Why Professional Athletes Must Have A Prenup

Professional athletes who get married simply must have a prenup – and it might not be for the reason that you think.

Yes, they’re rich, and rich people should consider prenups. Sure, they’re in a profession with a high divorce rate. Could they be targets for gold-diggers, absolutely.

But the real reason professional athletes need prenups even more than most of us is because of how concentrated the time they receive their income is – compared to the time that they put in to earn that income, and the time they need that money to last.

The general rule is that if you get divorced, the money you earned during the marriage is up for division.

Concentrated Earnings and the Risk

For non-pro-athletes, career earnings generally look like this:

If you get married at 25 and divorced at 30, this is what’s up for division.

Meanwhile, your average pro athlete might make 90% of their lifetime earnings in under 5 years.

The average NFL career is less than 4 years.
The average NBA career is less than 5 years.
The average MLB and NHL careers are less than 6 years.

So their career earnings looks like this:

The Lifetime Impact

Consider an NFL player who begins their journey in elementary school, playing Pop Warner football. His lifetime earnings all came from 8 years in the pros, but he worked on his game unpaid for 15 years before he ever saw a paycheck. And because of the beating his body took during his career, he needs surgeries, medications, physical therapy – he’s long retired, but he’s still “earning” that money every morning when he drags himself out of bed.

If you don’t have a prenup though, a judge gets to split up your money when you get divorced, and they’re used to splitting it up based on this:

How a Prenup Protects Athletes

A prenup can protect the pro athlete by making sure most of their lifetime earnings aren’t up for division at age 30 – a prenup helps athletes make their money last for life.