If a young athlete earns life-changing money at 18 or 19 years old, who is actually responsible for helping that athlete preserve it, protect it and build something lasting from it? That was NBA champion and Finals MVP Jaylen Brown’s question when he recently criticized the traditional athlete advisory model. Is the sports industry still introducing athletes to legal and financial planning too late?
For decades, the answer was yes. A player signed a professional contract, hired an agent, met with a financial advisor, found a CPA before tax season and, at some much later point, considered estate planning. By then, the athlete may already have had real estate, endorsement income, investment accounts, business ventures, intellectual property rights, and family obligations pulling in different directions.
That sequence was not designed for today’s sports economy. Name Image Likeness (NIL) deals have moved the starting line.
Athletes are no longer waiting until the draft to encounter serious legal and financial decisions. Many are forming entities, negotiating sponsorships, licensing their name, image, and likeness, paying taxes, investing income, supporting family members, and building brands with real commercial value before they ever become professionals, or even college students.
That is the opportunity. NIL gives the sports industry a chance to introduce better planning while wealth is being created, not after mistakes have already been made.
Universities, collectives, and brands can help by expanding NIL education beyond contracts, taxes, and disclosure rules. Even a basic program covering powers of attorney, healthcare directives, beneficiary designations, trusts, business entities, and coordinated advisors would give athletes a clearer understanding of the legal infrastructure that should support their earning potential. The goal is not to turn every athlete into a legal or financial expert. It is to help athletes recognize when a decision has consequences beyond the immediate deal and when additional advice is necessary before they sign, invest, transfer or commit.
Proper Financial Planning for a Young Athlete Should Be a Team Effort
In NIL deals, the first commercial agreement is often treated primarily as a marketing opportunity when it may also be the athlete’s first significant business transaction. A sponsorship agreement can affect taxes, entity structure, exclusivity, intellectual property rights, usage rights, payment timing, family expectations, and long-term brand control. It may also include morality clauses, termination rights, indemnification obligations, social-media requirements, and restrictions that extend beyond the stated term of the agreement. Those issues do not fit neatly into one professional lane and should be reviewed as part of a broader planning strategy rather than in isolation.
A proper financial plan should address more than investments or what happens after death. It should account for how the athlete’s business, contractual, financial, and personal affairs work together during the athlete’s career and beyond.
Who manages financial affairs if the athlete is injured or temporarily incapacitated? Who makes healthcare decisions? Are the athlete’s business entities, endorsement agreements, intellectual property rights, investment accounts, beneficiary designations, powers of attorney and insurance arrangements coordinated so that ownership, decision-making authority, and succession are consistent with the athlete’s goals? As public visibility increases, has the athlete appropriately separated personal and commercial affairs?
No single advisor should be expected to do every job. Agents negotiate opportunities. Financial advisors manage investments. Certified Public Accountants address tax compliance and planning. Insurance professionals evaluate risk. Attorneys document rights, obligations, ownership, and succession. Building a team that understands when another professional needs to be in the room may be one of the most valuable services an advisor can provide to a young athlete.
Decisions made in one area often create consequences in another. The entity selected to receive NIL income may affect tax reporting, liability exposure, contract rights, and long-term ownership of the athlete’s brand. An endorsement agreement may generate immediate income while also restricting future sponsorship opportunities or granting broad rights to use the athlete’s name, image, likeness, or content. A financial investment may appear attractive but create liquidity, concentration or governance concerns that require legal and tax review. Without communication among advisors, each professional may address only one part of a decision while missing how the pieces fit together.
A serious injury, family dispute, tax issue, business opportunity or sudden increase in income can expose gaps quickly.
The athlete also needs clarity about who is serving as the quarterback for the advisory team. That person does not need to control every decision, but someone should be responsible for identifying issues, coordinating information, and ensuring that significant transactions receive the appropriate legal, tax, financial and insurance review. Otherwise, important questions may fall between professional disciplines, particularly when an athlete is young, deals are moving quickly and family members or business partners are also involved.
Trusts Can Create Guardrails Before Problems Arise.
Allen Iverson’s reported Reebok arrangement illustrates the benefits of a trust. Public accounts describe a lifetime endorsement agreement that provides annual payments and places a substantial amount in trust until Iverson reaches age 55. Iverson has said that his contract prevents him from discussing the terms, so the precise structure is not publicly verifiable. Even with that caveat, the reported arrangement offers a useful lesson: A trust can separate current cash flow from long-term capital and prevent every dollar from being immediately available for spending. That kind of structure allows the athlete and the advisory team to establish rules while circumstances are stable and before spending pressure, family requests or business opportunities arise.
Depending on the athlete’s goals, a trust can use an independent trustee, staged distributions, defined purposes, or other standards to preserve a long-term reserve. The governing law, tax
consequences, ownership of the assets and the athlete’s retained control must be evaluated carefully; a trust should not be presented as automatic creditor protection or a substitute for sound tax and investment advice.
For athletes earning NIL income, a plan might direct a defined portion of income toward taxes, education, long-term investment, or a trust with staged access, while leaving sufficient funds available for present needs and business development. The objective is to create deliberate friction so that short-term decisions do not consume the capital needed for life after athletics.
Keep It Practical.
Not every athlete needs a complex plan on day one. But athletes earning meaningful NIL income should be encouraged to:
- Build an advisory team early that includes legal, tax, financial and insurance professionals— not just an agent.
- Designate one trusted advisor to coordinate the team and make sure major decisions receive the right review.
- Have every NIL and endorsement agreement reviewed for taxes, exclusivity, intellectual property rights, termination provisions, and long-term restrictions.
- Establish a plan for dividing income among taxes, current expenses, education, investments, and long-term savings.
- Put essential legal protections in place, including powers of attorney, healthcare directives, and updated beneficiary designations.
- Consider whether business entities, trusts or other planning arrangements are appropriate to separate personal and commercial affairs, create spending guardrails and support long-term wealth preservation.
Brown is right to press the issue. If the sports industry wants athletes to preserve wealth, build a legacy and make informed decisions, planning cannot begin after the biggest contract is signed.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
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