I heard an interview today on the Mike and Mike ESPN radio show today wherein a former athlete was discussing the financial plight of former athletes. This is a legitimate subject, especially for the many former ones who only played a few years. But the basic implication of the talk was that outside of the very top level of athletes, the Lebron James, the Peyton Mannings etc, pretty much most other professional athletes will need future careers. In fact, a huge chunk of former athletes who've played professionally in top leagues, (NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB) for more than about two years, should be in great shape financially, as they should easily have been able to save 60-80% of their take home pay. Of course this doesn't happen, but it would be so easy for well paid athletes to be FIRE in just a few years; even playing at league minimums, after a couple of years a player should have about 400k invested and making more year after year, this isn't rocket science.