Boris Becker Bankrupt

[jollystomper]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mickeyd How do folks who make that much money fail to keep it? I heard a comment on TV last week (unconfirmed) that Johnny Depp had made $600M in his career yet he now had "financial difficulties."

Here is a good article on how one can blow through $5 million (as sum 99.9% of us on this forum could live on easily and leave an inheritance): ESPN.com - OTL: How to blow $5 million

Add on a few more hangers on/folks to support, and the fact that once folks find out you have that much you become a target for all kinds of investments and frauds, and many do no know how to say "no"... and one can understand.

Also remember when you hear the statement "such-and-such has earnings of $XX million" that is always before taxes. So you need to mentally reduce the amount by at least 38%.

[Sojourner]

If you think about it, pro athletes are generally on the extreme end of the "financial illiteracy" spectrum. IOW, most are probably in the top 0.1% in terms of income and in the bottom 5% when it comes to personal finance acumen. I'm basing that last estimate on the fact that most pro athletes spend the vast, vast majority of their waking hours throughout their teens and early adulthood focusing exclusively on training and practicing and intensively developing their athletic skills, while spending a minuscule amount of time learning about anything else. So then when their bank accounts start filling up with what must seem like almost infinite amounts of money, they have no education and no perspective on how to manage and allocate those (in reality, large but limited) funds.

Considering the widespread lack of personal finance and investing skills among the general population, it's no wonder that successful pro athletes--most of whom probably gave only cursory attention to their academic education--would be even less competent at managing their money.