Or, depending on where they choose to live, they could take that $1 million and but a decent house outright, buy a car or two outright, and save enough money to literally never have to worry about going out of work again (for extended periods, but not forever) while still being able to pay for their children's college tuition outright. Yes, this would require them to continue to work like normal Americans (the horror!), but they would never have to worry about money for the rest of their lives. In addition, they would be able to get by on significantly less because they wouldn't need to pay for housing or cars (at least for 5-10 years depending on what they but and how they treat it). If average housing (rent or mortgage) in the nation was only $1000 (the military says it's roughly $1900 on average, but let's ignore them) and car payments are about $200 they'd be saving $14k+ a year. And they'd still have $500k ish, probably more, in the bank to save or spend lavishly as they continue to work. They wouldn't be able to live off of it forever, but let's not pretend like they're only getting a small head start on retirement but don't have enough to spend. $1 million is a huge head start and many Americans would commit unspeakable atrocities to get one tenth of that.
Well, I really don't want to get into a budget debate...so I won't.
I dunno that it works to ignore averages and then over assume what players would be able to do with that over assumption.
Even with a decent paid for house, there are things like property tax and insurance that if one were to buy a $500k house in a nice neighborhood could equal a modest rent.
Also, many football players aren't small people, so the idea of them paying ONLY $200/mo even for a low mileage lease is crazy. You aren't going to fit an OL in a Honda Civic lease...for ONLY $189/mo!
Also, many of these young men don't have a healthy relationship with money. Many come from little or nothing and don't understand how it all works. It's why the Rams have for years now delayed signing players until AFTER the financial seminars and the "tell your family NO" speech. That's another discussion, but it does play into the categorization that players live these outsized lives. They don't.
Yes, the head start towards retirement is good. Moreover, I wasn't making an argument of the risk/reward ratio.
Rather, the point is that unless someone is miserly while playing, the average player is NOT living the life of Riley. After their 2-3 years of football, they're back to trying to find work as a regular person. Moreover, most players have been tunnel-visioned on football since maybe Middle School, so it's the rare player who pulls a John Urschel who's getting his PhD in Math at MIT...
https://www.businessinsider.com/offensive-lineman-john-urschel-starting-phd-at-mit-2016-1/ or even a Chris Collinsworth who got his law degree after playing or Byron "Whizzer" White who became a Supreme Court Justice.
When one spends all of their available time trying to and succeeding at being good at one thing, life after that thing... be it sports or the military, for example, can seem like starting over in a way most others can't comprehend.
Yes, they get paid a lot in laymen's terms to play a game. Got it. Agree.
But to describe rooks and JAGs who are most of the NFL as living like they all got contracts like Aaron Rodgers just isn't accurate.
That's the full extent of what I was saying.
Is it
theoretically possible to parlay a rookie contract into an easy living? Of course. Don't have a ton of kids, live in a modest house in the burbs or rural community near a hub city like Nashville, stick all your money in things like triple tax free munis to increase overall yield while having stability, only buy used vehicles with super high reliability ratings...etc... Yeah, it CAN happen.
My point was that it doesn't in most cases... for reasons that are really other discussions. The point is that the characterization is misplaced.
That was it.
Five days until the GoT finale...
