Retired NBA player Grant Hill, a co-owner and executive of the Atlanta Hawks, is widely considered one of the game’s greatest players. His success in the NBA came quickly, and he says he had to learn about financial responsibility on his own.
He doesn’t want other players to be caught off guard financially, and through his partnership with Invesco QQQ he aims to help young earners navigate the world of parochial finance.
When Hill — who is the son of former NFL All-Pro wide receiver Calvin Hill — landed his first NBA contract, it was $2.75 million as a rookie — and despite coming from a background of privilege he claims had no clue how to handle such a large amount of money.
“As a student-athlete, you never really have a job,” Hill, who retired as a player in 2013, told Boardroom. “The first job that you have, all of a sudden, you’re in a situation where you’re making extreme amounts of money. And so, in terms of investing, in terms of compound interest, in terms of taxes and what that means, in terms of even budgeting, I was oblivious to.”
Hill educated himself and made sure to connect with the right people. “I wanted to make sure that I had that money 20 years later,” Hill told CNBC Make It.
This is a situation many athletes who have newly turned pro find themselves in. Hill, who earned around $142 million in salary (not including endorsements) in his nearly 20 years in the league, wants to pass on the financial knowledge he’s learned to other athletes on how to maximize their money.
Approximately 78 percent of NFL players go broke within three years of retirement, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. An estimated 60 percent of former NBA players go broke within five years of departing the league, and MLB players file for bankruptcy four times more than the average American, Forbes reported.
Read full story at Finurah.
