I know that, but I’m more interested in what happens when their income flow stops.
Is there a big difference between average longevity of careers? Because, once someone’s made it to the big-time in ‘soccer,’ (ISTM) they can get back into it, even if the club isn’t quite as big.
I think any ‘thought experiment’ goes into GD or IMHO territory no matter how much you want it not to. If it’s a thought experiment, there is no factual answer.
Not if the thread itself is not the thought experiment.
In any case, I see that this wasn’t a very well thought out thread. I’m thinking that using lottery winners might have been a better idea, as there’s probably more research on that.
I’m from a poor background, and I have excellent money management skills.
Assuming that all us uneducated plebs wouldn’t know how how to handle money if we got it is pretty damned offensive to me. The issue is not whether you were rich/medium/poor growing up, the issue is whether you’re smart with money or not. I’d be willing to bet that far more bankrupts come from the middle and upper classes than from my end of town.
In my experience, being poor teaches you how to budget, unless you’re an idiot. Also in my experience, idiots aren’t rare, and idiocy is just as common among rich folk as it is among my kind.
Addendum : they were killed out of their own stupidity, not by the police.
I thought about this last night. I knew something like this was coming, and you’re exactly right. This was a clusterfuck of a question that I just blurted out on a quick thought without paying much attention to my wording.
I don’t come from a well-to-do background either, and as a result I was taught money management skills. To say that people make these decisions because they come from poor backgrounds is not good wording it by a long shot.
They turn into people like Paul Scholes. Clearly someone who should never have been entrusted with a banknote bigger than a tenner!
No problem, we all have a brainfart every now and then.
Basically I think what you’ve established here is that a fool and his money are soon parted. 
I know the NHS fronted him a liver - but did he actually go broke?
Hey, it’s Paris, the students are always revolting. 
Good points. I suspect the issues are several:
-how you manage money depends on how you were raised. IMHO people raised with money usually have poorer money management skills, if any. First, they have no appreciation of the value of things, and unless educated by the parents, may not appreciate the training needed to become good money managers. Many never have to worry about where money comes from until suddenly they are on their own. I know of several middle class families where the parents are still supporting their kids, ther grandkids, and the kids whould not have their own home if mom and dad were not paying a substatial part of the mortgage.
-It’s a learned skill. The joke is that families (esp. America) go from poor to poor in 3 generations. Unless the father imparts to son (mother, daughter, etc. to be fair) that “you want 4-bedroom home and 2 cars, you need to study and be an accountant/lawyer/doctor/engineer” the kid becomes a parts clerk at the auto dealership and cannot afford daddy’s lifestyle. Being an NBA star gets you into the money fasttrack but does not show you how hard taht money is to earn.
-What is the process for becoming a star or top league player in the European leagues? In the USA, you go from “amateur” (yeah right) college student to the pros overnight. Guys who probably only had a car courtesy of a “gift” from the lumni association suddenly get at least minimum wage in the NFL, with rarely any in-between; what the min, about half a million a year? Euro leagues, in my understanding, you work your way up from the minors much like hockey (and baseball?) where you likely play for the Toronto Marlies or the Brandon Wheat Kings or the Rochester or Grand Rapids team for a season or two unless you are amazing…
-So you start off with a minimal salary and can’t buy the Ferarri for at least a few years. The NFL/NBA draftees go from zero to a million with no learning curve.
-Also, as mentioned above - injuries etc. or maybe just not quite good enough - the spigot can suddenly turn off with no warning. The guy who buys the Ferrari and the 2-million dollar home on credit may suddenly find he goes from $1M to zero in no time flat. If he doesn’t have the smarts, or is deluding himself about his prospects, he may postpone cutting his losses until it is far too late.
-along with the riches many of these guys have a lifestyle that involes an huge entourage, where they enjoy being the “big man”; this might serious inflate expenses when the money starts to dry up, and encourage the guy to bigger and worse spending habits. Plus, the sudden change in lifestyle, as mentioned, results in stresses like marriage breakups that hurt the wallet even more.
-There are only so many spots in minor leagues. (Is there even minor league football in the USA?) Unlike soccer or hockey, there’s not a lot of alternatives overseas for football or basketball. Minimum wage in the CFL IIRC is in the $60,000/yr range, and that’s not even US dollars (although that may be a plus in the future). There’s the story that many CFL players used to drive taxi or sell cars in the off season to make ends meet.
OTOH, my limited knowledge of European soccer suggests there are a number of minor leagues to “work your way up” and down, learning money management as your income ramps up and cushioning the downward spiral.
Basically, sports stars are just like real people, especially when it comes to money.
There was a recent article in the NYT (I think) about the difference between college and NFL quaterbacks. The style of play is sufficiently different that many star college quarterbacks never adapt; and signing any star college quarterback is a crapshoot. Something about the size and power of NFL, and the tighter game with the greater liklihood of being sacked.
So the situation is even worse for them - they’ll go from poor student and star adulation and signing for tens of millions back to a nobody washout over 2 or 3 years.
You live beyond your means. As Nell “Gimme A Break” Carter said when asked why she had no money, “I was making $10,000 a month and spending $15,000 on coke. You do the math”
The more you make the more you spend
A lot of what seems to send American pro athletes into bankruptcy is bad financial investments. Derrick Coleman, for example, invested his fortune from playing in the NBA in Detroit real estate. D’oh!
Gambling also gets a lot of them into trouble, like Antoine Walker.
And/or just listening to bad financial advice. See NFL quarterback Bernie Kosar (the whitest middle-class white boy ever).
Well, she’s not a sports start but Fergie appears to have poor money management skills and since her gravy train income support structure was terminated in a divorce, she can’t afford to pay for her lifestyle.
I haven’t kept up with sports in a while, but offhand I’m surprised that this would seem to be a worse problem in the NFL than in the NBA. I thought it was in the latter that young players just out of high school were being paid ridiculous salaries having never gone to university.
NBA player Patrick Ewing said “We make a lot of money , but we spend a lot too”
How does the US system work? Unlike baseball or hockey, my understanding is that Football and Basketball especially have college leagues rather than minor leagues.
As a result, the “trainees” are big stars but essentially unpaid amateurs. While this has been stretched, my understanding (see recent Julia Roberts movie) is that the college athletics associations pretty much enforce no pay, no gift rules that mean the star players are paid almost nothing for 4 years in college.
Then suddenly, if they are a star, they are showered with tens of millions of dollars. Going from zero to millions cannot be good for money management skills, especially if college is just a farce and you are not really learning any skills other than athletics. A professional minor league system, where the player starts off with a pay closer to reality and works their way up as their quality improves, is probably more likely to teach money skills. Nothing says “learn your money skills” like “gee, I’d like a Ferarri but it’s 3 times my annual salary and I have to pay rent too.” versus “OK, how may do you want and what colours?”
George Best was the classic ‘poor boy overwhelmed by fame and fortune gets destroyed by alcoholism’ story. Tony Adams was an alcoholic who managed to turn his career around. Justin Fashanu killed himself while facing allegations of homosexual assault. Others like Gary Lineker managed their careers well and made the move into management or sports commentating.