Broke Summary

I recently had the opportunity to watch the ESPN documentary Broke. Broke looks into how a myriad of professional athletes end up broke not long after their retirement. Athletes in the present day are making more money than ever before. In spite of this increase in wages, more and more of todays’ athletes are also going bankrupt shortly after retirement. Over the course of its hour and a half run-time, Broke examines how and why many of todays athletes are able to mismanage their money so brazenly. While the documentary presented a multitude of explanations as for how and why athletes manage to squander their wealth, the three that resonated with me the most were: bad business investments, significant others and overall excess. When one earns an income that both exceeds general living needs and tax liabilities, it is natural to seek out good investments to allow your personal wealth to expand. Investing disposable income is hardly a foolish idea for athletes. It is foolish when they invest in projects with vague returns and shady investees. The two traits that are most prevalent in failed investments that are made by athletes was that they are made in restaurants and bars and that the
It is all too common for professional athletes to live outside their means. The reason being that these athletes mistake their millions for unlimited wealth. Since these athletes are earning more in a year than some of their ancestors could even dreamed about making in a lifetime; these mistaken assumptions are understandable. There were countless examples of excess spending by athletes presented in this article. Of all these, I was most taken aback when one of the interviewees mentioned that he had spent $40,000 in a month. When you consider the fact that the average American family of 4 earns roughly $40,000 annually, this figure is particularly jaw