All that glitters is not gold. A recent Wall Street Journal article on athletes’ spending on extravagant proms brings to mind the Shakespearean phrase, for it hints at larger problems in the sports landscape.
The Journal profiled how high-school athletes, many of whom graduate in December so they can spend the spring practicing with their new college teams, have spent up to $80,000 to return to high school and attend their prom. The article called it “prom in the NIL era,” as athletes receiving “name, image, and likeness” deals from university boosters “are remaking the high school rite of passage into a cultural phenomenon all their own, part victory lap and part personal branding opportunity.”
From another perspective, the article also illustrates how NIL money can seduce young athletes into making rash financial choices with long-term ramifications. If pro athletes often resemble lottery winners in seeing windfalls slip through their fingers thanks to financial mismanagement, NIL could spread this phenomenon throughout the collegiate ranks.
Time Value of Money
For starters, most families don’t spend $80,000 in a year, let alone on a single day. Most families spend less than $6,600 per month on things like health expenses, clothes, dining, and so forth. I’m fairly certain that — except when buying my condo, which retains its value — I haven’t spent $80,000 in a year.
But for athletes, who in some cases haven’t even turned 18, the true price of an $80,000 prom comes via its opportunity cost. The quote often attributed to Albert Einstein about compound interest being the eighth wonder of the world especially applies to adolescents who have decades to let their money grow.
According to one investment calculator, $80,000 invested over 50 years and achieving an average 7 percent return would yield nearly $2.4 million at the time an athlete would reach retirement age (i.e., from age 18 to age 68). If that money achieves an average 10 percent return, a hypothetical prom attendee would in 50 years have nearly $9.4 million in the bank, just from eschewing a single blinged-out date while in high school.
To be sure, inflation will erode the value of money somewhat, such that $9.4 million will buy less in the last quarter of this century than it does now at the end of the first quarter. But the point remains: Not only are these athletes giving up money that could pay for over a year of spending now, but they are also foregoing the chance to save money that could pay for many other important expenses — a house, children of their own, retirement, etc. — down the line.
Uncertain Earning Potential
Just as worrisome: Soon-to-be college athletes spending money on conspicuous prom consumption do so not knowing how much they will earn from NIL and how long they will retain their earning potential. Not all NIL recipients will make it to the pros (“professional” being an admittedly imprecise term given the growth of NIL deals at the college level).
For instance, the Journal article interviewed Xavier Payne, a University of Colorado offensive lineman who spent $10,000 on his prom after signing a “six-figure” NIL deal. The Journal didn’t specify where in the six figures his agreement landed, but if on the lower end of that spectrum — a likely assumption for an offensive lineman, as opposed to a quarterback or receiver — that means Payne spent 5-10 percent of his windfall just on a date to the prom. That doesn’t even take into account the taxes Payne will have to pay on his earnings, not to mention the fact that he hasn’t yet turned 18.
If players never make it to the NFL and instead only receive a few years of NIL money while in college, they will have maxed out their earning potential by their early 20s. And the time and energy they spend on training vis-à-vis academics, coupled with the fact that players transfer schools frequently, mean that many athletes may not have much of a degree or an education to fall back on once their NIL earning days end.
New Crop of Broke Athletes
Over three years ago, I wrote about how an NFL player shouldn’t have taken the flak he did online for disclosing that he drove a Kia. In that article, I cited a 2009 Sports Illustrated story finding “that 78 percent of NFL athletes find themselves bankrupt, or in financial distress, within two years of retirement, and that 60 percent of NBA stars end up in a similar position within five years of ending their basketball careers.”
The Journal’s piece on growing prom spending brings home how this phenomenon will only explode in the NIL era. Name, image, and likeness agreements will give more players access to monetary windfalls. They will get those windfalls at even younger ages, with some signing deals before they can legally access the money they earn. And while more people will receive windfalls at the collegiate level, fewer will have the ability to convert those six-figure windfalls in their teens into seven- or eight-figure windfalls in their 20s and 30s.
All of this seems like a recipe for even more athletes to turn into financial versions of the shooting star — earning (relatively) big money very young in life, spending it just as quickly, and ending up in monetary distress before they turn 30. The “Wild West” atmosphere among colleges and universities, with players changing teams annually and very little strategic thinking by most actors, encourages short-term decision-making that many may come to regret.
While Congress is considering legislation to rein in the NIL free-for-all, greater financial responsibility by young athletes often coming from impoverished backgrounds may be beyond lawmakers’ remit. One hopes that, at a minimum, some institution — one that goes beyond individual universities — can provide teens receiving big NIL paydays with some sound and objective fiscal advice. Otherwise, a generation of athletes could learn their lessons the hard way.
