"How To: Not Be Too Sad About Money, When You Have Too Much of It" - Contest Entry

[Requiemx]

I have two words to discuss in this topic, overpaid and overplayed. These are the two choice words I will be using to discuss first, our overpaid basketball players and second, overplayed lockouts.

Understandably, the idea of overpaid players and lockouts can certainly be used for a few other sports out there, but I’m choosing to focus on basketball for two reasons. One and most obvious, the NBA is in the midst of a lockout and second, I am much more knowledgeable in the realm of professional basketball then any other sport.

Many of you are probably thinking the same thing that I was prior to writing my thoughts on this subject. Something along the lines of, yes Chris, most of us already feel that professional athletes are overpaid and the lockout discussion is overplayed. Although, I ask that you please just bare with me on this as I’m going to try describing this in a different light.

I am going to attempt a hypothetical situation, where I, the one and only Christopher J. Ahlman, measuring in at a boring 5’8” and skimpy 150 pounds am now a moderately paid point guard in the NBA. Well, moderate in comparison to some of my NBA counterparts.

Please also understand that I know that some players ‘only’ make $500,000 in a single season and only last a year or two in the big leagues. I am not so much targeting those guys in this experiment, rather going after the guys who make even over a couple million dollars per year and complain that they don’t make enough money.

For the sake of our experiment, we’re going to pretend that I had a moderately successful 14 year career in which I made $60 million, after taxes. This figure also included my Nike, Gatorade, Lexus and Sesame Street endorsements, commercials, promotions and the works.

Right off the bat, after my first chunk of pay, I decided to start up a small restaurant and 14 years later it’s making enough money for the average parent to support a family of three. Things are going great! I was also able to purchase my wife and self, parents, grandparents, three siblings and a few random people whom I care for, brand new homes at $750,000 each, not to mention brand new vehicles at $25,000 each. By the way, the cost to start up my restaurant was $100.000. With that sort of cash spent, everyone I care about now have beautiful homes and excellent vehicles. Let’s just go ahead and also say that I feel like being generous and I go off and pay everyone’s utilities, car insurance, cell phone bills and basically any other sort of normal bill that a person encounters. I do this for the next full year which ends up costing me $200,000.

So we now have a grand total of roughly $9.6 million spent, leaving me with a comfortable $50.4 million remaining. Boohoo, poor me. Sorry about that, slight sarcasm interlude.

Here is the crucial step that I think many athletes seem to forget about. If you are going to be supporting more people then just your wife, children and self, for the rest of all of their lives and most, if not all, of them are not financially contributing, you’re going to go broke even if you have so much dough you need to hire an entire team of financial advisors.

You also, will not be the prime athlete that every coach wants you to be
for much more then 10 years. With that being said, after you purchase all of your loved ones dependable life lasting homes and excellent reliable vehicles, you must make it clear to all of them that they will be working and earning anything else that they want on their own. This is not some sort of way to say that you do not love them, or way of calling them lazy, this is solely your insurance so you don’t end up like Antoine Walker or many other former NBA players who five years after they retire from the league, go broke.

The reason I would go ahead and pay everyone’s bills for one year each is so they would now have time to save up a nice chunk of money in case they ever need it in the future and of course a way for them to have a little fun as well.

If you are an athlete and are asking yourself this question, “but what if I’m a highly paid athlete and even after I buy him or her a new home and car, not to mention all bills and expenses paid for a full year, they are upset with me that they still have to work and I won’t give them more money?”

Disown them and don’t look back or else you‘ll just trip on what is in front of you. I, as an overpaid athlete, yes the great Christopher J. Ahlman, am telling you right now that I guarantee that person only can see a huge dollar sign running around in a pair of Nike’s when looking at you if he or she is honestly going to be upset about that deal.

Alright, we now have all of our people taken care of and everyone, who is worth a damn, is happy!

This next one is completely up to you and your personal preference, which I suppose would tie in with what sort of family relationships you may have, but I personally wouldn’t make my mother work another day in her life. Everything she would want, would be given. I can say this because I know that my mother is not going to approach me guilt-tripping me into a $10 million dollar necklace and $500,000 vehicle. Everyone, in most situations, has someone outside of their significant other and children who have been there for them throughout their lives and this is that one person you should support for the end of yours, his or her days.

Let’s move along to the part that I think the other majority of athletes make mistakes with and end up claiming bankruptcy. As mentioned above, there are far too many athletes who not only find it necessary to financially support everyone close to them for the rest of their lives, but also feel the need to purchase these people with the finest of the finest items.

Stop buying everyone you know, or even yourself bling, bling! You and your family will feel great and survive well and fine without having the cost of a Ferrari around their neck and a down payment to a house on their wrist! I would hope that I’d not buy anyone anything ridiculous like that for two reasons. One, I am trying to avoid going broke, but more importantly I wouldn’t want someone I love being robbed or murdered over an item of any kind.

Next up, why can’t we just be happy knowing we have a beautiful home and a really nice vehicle or two?

Do we really need to purchase ourselves three overpriced homes and six $500,000 vehicles and then demand five to ten years later that the owners need to pay us more money, which really translates into, I really don’t give a hoot about the financially average, or especially poor, fans being able to attend games when my son can only afford the brand new Dodge Charger and must cry himself to sleep because he won’t get the new series BMW because of these cheap disgusting fans.

One very important thing I must throw in here while I’m at it, considering I am a famous NBA superstar and feel that more players need to follow in my footsteps. I will sign autographs before, at halftime or after each home game! If I do not for whatever reason, I have the flu and am extremely contagious, or I am just not at the game all together for whatever reason, then one of my teammates will take my place and you fans will feel appreciated by us! You will feel like you are in a time machine, where even back in the early ‘90’s players would take a few minutes to sign some autographs for the people who make my, more then comfortable lifestyle, possible.

I’m not sure if this is just a huge problem at The Rose Garden, home of the Trailblazers, or if it is viral across the league, but players do not sign any autographs anymore, before, during or after games. If you attempt to get an autograph, security will bum rush you or the players will completely ignore you like you are some sort of annoying peasant asking the royal king for a crumb of bread.

Although, I must confess, there is a solution to this problem that I have failed to mention and I feel ashamed as if I have lied to you all and lead you astray. You can always go to the concession stands and purchase one of the players’ autographs on a basketball, tee shirt, poster or cup for roughly $100.00 to $1,000.00.

Possibly, a decade from now, you might catch a price break a get their initials on a used napkin for $50.00.

Honestly, I wanted to write something very uplifting and give everyone that comfortable feeling that you get when everyone in the family gets along well over Thanksgiving dinner, but with this lockout going on in the NBA and I’m noticing most fans asking when will it end, rather then asking, how can these jerks be arguing about money and ruining the sport for me, the fan, when already they certainly make plenty enough money for your regular person to live a fantastic life, well it made me feel the need to say something and sort of put together this little, “How To: Not Be Too Sad About Money, When You Have Too Much of It” report.

[spuds1961]

Fun read,and I agree with most of your points,take care Steve

[Requiemx]

Thanks alot Steve.

I really appreciate to hear the compliments as I love to write and hearing that from you makes me motivated to keep it up.

Regards,

Christopher J.

[Pheebs888]

Very interesting indeed! Posted here: https://www.sportscardforum.com/artic...oo-much-of-it/