The rise of name, image and likeness pay for college athletes is driving their need for financial coaching and new collaborations with wealth management firms and professionals.
At Oklahoma State University, the new CFO Squad is bringing financial advisors together with finance and accounting professors to provide the OSU Cowboys athletes one-on-one coaching and group educational sessions. The assistance, which will stop short of planning or formalized advice, aims to boost financial literacy. With athletes from every sport getting NIL deals — multimillion-dollar deals in some cases — the program is an example of how some advisors are teaming up with their alma maters to give athletes quality financial education around their newfound wealth.
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OSU is adding a layer of educational resources on top of its
Evers aims to help the athletes think about "the next 50 years of your life," while citing how quickly his three shoulder surgeries ended his football career, he said.
"Shelling out money to 80 of your best friends is not going to sustain your life," Evers said. "Most of the time, the game walks away from you. So what are we doing right now that's going to set you up for success when the game walks away from you?"
Despite the many
"A lot of times, the biggest problem is them even finding the 1099," she said, referring to the tax form sent to independent contractors for purposes of filing IRS returns. "It's a conundrum because, if you don't file taxes, you're in a lot of trouble, and that comes after you later."
Other financial literacy initiatives around NIL
Some other schools and advisors are launching similar efforts that may even include an underlying NIL deal. For example, the entire men's lacrosse team with the Hofstra University Pride
"Through this program, we hope to not only support team recruiting and retention, but to also provide the opportunity for these student-athletes to grow in financial literacy, obtain meaningful real-world money management/investment experience and have access to internship opportunities that earn University credits and that will assist them in achieving success in life beyond Hofstra and the lacrosse field," Rinaldi said in a statement.
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Athletes who become advisors have experience-based insight
For many athletes, managing the time and energy commitment required by their teams, plus academic coursework and incoming checks, "can be very overwhelming," Evers said. The individual sessions with certified public accountants and advisors like Evers through the CFO Squad will remind athletes that "these paychecks run out very quickly" for most of them and they would benefit from getting professional fiduciary advice, he said.
"Savings and tax efficiency should be the first thing mentioned by every financial advisor who chooses to work with athletes," Evers said. "That's something I wish would have been brought to me."
With NCAA sports generating billions of dollars each year and top NIL earners netting millions annually, athletes turned advisors could play a pivotal role in boosting financial literacy among players on their former teams, their families and across college athletics, Kuzmeski said.
"Brendon has been there — he understands them, and there's a lot to be said for that," she said. "You have some notoriety as an athlete, and you also have a lot of discipline and a lot of other things that are really positive in the financial services. … It's a whole new world and it really needs financial advisors."
