The Money Playbook of a NFL-Player-Turned-Financial-Guru: How Brandon Copeland to Manage Money Like a Pro

35m
Before Brandon Copeland was at the NFL, he was tackling a business education at Wharton. Now, he's back on his finance game and ready to nerd out with Nicole. Brandon tells Nicole how he bucked the trend and turned his NFL money into real wealth, how much he made his first year at the NFL, and what he thinks of the new NFL and private equity opportunities.
Check out Brandon's new book here: YourMoneyPlaybook.com
All investing involves the risk of loss, including loss of principal. Brokerage services for US-listed, registered securities, options and bonds in a self-directed account are offered by Open to the Public Investing, member FINRA & SIPC. Public Investing offers a High-Yield Cash Account where funds from this account are automatically deposited into partner banks where they earn interest and are eligible for FDIC insurance; Public Investing is not a bank.

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Runtime: 35m

Transcript

Speaker 1 Here's one piece of advice that I've given for years: build an emergency fund. Aim to stash away enough to cover at least three months of expenses in case your income suddenly drops.

Speaker 1 Sounds simple, right? But let's be honest, it's not. Saving even one month's worth of living costs can feel impossible.

Speaker 1 Just when you're making progress, that check engine light blinks on and derails your plans. Life already throws enough curveballs.
You don't need your bank adding to the chaos.

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Speaker 1 Work on your financial goals through Chime today. Open an account in just two minutes at chime.com/slash MNN.
That's chime.com/slash MNN. Chime feels like progress.

Speaker 3 Chime is a financial technology company, not a bank, banking services and debit card provided by the Bankor Bank NA or Stripe Bank NA, members FDIC.

Speaker 3 Spot me eligibility requirements and overdraft limits apply. Timing depends on submission of payment file.
Fees apply it out of network ATMs, bank ranking, and number of ATMs, according to U.S.

Speaker 3 News and World Report 2023. Chime checking account required.

Speaker 1 Here's one piece of advice that I've given for years. Build an emergency fund.
Aim to stash away enough to cover at least three months of expenses in case your income suddenly drops.

Speaker 1 Sounds simple, right? But let's be honest, it's not. Saving even one month's worth of living costs can feel impossible.

Speaker 1 Just when you're making progress, that check engine light blinks on and derails your plans. Life already throws enough curveballs.
You don't need your bank adding to the chaos.

Speaker 1 That's why it's so important to choose one that makes savings easy and doesn't nibble away at your hard-earned money with ridiculous fees. QIIME understands that every dollar counts.

Speaker 1 That's why when you set up direct deposit through QIIME, you get access to fee-free features like free overdraft coverage, getting paid up to two days early with direct deposit, and more.

Speaker 1 With qualifying direct deposits, you're eligible for free overdraft up to $200 on debit card purchases and cash withdrawals. To date, QIIME has spotted members over $30 billion.

Speaker 1 Work on your financial goals through QIIME today. Open an account in just two minutes at chime.com slash MNN.
That's chime.com slash MNN. Chime feels like progress.

Speaker 3 Chime is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services and debit card provided by the Bank Corporate Bank NA or Stripe Bank NA, members of FDIC.

Speaker 3 Spot me eligibility requirements and overdraft limits apply. Timing depends on submission of payment file.
Fees apply at Out of Network ATMs, bank ranking, and number of ATMs, according to U.S.

Speaker 3 News and World Report 2023. Chime, checking account required.

Speaker 4 I live in LA now, but lately I have been craving the seasons. Snow, hot cocoa, the whole thing.

Speaker 4 I don't even ski, but I have been daydreaming about working remotely from somewhere really cozy on the East Coast, like a cute little ski town for a little bit.

Speaker 4 And whenever I know I'm going to be gone for a while, I always remind myself that my home can actually be working for me while I'm away because I host my space on Airbnb.

Speaker 4 It is one of the easiest ways to earn passive income from something you already have and that extra income feels particularly helpful this time of year as we approach the holidays.

Speaker 4 A lot of my friends say, that sounds amazing, but where do you find the time to manage guests and bookings? And that's when I tell them about Airbnb's co-host network.

Speaker 4 Through Airbnb, you can find a local co-host who can help you set up your listing, handle reservations, communicate with guests, provide on-site support, even help with design and styling.

