Money Players

Money Players is all about being the best resource for the business of being a professional athlete. Here are some links from around the web that we think are must reads for any current or aspiring professional athlete and their families.

• Sean Deveney reports on the National Basketball Players Association's high-growth entrepreneurship program. This summer the program offered NBA players four days of intense business classes and workshops at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management, one of the nation's best business schools. This is something that any NBA Player with an interest in investing in or starting a business should get involved in. The gold in the article comes from, program director, Professor Steve Rogers: "Every single athlete is approached with get-rich ideas all the time," Rogers said. "But they don't have the tools to evaluate those ideas. Their focus is basketball. They should be saying no to these deals almost every time. At big venture capital firms, they will get 3,000 business plans per year, and they'll say yes to, maybe, eight of them. Of those eight, not all are going to work out. Sometimes a solid, legitimate business idea just doesn't work. What makes things harder for high-profile people like athletes is that a lot of the people who are offering them these deals are not legitimate. That's where this program is aimed to help."
  
  
• Speaking of athlete’s not being prepared to make sound business investments, Valley Wag composed a list of the worst athlete-backed internet startups of all time.
  
  
• Sam Smith gives us thoughts on the exodus of NBA players to Europe this summer. The comment section of the post is really pretty interesting.
  
  
• The Economist has a great special report on the globalization of sports.
  
  
• A lesson to be learned: Chose your agents and your business managers wisely. These are just accusations at this point, but $500K is a lot of money to lose.
  
  
• An outstanding breakdown by CBS Sportsline’s Gary Parrish on the quid pro quo aspect of college basketball recruiting. I would also recommend reading Parrish’s article on the Elite Camps.
  
  
• Sticking with the theme of Parrish’s article, Baylor hires the AAU coach of top recruit, John Wall, as their player development head.
  
  
• Tom Ziller of Fanhouse looks at the production of the 2004 NBA draft class last season versus the contract extensions they received. Just a hint: The order of salaries isn’t in step with who produces the most.
  
  
• Forbes has a cover story on the most powerful coach in sports: "[Saban] was given total control of the football program: recruiting, coaching, business administration and public relations. There are coaches at other universities who have similar salaries, like Charlie Weis at Notre Dame and Pete Carroll at the University of Southern California. But no coach, including those in the professional leagues, can match Saban's combination of money, control and influence. Saban, now entering his second year as the coach of the Alabama Crimson Tide, is the most powerful coach in sports.”
  

--Nate Jones

For more in-depth information on the business of being a professional athlete, purchase , written by our own Marc Isenberg.