Good timing in reading this thread.
Last night I watched a documentary called "Broke", about how something like 70% of professional athletes go broke after a certain number of years. You take a talented 20-22 year old athlete who grew up dirt poor and he gets his signing check of 500,000-3mil, and what does he do? Blows most of it. Zero financial maturity at all. Can't fault them, most kids would do the same.
It was a well-made documentary. It's easy to idolize athletes and celebrities but you have to understand they're just normal people. Well, most normal people are dumb as fuck, and you take your normal dumbfuck and put them in a scenario where they have massive amounts of attention from women, you've got family members leeching, you've got friends you didn't know you had telling you they've got a great idea for a business and you should definitely open your own chain of carwashes or fried chicken joints, you've got Uncle Sam taking half, you've got your agent scamming you and diverting your funds into his own accounts, you're getting spammed from 100 different directions, all people that are hungry for your money.
The average young person simply can't deal with this. I couldn't at 22. There's not a single person that goes up to these people with their best interests in mind.
Your average blue-collar joe that's in this 30s would have a much higher chance at dealing with fame and fortune better, because he's made it to his 30s and presumably learned a few things along the way.
Not gonna lie. I felt pretty damn good after watching the documentary. If that movie is true, that means my net worth is a great deal higher than many former (and current) professional athletes.