78% of NFL players bankrupt within 2 years of retirement!
I heard a shocking statistic just this past week. The actual statistic shared in this recent ESPN article was as follows: “By the time they have been retired for two years, 78% of former NFL players have gone bankrupt or are under financial stress because of joblessness or divorce”.
A USA Today article from 2006 also shared this the same statistic and names Ken Ruettgers as its source (Ruettgers is a retired NFL player who founded a non-profit focused on helping NFL transition out of the game — GamesOver.org, which sadly does not appear to be up and running anymore).
Personal finance guru Dave Ramsey recently did a powerful segment on his radio show about this NFL statistic, click here to hear the segment. Warning: he freaks out a bit and this sounds like a church sermon or something 
Most people realize that celebrities are not immune to financial problems, and if anything are probably MORE prone to such issues.
Look at legendary pop artist Michael Jackson for a prime example of this. I’ve not exactly been a regular reader of People magazine, etc. over the years and so I have only heard about his personal affairs from time to time… but I do vividly remember seeing an article in the news a few years back where a $70 million loan with Bank of America was coming due. This was only a sampling of the major debts he was piling up. Bank of America did free itself from the loans but a Wall Street Journal blogger, writing just after Jackson’s death claims that maybe Bank of America should have held onto the loans — implying that Jackson was “worth” more dead than alive! The U.K. quasi-tabloid publication The Daily Mail claims that Jackson, at his spending peak a few years back, was spending 20 to 30 million dollars annually MORE than he made, and Yahoo! Music recently claimed Jackson died with a total of about $400 million dollars in debt.
Many, many other celebrities’ financial problems come to mind that I have no room or intention to cover here.
But what does this teach us? More money will not necessarily solve your problems — in fact, a greater income or more wealth will often create more problems. Truths of this type have been talked about at least since the writing of Christian Bible, and undoubtedly long before that. No, I don’t believe money is inherently evil, but it IS something to be considered, and spent, given, and saved, carefully.
Maybe we’ll learn more about exactly how the minds of NFL players work when many of them who have donated their brains for research pass away. Of course, helmet manufacturers will probably learn how to make a better helmet, but I doubt we’ll learn much about what drove their spending habits. To figure THAT out, just look around you.. or in your OWN heart and mind. Greed is a powerful force that I personally believe everyone struggles with to some degree at some point(s) in their life.
I could say so much more about this but I will stop here. In short: We should all be careful to make sure our lives are about something much more than money — because more money is no guarantee of happiness. The NFL, and Michael Jackson, should serve as ample proof of that.
Rich by Debt??
What a lie.
Recently I saw a television commercial for a local retailer in which a limosine, laden down with newly purchased merchandise tied down to the top of the limo roof, was pulling out of the retailer’s parking lot. As the limo pulled away, the store owner or manager’s young son asked his father, “How do rich people get their money?” The father responded with a response of “Credit, my son; credit.”
Remember, the child in the retailer’s commercial was impressed by the “rich person” he saw. But many of the symbols of wealth we see around us today are financed on credit cards, 90 days-same-as-cash, and home equity lines — clear examples of where the desire to possess or belong have led people into poor decision making. Juliet Schor in The Overspent American says that Americans become obsessed with the symbols of success (nice car, house, etc.) more than they care about the success or money in and of itself. In other words, if you can’t flaunt it, what’s the use? This type of thinking creates a minefield for those who hold tightly to those symbols of success who also have access to easy credit.
I hope I’m not the only one out there upset by the sad truth communicated by this TV commercial.
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