NFL Players, Bad Business Ventures, and How it All Starts with Guys Like Terrelle Pryor
Maybe these guys need more time working on their investments. But, what football player during the season has time to effectively manage any of those endeavors? Do they feel that they can just get the ‘right people’ to run it for them, and they can just let the money roll in? Hmmm, sounds like a ponzi scheme waiting to happen there. How many football players come out of college with business degrees? I’m guessing the number is less than 5% (and that’s being generous). My feeling is, if you don’t know or understand how the system works, you shouldn’t be investing you money or time in it until you do. Again, what football player has the time – willing or unwilling?
The NFL really doesn’t help matters either. In 2005 the league started a business management and entrepreneurial program for players to attend – I’m assuming because of all the poor money management. The NFL does not specify length of the program on their website. The priority of admission – NFL years of experience and interest in business. This doesn’t seem to be the best admission process. And what really do these programs do for players – give them good financial solid advice to help them responsibly manage their money and investments or just embolden them to think they know what they are doing and buy stock in the next pre-paid phone card kiosk industry?
The Seed is Planted…
So what does Terrelle Pryor have to do with all of this? Well I believe that when college football players start seeing cash before they walk in graduation it plants the seed of fiscal irresponsibility. Allegations against Pryor accuse him of receiving perks while as a college student playing football for Ohio State University. Please note the order of that sentence. First and foremost, Pryor was a college student. Can anyone really argue that the NCAA in all its excessiveness in the world of colleges and universities that the importance of being a student is not held as highly as it should? Being a college athlete superstar who is destined for the pros is not enough. Preferential treatment, such as discounted cars, free tattoos, free meals and cash for autographs – all things Pryor is accused of receiving – are waiting on the other side of the locker room. And though abhorred by every athletic program across the nation, it is used as a recruiting tool. It’s like Varsity Blues on steroids.
What’s worse is that Pryor left OSU, got picked up by TO’s main man Drew ‘No Comment’ Rosenhaus and is now being hyped as a high pick in the NFL’s supplemental draft. Yes that’s right….a young man who was not ready to play in the NFL suddenly leaves his university so he does not have to face his punishment of suspension and is now all of a sudden a top player. Rewards for illegal actions. Some even become #1 picks… right Cam? Even though the NCAA is ‘cracking down’ on athletes receiving these perks, these usually aren’t found out until after the athlete guilty of such actions have left the university – take Reggie Bush for instance.
Because there is lack of accountability from these college student athletes who violate NCAA rules and regs, what makes them think there is any accountability while being in the NFL as a professional athlete being paid millions? At that point they are used to being involved with things that are morally gray and that others will be there to pick up the pieces for them. They are used to preferential treatment. They are used to slaps on the wrist. They want that bigger piece of the pie, and what’s a few bad real estate investments here and there before you get that bigger slice? I’m not saying that all or many of these decisions are morally misguided. But, the excessiveness that an athlete is exposed to from college to their first rookie season to that first huge contract during their free agency year makes it all too easy to make really stupid financial decisions that tank these players. No special class offered by the NFL is really going to change that.
I know I know. It’s America and these guys can do whatever the hell it is they want with their money. They have the talent. They’ve earned the right to the big dollar sign. But, you know, it’s sad when I see players I have a ton of respect for, like Charlie Batch, filing for bankruptcy. It’s maddening when you hear about players who are set for life by playing football for the next 6-8 years make really dumb decisions and jeopardize it all. Why can’t 30 million over 6 years be enough? Why can’t playing the greatest sport in the world be enough?
It would be enough for me.