Once The Cheering Stops: The Life of a Retired Pro-Athlete

“It’s hard because they spend the rest of their lives being shadows of who they were at 25” – Roman Oben (12-year NFL veteran). 

Could it be true that all good things come to an end? From unsettled debts, divorces and child support agreements, athletes face much more than a simple retirement.

ESPN's "30 for 30" documentary "Broke" provides a deeper understanding of the realities of the beginning and end of a pro-athletes career and how for many athletes, their financial success have ended as fast as they began upon retirement.

      With hundreds of college aged athletes being drafted every year, the life of a pro-athlete is often viewed through “lenses of glamor and galore”. Young pro-athletes constantly exhibit their material possessions through main social media networks such as Instagram and Twitter, social networks that predominantly target similar audiences; young adults. Athletes take pride in owning the best of everything, materialism which in this country is so often confounded with success. In an interview a former pro-athlete expressed, “Guys have been poor for so long that they have to show people how much money they make. But it’s not about net worth, it’s about self-worth” (6).

      However this documentary takes at the lives of former professional athletes, and how their immature financial decisions and investments only worked against them at the end of their career. The fact of the matter is that handing an athlete in his early 20’s hundreds of thousands in salary will almost always result in some extent of reckless spending. In addition, these athletes are responsible for making proper arrangements for an agent, financial adviser and accountant; however with such little experience, choosing one of these people poorly can result in a great economic downfall for many athletes.

      Because only very few professional athletes are well aware of their financial standing, many of them become naïve to their realities and instead get caught up in a realm of over spending, gambling and investing unwisely. Many athletes have fallen victims to white collared crime, through fraudulent arrangements and managements via agents and financial advisors.

      Their wealth and fame has definitely come with a price. Pro-athletes are constantly in and out of marriages, having kids, and then having to pay pricey child support amounts. Their social status places them in a status of uncertainty when it comes to women and the intentions they possess towards them. Ironically, many pro-athletes attract the same women that they fear- the ones who only want them for their money. The culmination of these types of relationships often works against these athletes and they end up losing a significant amount of money over “love”.

      Athletes are faced with all of these issues in and outside of the field, without taking into account the physical and emotional toll that their career has in their person. ESPN’s report on retired athletes depicts the long term consequences such as depressions, dementia, and drastic injuries that occur on the field. Players struggle to understand that when they retire from football, they still have to deal with the realities of life (4).

      The time constraints and dedications that athletes have to devote to their sport often rid them from living regular lives. After many years of following the same daily routines and procedures, athletes often find themselves having a difficult time adjusting to a new lifestyle once they retire. Practicing their sport become their regime, their lifestyle, motivation and passion, but nothing lasts forever. ESPN’s article “Retired Athletes” states, “A 2009 Sports Illustrated study said that 78% of NFL retirees have gone bankrupt or are under financial stress because of joblessness or divorce” (3). They can’t cash their 401(k) plans until they’re 59 ½, for a player whose career ends in his early 30s, that’s a long time to be hurting for cash (6).

The truth of the reality is that today’s greatest athlete is as

expendable as the next big guy in the league. Athletes are treated as a commodity in the U.S., given contracts and bonuses that are a minuscule percent of the actual revenue they produce to the sport’s industry, squeezed of all their talents and abilities, and then shown to the same door they came in. The immaculately made routines and agendas they followed are suddenly snatched from them once their professional career is over and they are left to figure out what to do next with their lives. As if this wasn’t stressful enough, they must also acknowledge and at upon the endless debts and responsibilities that had been overlooked for so many years. As glamorized and admired as athletes are, it is fascinating to see the other side of the coin, the conflicts and situations they are placed in once they have devoted their lives to the entertainment of millions of Americans. Oddly enough, I find a strange connection among professional athletes and retired veterans; could it be that professional athletes are simply military men in disguise for the purpose of entertainment? Is the world of professional athletes just another form of institutionalized governance and control guised as an eternal life of luxury and excitement?