Bankruptcy Epidemic Among Star Athletes

Former Tampa Bay Buccaneers defensive tackle, Warren Sapp filed a 59 page bankruptcy document last month.  Sapp helped propel the Bucs from a team with no hope of winning to a team of champions.  After thirteen seasons in the National Football League (NFL), nine of them with the Buccaneers and seven of them taking him to the Pro-Bowl, and earning one Super Bowl Championship, he retired from  playing the game in 2007.

But Sapp’s not alone. In an industry where multi-million dollar contracts abound and financial prudency does not, a huge number of professional athletes file for bankruptcy. A whopping 60% of NBA players alone, will make those filings.

Virtually in every arena of sports, the super rich, super extravagant world of pro-athletes seems to lend itself to financial crisis. This is often a result of them thinking the money will never stop coming, but it can also be a result of having people “take care” of everything for them so that they are completely unaware of what’s even happening with their money.

Many of them spend obscene amounts of money on things the rest of us would never consider. Evander Holyfield, for instance, had a 54,000-square-foot mansion outside of Atlanta. Mike Tyson was reported to have spent over $9,100 in a two month period on his white tiger. Scottie Pippen owned a jet that cost a mere $50,000 to repair a windshield. He borrow $4.375 million for a new pair of wings, and those costs didn’t include the pilot, gas, or insurance.

Most of us don’t have that kind of cash to work with, but debt can still be crushing to the average person. The average person’s position, while on a smaller scale, is still a difficult path to walk. Bankruptcy may be what you need to get you through this time.