The Dream After The Dream
When you look at athletes and finances, you may think about million dollar contracts and endorsement deals. The reality is that not every player is a Tom Brady or Richard Sherman, and multi-million dollar contracts and lucrative endorsement deals are not the norm for most. In truth, the median NFL salary is closer to $860,000. For an average worker not involved in elite sport, that is a nice hunk of change. For an athlete who’s career may last 6-8 years, that is not a lot comparatively in the long run - especially considering the expenses of paying an agent, a PR team, and other needed services. So, what does the athlete do when their playing career is over and their bank accounts have been drained? This is where the Global Sport Institute has hoped to fill a gap, by helping to educate transitioning athletes on a variety of topics that can help secure them in their lives outside of playing a sport.
Through a strong partnership with the NFL, GSI helped launch the Personal Finance Bootcamp in 2018 and repeated it again in 2019. With an innovative approach, the Institute worked with financial experts and with the assistance of the NFL Player Engagement Team to bring 25 NFL players together to learn the ins and outs of personal finance. Collaboratively we developed and taught financial fundamentals to rookie, active, retired NFL players, and their families. The players, now turned students again, participated in a variety of courses like building the right money team, real estate issues, and even long term estate planning. One major takeaway for the group was not necessarily to be literate in your finances, but to be fluent in financial literacy itself. It is our hope that the financial boot camp helped to equip many of the players with needed education around an often times still taboo, but important subject such as money. With such an immense amount of money being made by these players in a relatively short time frame, learning how to optimize that money can be a key priority for a more secure future.
NY Jets Linebacker, Brandon Copeland gives the real deal on finances.
WIth initiatives like these, we hope to develop Global Sport Institute’s athlete education pillar, which seeks to educate, grow, and advise athletes before, during and after their transition out of their respective sport. The issues we want to solve revolve around the question of “what’s next?” With our research and existing partnerships, like with the NFL, we want to grow as a resource for the athlete and hope to become a global leader in athlete education.
Click here to read more and engage with our current Athlete Education and Transition work.
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