After the lights go out — Looking beyond the game
The NFL pre-season is underway, and for those players who are competing for a spot, the pressure is on. In just a few short weeks, when the final rosters are turned in, what will happen to the guys who do not make the cut?
The perception that all athletes make millions, have career longevity and leave the game set for life is quite inaccurate. With the average NFL career approximately 3.5 years long and the average annual salary just under $1 million, the majority do not have the ability to retire from professional sports and not work. And, the fact is, only recently have salaries gone up in the NFL — leaving a lot of retired players who did not make a lot of money.
Compounding the problem is the fact that most players leave the game without a college degree. According to the NFL Players Association (NFLPA), 70 percent of all current players have not completed their college education, even though the overwhelming majority of players who come into the League have attended college for at least four years. Experts agree the athletic pressures placed on college players often have a negative impact on academics, and that the carryover into post-NFL life can be profound.
For this reason, the NFL, the NFLPA, and an organization created by defensive back Ryan McNeil, are making it a priority to work with the players to plan for life beyond the game.
Life Beyond the Game: Making the transition from the locker room to the boardroom
Many people perceive professional athletes as superior performers on the field, but are reluctant to engage them as qualified business professionals off the field. To succeed at the professional level in any sport typically requires perseverance, endurance, hard work and discipline.
Ron George, San Diego Chargers Player Development Coordinator and former NFL player, believes several qualities and traits that are typical of the professional athlete do translate into professional skills. It is his job as Player Development Coordinator to assist the players in building a work history that will facilitate a second career outside the NFL.
“Off the top of my head I can think of several transferable personality traits and habits that will benefit athletes in business including the ability to prioritize, multi-task and think on your feet, good problem solving skills — especially under pressure, and a great deal of determination.”
However, athletes who have spent most of their adult lives playing sports usually have not obtained all the experience needed to be successful in business.
“There is a huge learning curve we have to overcome,” states Ryan McNeil, defensive back for the San Diego Chargers. “Young athletes may look like they have it made, but careers are often short, many NFL contracts are not guaranteed and financial success can evaporate quickly.”
With a little planning, athletes can leave their careers with enough capital to launch a company or enough knowledge and resources to foster a very successful second career. But finding the right guidance and expertise is the toughest part.
“You get so used to playing ball, and you’re always told what to do,” says Bill Neill, whose four-season career with the New York Giants and Green Bay Packers was cut short by knee injuries in 1984. “Now you have to figure out how to make good money outside of football.”
Neill earned an electrical engineering degree from the University of Pittsburgh in 1981, but being in the NFL didn’t help his marketability off the field.
“You almost get put at a disadvantage, because you get out of the traditional job market,” says Neill, who, instead, launched a janitorial supply company in New Jersey after realizing that his degree needed to be supplemented with experience in the field to secure a job.
The challenge for a professional athlete starting their own business or starting off entry level working for someone else, is not being afraid to start over. The natural tendency might be to equate the hesitation to start over “at the bottom” with an athlete’s ego.
George views it differently.
“Take a plumber who has been in business for 10 years independently and is suddenly faced with working for someone else. Resisting it is not an athlete thing, it is a human quality.”
Couple that with the huge reduction in salary, and it’s easy to see that on many levels the hesitation is warranted.
Some athletes try to “maintain a Superman lifestyle in order to live up to the expectations of everyone around them,” offers Jim Corbett, who was a tight end with the Cincinnati Bengals until a career-ending knee injury in 1981. “Stories are everywhere about players who go broke after making bad investments in everything from specialty car businesses to restaurants to construction companies,” he adds.
Another common mistake made by many professional athletes is turning over too much decision-making power to third parties. The tendency for athletes to allow third parties to take too much responsibility for their business and financial decisions, often leaving their financial future in the hands of someone else, is a major hurdle.
Taking a personal stake in a business or financial endeavor and thereby actively being involved in the decision-making process by engaging in the research and preparation phases, provides the opportunity to recognize a potential unsavory situation prior to realizing the negative effects after the fact. Recognizing this problem, the NFLPA has instituted a new program designed to pre-qualify financial advisors. Former federal prosecutor, Kenneth Ballen, was brought in to devise a program for regulating financial advisers.
That program was launched in February 2002. Timely, because an article printed in US News & World Report that same month identified several NFL players who had recently been defrauded of millions of dollars. Specifically, according to the article, “in the last three years alone, 78 NFL players have lost at least $42 million to fraudulent deals.”
The League, The NFLPA and an NFL Veteran: Planning for Success
Defensive back, Ryan McNeil, is in his 11th pro season. But unlike some other players, McNeil has always considered himself a retired athlete in training — planning for the day his athletic career ends and his professional business career begins.
In response to an industry need for promoting business success post-career, McNeil created PBFN, the Professional Business and Financial Network, a membership organization for professional athletes and their spouses that offers tools on how to be successful in business.
It seems a natural leap for McNeil because in 1993, when he entered the league after winning two national championships at the University of Miami, he immediately started his own venture, McNeil Management, which has origins in real estate and technology.
Just as the NFLPA was born from the needs of professional football players, the desires and needs of professional athletes is the genesis of PBFN. PBFN compliments the efforts of the NFLPA by assisting in developing savvy business professionals that will add to the overall objective of both organizations.
“It’s a win-win for all involved, says McNeil. “As NFLPA members get more involved in the issues they face in the League, their thirst for knowledge increases and that is where PBFN can benefit them. Conversely, as PBFN members enhance their business skill sets it will transfer to the activities, input, and policies that make the NFLPA such a powerful entity.”
PBFN can be the catalyst to the NFL’s player development efforts by complimenting the areas of education and benefits offered by the NFL via PBFN’s seminars and workshops. Players can intern with a company where the president, CEO, or senior officer will be an active or former professional athlete via PBFN’s network. Not to mention, PBFN can be a healthy pipeline of talent into the management and corporate ranks of the NFL. This way, players are guaranteed to be in a business environment that is conducive to optimal development.
McNeil, who created PBFN more than two years ago, seeks to create business and knowledge exchange among the group and provides a database to help players with business ventures. Offering a variety of business development tools and networking opportunities at its Web site (www.pbfn.org) and through annual conferences, PBFN is unique in that it caters to athletes from all sports, both genders, and is beneficial to those still playing and those who used to play.
“The emphasis is on business and understanding how and what finances can do for you,” McNeil said. “It’s like a coach giving me a defensive coverage; I’ve got to know the certain way to play that coverage for it to work. Business is the same, because there are certain paths that must be followed to be successful.”
PBFN compliments both the NFL and NFLPA with its breadth of services. This synergistic professional relationship is not only feasible between the NFL and NFLPA but with all professional sports associations worldwide.
“PBFN has inherent synergy with the NFL and its players association because that was the logical place to begin since I am a member of both organizations,” McNeil said. Now that PBFN is displaying its value to one segment of the professional athletic market, we want to provide like synergies with other professional athletic entities such as the NBA, WNBA, MLB, etc.”
Moving Forward
The ultimate goal, according to McNeil, is to get athletes thinking about the next step before they’re actually taking it.
“It will not be easy to sell the concept of preparing for life beyond the game to all professional athletes, but there is no better time than the present,” states McNeil.
As new skills are developed and learned, McNeil’s hope is this knowledge will continue to be shared by all until a domino effect takes place and changes the way professional athletes think about their futures.
