The Leagues are to blame IMO.
These guys are forced to get Agents and others who strip away over half their money. Throw in the taxes on top of that and they maybe see 1/4 of what they are given in their contracts. Yet they THINK they have all of the money from their contracts.
Teams should be required to have representatives from Financial institutions to help these guys manage their money. Yes, this should be provided by the team, not something the players have to search out on their own. And they should be provided at least 3 different financial advisor options, each provided by the team.
This is common business practice where companies provide financial assistance to employees, including help with retirement accounts.
These %s are the result of teams not providing proper financial assistance. Day 1 for rookies should be to have meetings with financial reps and they should be required to sign with one of them in the first half of the day and then spend the second half with that person giving them the initial skills to properly manage their money.
They should be required to have weekly follow up meetings to discuss what they bought last week and what they plan to buy in the upcoming week. Learning how to properly budget and plan, maybe waiting a month while saving up each week to get that expensive car...and too big house...and spending thousands on strippers...
Their entire financials should be accessible for their financial manager to review each week. All their credit cards, checking, savings, etc should be analyzed each week to help them make sure they are making proper financial decisions. They typically have no concept of money management, they need help. Their parents likely never had this kind of money and no idea how to help. They likely did not actually attend a college class on the subject. The leagues need to step up and insist on these things to look out for players past, present, and future.
Stop treating these athletes like disposable garbage.
Yes, some will still be idiots, but the percentages will drop dramatically. And the expectation that they hire yet another person who will syphon their contract money is ridiculous, this should be provided by the team to make sure they are using responsible and high quality money managers and not just people out for a money grab for themselves and giving bad advice.
