made millions as a boxer, but bad management (mostly in the form of them not paying income taxes) had him living hand-to-mouth by the end of his life. Louis was very generous with the money he did earn, made bad investments, and trusted his managers without question, all of which meant he saw very little of the millions he earned.
I believe I read somewhere that Max Schmeling and Joe Louis became good friends after their fights and Schmeling paid or helped to pay for the funeral of Louis.
a large percent (50% or so) of NFL players are bankrupt not long after retiring. Rookies get financial training but it doesn’t seem to help everyone.
You call that squandered? 
George Best posting from beyond the grave?
I heard about a homeless man who won a ton of money at a casino, and spent it all within a month (mostly just giving it away). This was before taxes were removed at the point of victory, so he was technically in debt to the IRS.
Michael Jackson lived like a billionaire when he was really a multimillionaire. I don’t know if he was actually in debt when he passed away, but he certainly lost the majority of the money he had earned. Several other celebrities have gotten into similar levels of financial trouble. I can hardly imagine someone who makes multiple millions of dollars per year going into debt, yet it happens. Anything from drug addiction to alimony can create huge expenses.
Have you seen the movie Broke by 30? Many athletes were raised in financially illiterate households, and unfortunately did not learn new financial skills when they achieved success and the money poured in. Their taxes are complex (apparently they have to file a tax return for every state they play in, which is just confusing), they’re only actually paid for a few months in the year (so they need to budget that money), they are constantly targeted by “old friends” (they end with an entourage they have trouble getting rid of), and so forth.
The typical athletic career only lasts a few years, and can suddenly end due to a serious injury. When you are expecting to make dozens of millions of dollars a year for a decade, you might effectively spend the money before you even get it (such as buying a really expensive house, with a twenty five year mortgage).
Furthermore many people only look at what things cost on a monthly basis. If someone owns a business that they don’t run themselves, said business could be losing money, and they’ll only notice when their accountant gives them a yearly statement… if that even happens.
I wonder how many wealthy people have trusted their money to accountants, lawyers, or family members, and gotten ripped off.
Since the OP is asking about blowing a fortune, I think that would only count if Mansa Musa blew through all his wealth (I’m guessing he still had a lot, post-pilgrimage.) If he blew half but still retained half, he has not “blown his fortune”… Yet.
This is something I’ve read about Barça but which I know they’re not the only ones to do it: aside from giving school fellowships to their younger players and making sure that they do keep up with their studies, they do specifically provide basic financial training. You may or may not end up playing in their first team and you may or may not end up having problems with Hacienda, but as Juno Moneta is their witness you will not be able to claim you didn’t know you needed to file taxes. But the reason they do that is precisely that they’ve seen a lot of players burn through piles of money.
I hope those are widespread training practices now! There’s a few athletes getting positive press for spending only a little bit of money (in a few cases absurdly low levels, even living in vans!).
On the third hand, if he would have spent it but was legally prevented from doing so by his family then I’d say it counts in spirit, so I present extravagant playwright-turned-serial-killer Gilles de Rais, who put on a self-produced 600-person-strong play for free, also featuring free refreshments and completely new outfits for each performance. I can only imagine what all of the castles he sold or put into hock would be worth today, but he was prevented from completely selling them off by the appeal of his family to the King.
historical note the mansa musa pilgrimage is considered the start of the African downward spiral because it attracted attention of the world powers which would to the invasions and the like starting in the 14 and 15th centuries ………
IIRC, the NFL has been holding mandatory financial seminars for all rookies since 2008.
All true. But when Louis donated something like a year’s income to a war-related charity, the government, in an insanely unjust decision, demanded taxes on it anyway, a financial hit he never recovered from.
He also had late-life problems with heroin and mental illness (according to the biography “Hard Times Man” by Randy Roberts).
There seems to be a trend with boxers… has any really successful boxer managed to hold on to their riches?
I don’t think it’s anything unique to boxers. They’re generally young, unsophisticated, seeing more money than they ever previously saw and have probably every person in their background (family, friends, random hangers-on) looking to cash in.
Probably the same thing happens to other athletes and other people who suddenly come into wealth (lottery winners, for instance).
The CTE/brain damage surely plays some role, even if just a tiny one.
George Forman seems to have managed his post boxing career pretty well.
I’ve heard the living-in-vans thing about players who make an NFL practice squad. They do get a decent salary and if they get called to play in a real game, even more, but it’s not huge amounts. But they can be cut at any time, as well as the potential for injuries. And there’s a limited amount of time (3 years) they can be on a practice squad. So some of them are being very frugal with what they do get.
They have a lot of strikes against them. A lot of boxers come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and backgrounds of financial illiteracy. Then you throw in brain damage from the sport and you throw in getting rich in your 20s, and its probably not going to work out.
I guess I don’t get why nobody stops them.
I don’t know a lot of boxers, but screwing around on google, Lennox Lewis seems to be doing ok financially.