In a recent article in the Sydney Morning Herald, it is reported that Olympic swimmer Grant Hackett is working with one of the 'big four' Australian banks to develop a specialist investment service for elite athletes, to help them manage their money and set themselves up for a secure future.
Hackett's swimming career included 1500-metre Olympic gold medals at the 2000 Games in Sydney and the 2004 Games in Athens as well as four world championships. Now retired, he's hungry and driven in his second career.
Hackett is quoted as saying: "At 21, they (athletes) are thinking about the here and now; they're not thinking about tax planning and asset protection. I call it 'dog years', most have a cash shortfall in the first three years after retiring, because their lifestyle (was) based on contract and endorsement earnings."
Hackett went on to explain that he was fortunate to have a good manager and a conservative father to guide him. (www.smh.com.au)
Well-Being Australia chairman, Mark Tronson, says that this has been a perennial issue for elite athletes as well as those in similar situations who have high value income earning capacity over a relatively short period of time; young people such as models, actors, dancers. He has noted many examples during his 29 years involved in sports ministries of various types.
Mark Tronson explains that in the United States, the situation is even more exaggerated. The elite baseballers and (American) footballers – and more particularly basketballers – earn an order of magnitude more money than any Australian sports person; sometimes in the millions of dollars. When they retire, their income drops to well below that of Australians, who usually have some fall-back positions.
His ministry has encompassed a few 'Pro (professional) Athlete Outreach' (POA) conferences in the US, and has noted that these cover a breadth of blunt and factual topics – even some that made him, a former train driver, blush. These conferences were well attended by elite sportsmen and their wives. Two areas that Mark Tronson noted were pertinent were financial management and marriage enrichment. (www.pao.org)
As Hackett has been quoted as saying, while they are young these sportsmen relish in the fame and kudos (even more in the US than here), and the future seems like another land, very far off. Unless they are wisely counselled or they hear the testimonies of other, older sportsmen who have hit hard times, there is nothing in their young lives that will make them believe that they will ever have to worry about then next dollar.
Mark Tronson was also interested to hear that in 1990 at one of those PAO conference, the marriages of 82% of pro athletes in the US, after they have retired, end in separation. This may also be influenced by the sudden loss of income; but one imagines there may be a change of personality and confidence in the newly-retired former glorified sportsmen, too.
Back in Australia, and his own ministry, Mark Tronson said that he has had many occasions to counsel an elite athlete to go and get some professional advice before signing any 'deals that may seem too good to be true', such as those that advertisers or hangers-on might tempt them with.
One time, he saw a newspaper article where it appeared that one nationally acclaimed sportsman had somehow signed away the rights to his own given "name". M V Tronson suggested he get legal advice from someone he knew. Some months later this sportsman thanked him for such a timely comment.
At another time, Tronson was on a Panel at the Festival of Cricket in 2005 at Bowral, on which were several recently retired cricketers including Mark Waugh, who had made a very public comment that his income was abysmally reduced after he retired.
As he had been the Chaplain of the Australian Cricket team for 17 years, Mark Tronson added Life After Cricket to his ministry in 2001, in order to enable retired cricketers such as Waugh to come to the respite facility. Many issues are discussed in such an informal setting.
He hopes also to instil in these well-respected sportsmen that 'money isn't everything'. Not all the problems of retirement are due to a sudden loss of income, but sometimes to a loss of self-esteem. One way to do this is to use the expertise of some of those retired cricketers when there are requests for help from other sportsmen. One example is when Mark Tronson asked Greg Chappell, former cricket Test captain, to help a motor racing driver with a problem with lack of focussing and concentration in his training. Greg was happy to oblige, and did so with professionalism.
The Bible has a lot to say about money not being everything. One warning, pertinent to successful sportsmen, about the danger of relying too much on one's riches is expressed in Ecclesiastes 5:10 "He who loves silver will not be satisfied with silver; nor he who loves abundance with increase. This also is vanity."