But it is only the beginning.
Opportunity awaits.
What does your future hold?
We’ve been the financial advisory firm for over one-hundred-fifteen professional athletes across three professional sports leagues.
Their future became…
120+
Players
Advised
1
Hall of Fame
Inductee
20
MLB All-Star
Players
2
Cy Young
Award Winners
37
First Round
Draft Picks
Every future takes its own course.
Our experience has given us unique perspective. Building a successful financial strategy for the professional athlete requires a broad range of financial expertise.
At CORE, our clients gain access to a team of experienced individuals with diverse backgrounds.
75+ years of combined experience advising athletes across professional sports
We’ve been here before
For you this is unfamiliar territory. Financial decision making can seem overwhelming. Our first move is to always transition from confusion to focused intent. You need the right people in the right position teaming up to work towards the right goal. But a winning cycle also demands something else: the careful strategizing of several key parts.
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Financial planning is a process, not a product. Put simply, it’s about three things: figuring out your opportunities financially, naming your goals, and building a plan to reach those goals. Every stage of life brings new challenges, so wisely managing your finances requires a long-term, consistent and well executed financial plan.
Think of it as the game plan: the hard work and preparation pay off when the plan is perfectly executed and you walk away with the win.
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Wealth management is a multi-faceted approach to grow, protect, use and gift wealth. It requires integration, customization, adaptation, and collaboration. A higher level of wealth brings greater demands and complexities to the wealth management process.
Comprehensive wealth management includes investment management and strategy, income and expense monitoring, cash flow analysis, budgeting, tax and estate planning, financial reporting, insurance assessment and more.
Think of it as the synergy of a winning series: the strategy and synchronization of one million and one things coming together.
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Tax planning and compliance are simple to explain, yet require a high level of experience, detail and efficiency to achieve. Successful tax planning and compliance is an essential part of your financial wellbeing: it constantly requires the juggling of reducing tax liabilities, achieving tax-efficient portfolios, and fulfilling all federal, state and even city specific tax obligations in a timely manner.
Think of it as the rule book: it governs all aspects of the game… whether you like it or not, you have to play by the rules.
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Asset protection strategizing has at its focus one thing: protecting your wealth. Accumulating wealth, getting married, acquiring assets and real estate and maybe a bit of fame all bring along exposure to financial and legal risk. Implementing techniques to reduce and eliminate threats to your wealth is critical to your financial success.
Think of it as avoiding bad press: staying out of the headlines.
- Yogi Berra
If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.
Your moment has arrived.
Now is the time for fact gathering and number crunching. This stage can sometimes be inadvertently overlooked – but it is of utmost importance.
Options present themselves: Sign? College? Now? Later? How much should my signing bonus be to accommodate my desires? How much of my signing bonus do I keep after taxes? All these questions and their resulting calculations need to be solidified prior to the draft. We will work together with your agent during this critical decision making time.
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The critical component of this stage is the signing bonus: also known as life changing money.
With the future full of unknowns at this stage in the game, the signing bonus must be protected. If an athlete enjoys a ten-year MLB career, the long-term significance of the signing bonus starts to decrease. But the future is unknown at this point, and treating the signing bonus as substantially significant is critical. Other key pieces in this stage include residency and state tax issues related to the signing bonus and its allocation, any plans for financial gifts, evaluating risk to protect assets, and building a tax-efficient, conservative portfolio for capital preservation.
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Focus during this stage shifts to cash flow budgeting and income and expense monitoring.
Emphasis remains on a long-term view of investments and the preservation of the signing bonus. Tax planning can expand to be multi-jurisdictional but remains limited in this stage, and some athletes find this stage brings substantial life changes – possibly marrying, and for some, an expanding family.
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The big leagues bring with them some big planning opportunities.
Critical to this stage is risk assessment and asset protection – having enough of the right kind of insurance is crucial. Athletes are now faced with opportunities to make a home purchase, reduce any debt, and execute plans for charitable causes. Tax planning becomes multi-faceted in this stage as a player travels and is now required to file in most states (and even several cities) in addition to filing federally and in his state of residency (the average MLB player now has twelve tax returns to file in multiple jurisdictions).
Investment performance needs to be closely monitored, while simultaneously focusing on tax efficiency and expanding to more moderate investments for capital appreciation.
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The transition from playing professional baseball to retirement can be difficult – in many ways, including financially.
Focus shifts to building an income producing portfolio that generates cash flow to supplement or cover current living expenses. Cash flow budgeting focuses on current assets and needs, and thorough income and expense monitoring keeps the players’ financial plan successful. Asset protection and tax planning and compliance are still high priorities in this stage, as well as legacy and charitable planning.
The professional athlete will always face the same five financial obstacles.
Every season has it’s own challenges, but some obstacles are constant regardless of where you are in your career.
(Too many) Friends:
Living (too) Large:
‘Til (financial) Death Do Us Part:
(The wrong) Money Moves:
Reasonable gifting is understandable – excessive gifting (having too many friends in need) can erode wealth in the most basic way - by giving it all away. Some athletes make this mistake early… and sadly the money is gone before their career path is even determined.
An athlete who adopts a lifestyle during his playing career that is not sustainable for life after baseball and who is unable (or unwilling) to make drastic changes is a financial ticking time bomb. Spending more than a lifetime of money in a ten-year time period is hard to fathom but it can happen.
Marrying a spouse with an opposing mindset towards money can be destructive to a relationship and to maintaining wealth. Unfortunately, divorce also carries a reputation for ruining many financially prosperous futures.
Getting too cute, too creative or too greedy with investments is like playing with fire. Investing in private businesses, the latest trends or going rogue instead of traditional investing typically backfires in an irreparable way.
And Equally Important…
Picking a (lousy) Advisor:
Choosing the right advisor is critical to avoiding financial failure. Selecting an advisor that tells you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear can prove to be a life-altering decision.
Cautionary Statement
Financial decisions are complex and can have long lasting and sometimes permanent consequences. The material contained within this site is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as a solicitation of business. As an individual investor’s needs, risk tolerance, financial situation and objectives vary, suitability should be discussed with an advisor. Past results and/or performance is not an indication of future results and/or performance. CORE is not endorsing or recommending any strategies contained within this site.