Adrian Peterson illustrates why some athletes quickly go broke.

[Rain Man]

I'll link to support journalism and spam ads, but the bottom line is that he took out a $4 million loan in 2016 at a 15 percent interest rate. He then missed the first payment which, according to the agreement, caused the interest rate to rise to 23 percent.

He paid some of it back, but the balance was due in 2018 and now he's been in court and has been ordered to pay $2.4 million.

So let's talk about everything that he did wrong here.

1. First off, you have career earnings of $99 million to date. Why do you need a loan in the first place?

2. Second, you got a loan at a 15 percent interest rate, which then rose to 23 percent? Really? Were you shopping for the highest rate you could find? Did you misunderstand that a lower rate is better?

3. Here's the web site of the company that loaned him the money. https://www.democracycapital.com/ It looks like a 14 year-old created the web site in ten minutes. If you do a whois on that site, you end up on this site http://jimplacknews.com/, where some guy is making an argument that he can help athletes manage their money, apparently by securing loans for them at outrageous interest rates.

4. If you're going to borrow a large amount of money at usury rates, don't miss a payment and pay it off as soon as possible.

What on earth was so valuable to Adrian Peterson that he would do something like this? This whole thing is pretty much the stupidest thing I've ever seen anyone do. If he borrowed $4 million at a 23 percent interest rate, that means that he's been paying about $1 million a year in interest over the past two years. He's grossing about $2.5 million per year with the Redskins https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/washingt...peterson-4753/, so by the time you take out agent fees and taxes and stuff, he's been paying roughly two-thirds of his annual take-home income in INTEREST payments on this single loan.

Is Adrian mentally challenged or something? It seems like someone ought to get sued or arrested over this.

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/...d-pay-back-24m

It looks like it's not the first time he's done something like this, either. He borrowed $2.4 million in 2018 and defaulted on it. http://www.startribune.com/adrian-pe...000/473207503/ WTF are you doing, Adrian?

[displacedinMN]

Originally Posted by rabblerouser

That's fair; sounds like we'd get nothing from him.

Neither did the Vikings for three seasons.

[MahiMike]

If it wasn't for football, we'd never have heard of him and he wouldn't be so broke now.

[rabblerouser]

Originally Posted by displacedinMN

Neither did the Vikings for three seasons.

BOOM!

[ThaVirus]

This isn't strictly an athlete thing either.

I had an old coworker with a girlfriend who bought a used car with a loan sporting either 18 or 23% interest, I can't remember which exactly. I just remember being floored when he told me.

[Iowanian]

It's almost like his employer doesn't offer training on finances and making your money work for you.

It's almost like these guys never took any economy, finance or basic mathematics classes at a university they were paid via scholarship to attend.

[Flying High D]

I tutored football players at college, oh my it was brutal.

[rabblerouser]

Originally Posted by Iowanian

It's almost like his employer doesn't offer training on finances and making your money work for you.

It's almost like these guys never took any economy, finance or basic mathematics classes at a university they were paid via scholarship to attend.

It's almost like they didn't pay attention when they were told about those things at their rookie orientation...

[Valiant]

Most athletes are dumb as **** with money, regardless of color.

They don't want to listen to the boring rules and living not like a rockstar.

The main problem is these guys think they have the full amount and it is not going away for a long while.

Take a average player. In the league 3 years might make 1.4 million.
Taxes from everywhere, lucky to get 700k. But he bought him a house, car, momma a house and knocked up a gold digger. 200k left hopefully after not being picked up. Maybe he can sign in Canada. But child support will sap that money. Effectively broke, have to sell his house, hopefully he paid it off.

Player that signs a good contract extension, plays 8 or 9 years and makes 65million. Hopefully receives 30mil after everything. Buys momma a house gets him a 6million dollar home and multiple cars. Multiple kids. Taxes on cars and properties eat away. Then he finds out his friends or company stole 15 million.

These guys do not listen. Teams should pay ex players who went broke and a firm to tell them how to spread their money out for their lifetime to live off of.
They need a yearly reminder what happens.

Honestly, the first person to start this would make a killing from pro teams.

[TinyEvel]

Proof that even the highest paid can fall victim to the payday loan cycle of doom.

[Demonpenz]

being broke is different for these guys as well. I see bankrupt broke athletes still rolling in g-wagons

[BryanBusby]

I would imagine plenty of this has ate away his funds.

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/...birthday-party

[rabblerouser]

Originally Posted by Valiant

These guys do not listen. Teams should pay ex players who went broke and a firm to tell them how to spread their money out for their lifetime to live off of.

They DO have that!

[Young9Cothinho]

There are a lot of people aside from gold diggers whose sole job and purpose is taking advantage of athletes who don't know shit about money. Running backs usually aren't the brightest.

[smithandrew051]

So many broke athletes. Millionaires attempting to live like billionaires is a recipe for disaster.

[FringeNC]

Unfortunately, a personal finance class isn't going to do much good. These athletes have financial advisors. It's an impulse control problem, and those are much harder to solve, especially for young men.