{"id":596,"date":"2017-02-18T09:25:19","date_gmt":"2017-02-18T15:25:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/?p=596"},"modified":"2019-02-24T20:49:27","modified_gmt":"2019-02-25T02:49:27","slug":"review-of-espns-broke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/review-of-espns-broke\/","title":{"rendered":"Review of ESPN’s Broke"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Many athletes lose the money<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Wow.  I rarely say that in response to anything on TV these days (unless it was the replacement officials’ absurd call in the Packers-Seahawks game).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But after watching ESPN’s outstanding 30 for 30 Broke” there\nis not much else to say.  I guess you\ncould say it is sad, scary, disturbing or any of another dozen negative\nthoughts.  I did not expect to be\noverwhelmed by it since this is a field with which I have a lot of direct\nexperience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have met numerous athletes who have been defrauded  by their agents, financial advisors,\nattorneys and friends.  Many of them have\nbeen victims of ponzi schemes and other types of scams that were perpetrated on\nthem due to their high profile, great wealth and relative lack of\nsophistication in dealing with these issues. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know attorneys who have filed lawsuits to recover the\nfunds from these ponzi schemes, but unfortunately, the scammers have typically\nspent and used most of the funds for their own personal benefit, acquiring\nexpensive homes, cars and jewelry and also taking exotic vacations and\ntrips.  While it might make the victims\nfeel a little bit better when they find out that the people who defrauded them\nhave been disbarred, indicted, convicted and sentenced, the reality is that\nthey rarely recover their funds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I discuss the cases with the attorneys who have filed\nthe lawsuits on behalf of these athlete victims, they almost universally say\nthat the athletes were defrauded by their own advisors, and that the athletes\nwere too ashamed to come forward sooner to get authorities involved or get\nattorneys involved early in the process. \nThe athletes (and their advisors) typically did too little (if any) due\ndiligence on the transactions and on the people who are promoting the\ntransaction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So while we wonder why this occurs, the reality comes down\nto one point. TRUST.   Athletes really do\nnot know who to trust.  They rely on the\ninformation that is put in front of them by their advisors and their\nfriends.  But who are the ones most often\nresponsible for getting athletes into these ponzi schemes or other scams?  These same advisors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The trick here is for the athlete to develop and implement a\nlarge team of independent advisors that can work together to help the athlete\nconduct due diligence.  This is where the\nstories from Broke” were the most disturbing. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One thing that Broke” made clear is that a lot of the\nproblems arise from the athlete’s feeling of invincibility.  We have read that hundreds and thousands of\ntimes relating to physical issues whether it is physical altercations, domestic\nviolence, bar fights, drunk driving or others.  \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, we expect these same young athletes to exercise better\nbusiness” judgment, even though none of them have actual business experience\n(and few of their families have that experience either).    When you think of who most people rely on\nwhen they need help, it is the people closest to them.  Their family and their trusted advisors.  The difference with professional athletes is\nthat they do not grow” into these roles over time.  They do not advance in their careers before\ntheir earn big dollars.  They do not\ndevelop relationships with advisors while the stakes are small and have that\nrelationship mature over time.  Instead,\nthey are left extremely vulnerable to their agents, their attorneys, their\nfamily, their friends and their financial advisors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One disturbing element in Broke” was how often these\nplayers described just handing out money to other people.  The sums of money are so large that they lose\nALL perspective to the value of money. \nYet, if you asked them how much money they could earn in a year in any\njob other than professional sports, that perspective might help them understand\ntheir spending habits. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But would they listen? \nIf you go back and watch broke and listen to the stories from Andre\nRison, you will see a tremendous attitude of I do what I want.”   And that comes at an extreme price.  It means that the athletes do not even want\nto listen to the people who really do want to help them.  Everything in their life is about\ncompetition.  About bigger and\nbetter.  About  having the best.  So it is easy to see why that also applies to\ntheir investments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You want me to take conservative investments.”   Why should I?”   My teammates just invested into a deal that\nis getting him [10\/20\/30%].”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that is how it happens. \nThe perpetrators of the scams and the ponzi schemes only need one access\npoint.  They find one athlete that they\ncater to and cultivate a relationship with, and then they use that person to\ngain athlete to pro teammates, college teammates, high school teammates,\netc.  You can see why the ponzi scheme\nformat is so powerful in this environment. \nIt connects all the victims and they all feel insecure about the investment\nloses and they do not know who to turn to. \nMany of the athletes write off their loses without even pursuing legal\nremedies.  And by doing so, they do not\nbring enough attention to the problem. \nLawsuits against these dishonest advisors would facilitate getting\nfederal and state authorities involved.   Given the limited resources of the FBI, the\npostal inspectors and the US attorneys offices, they are unable to investigate\nand pursue all of the claims that are out there.  But with some help and with high profile\nvictims, the lawsuits could help institute the proper administrative and\ndisciplinary proceedings against those operating the ponzi schemes and other\nscams.  By having cooperative witnesses,\nsupporting documentation and good attorneys leading the way, the opportunity to\nrecover funds before they are all squandered would increase dramatically.   Because ultimately, the players really want\na few things:  1) to get their money\nback; 2) to get their vengeance by having the scammers disbarred, indicted,\nconvicted and sentenced; and 3) to not have this situation take over their\nlife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hopefully for most athletes, these losses to fraudulent\nschemes do not constitute the bulk of their wealth.  But many lose money in other ways.  You saw the descriptions in Broke” talking\nabout how many of them lost money in bad” deals as opposed to fraudulent\ndeals.  At the end of the day, the\nfinancial impact is the same even if the emotional toll is not the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But perhaps the most difficult losses” to overcome are not\nthose from ponzi schemes, fraudulent investments or bad investments.  It is the result of bad decisions by the\nathletes.   The amount of money spent on\ncars, homes, jewelry, gambling, strip clubs, alcohol and other luxuries is way\nbeyond proportion to their financial status. \nAthletes do not have the same length of earning career as the average\nbusiness professional.  In football, the\naverage career is approximately 3 years.  \nThat means that most of the athletes never even make it that far.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In our next feature, we will look further at how the\nathletes can overcome these negative habits and what advice they should be\ngiven early in their career by the agents and families in order to protect them\nfrom slipping into the Broke” mentality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We honestly hope that Broke” becomes required viewing for\nthe all athletes who have professional sports aspirations.   Because we know that many athletes will NOT\nlisten.  But we also know that the more\noften they hear the message, and the more often it is from neutral” sources,\nthe more likely they are to give it some credence and give much stronger\nconsideration to the steps that are necessary to prevent the losses to ponzi\nschemes and other fraudulent scams.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

But after watching ESPN’s outstanding 30 for 30 Broke” there is not much else to say. I guess you could say it is sad, scary, disturbing or any of another dozen negative thoughts. I did not expect to be overwhelmed by it since this is a field with which I have a lot of direct experience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":597,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[19,294,17,290,11],"tags":[320,314,319,318,321,6],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}