Speaker 4 I like to give a personal touch when I'm hosting on Airbnb. So I make a list of my favorite restaurants in the area and I handwrite a note welcoming my guests to the property.

Speaker 4 My guests love it, but I also know that some of those little personal touches can take a lot of extra time. So this is the exact kind of thing that you would want your co-host to help you with.

Speaker 4 Whether you're traveling for work or chasing the snow or escaping it, or you've got a second place that just sits there empty more often than you'd like, your home doesn't have to just sit there.

Speaker 4 You can make extra money from it without taking on extra work. Find a co-host at airbnb.com slash host.

Speaker 6 I'm Nicole Lapin, the only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. It's time for some money rehab.

Speaker 1 Hey Money Rehabbers, it's Morgan Lavoy, the executive producer of the show. This week, you're going to hear three of our favorite episodes that Nicole taped before she went on maternity leave.

Speaker 1 And in honor of the Super Bowl, congrats to all the Eagles fans out there, we're going to play an episode that Nicole taped with NFL player turned financial guru, Brandon Copeland. Enjoy.

Speaker 6 I like to think of Brandon Copeland as Troy Balton from High School Musical, but instead of juggling basketball and musical theater, he's juggled football and finance.

Speaker 6 Brandon played for the NFL for 10 years on different teams, but his first and his last team was the Ravens, his home team.

Speaker 6 But before he was tackling competing NFL players, he was tackling investments at UBS. And even when he was at the NFL, he would run into the locker room to check his options trades.
Seriously.

Speaker 6 Today we talk about how he bucked the trend and turned his NFL money into real wealth, which he talks about in his new book, Your Money Playbook, which you can find in the episode description.

Speaker 6 Brendan also tells me how much he actually made his first year in the NFL and what he thinks of the new NFL private equity opportunities.

Speaker 7 Brandon Copeland, welcome to Money Rehab.

Speaker 5 Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 7 You graduated from Wharton, one of the most prestigious schools for business in the world. You had interned for UBS for a couple summers in college.

Speaker 7 So that was a job option, but instead you went to Blade for the Baltimore Ravens. So how did that happen?

Speaker 5 Yeah, that was the dream come true to be able to grow up.

Speaker 5 I'm from Baltimore originally, go to my hometown team, play the sport that I love, get to come out in the stadium that I grew up, sitting in the stands with with my granddad and my mom at times, and to be able to come out of that tunnel and go to battle for my hometown.

Speaker 5 I remember graduating from the Wharton School of Business. I didn't actually make my full class graduation because we had to go to Baltimore and do our conditioning test.

Speaker 5 But all I know is I remember going into that whole scenario, just thinking, wow, this is awesome.

Speaker 5 But okay, it's time to get real and get serious because they're firing people around here all the time.

Speaker 5 So technically, I was signed to to a three-year, $1.45 million contract coming out of school my senior year, but I saw 24 grand before being fired the first time. So it got real, real fast.

Speaker 5 But like you said, I was able to scrape, scratch, and claw my way to 10 years in the NFL. So made it happen.

Speaker 7 And that's incredible. So, so 1.4 to 1.5 million for three years.

Speaker 5 Yep. Yep.

Speaker 7 500 grand-ish a year. Is that more than you think you would have made at UBS?

Speaker 5 Ooh, that's a great question. That's your surprise.
How's it going to shit analysis here?

Speaker 5 First time I've ever had that question. You know, I'm a guy who always will bet on himself.
So I want to say in my mind, on paper, yeah, that was a lot more than I would have ever made at UBS, right?

Speaker 5 But the competitor in me likes to say that I would have made it happen. I would have made more at UBS.
Yeah, you would have.

Speaker 7 For sure. But you're not taking home like 500K, right? When all was said and done with agent fees and God knows what.

Speaker 5 Well, well, and even my first year, I was practice squad. So you're not even making the full rookie minimum salary, which was 435 grand at that time.

Speaker 5 And every year it jumps up, jumps up, jumps up, which would have gotten me 1.45.

Speaker 5 But just in general, just so if you're a rookie making, let's say half a million dollars, you got 50% of that money gone taxes.

Speaker 5 And hey, don't play in New York or California because you'll have more than 50% of that money gone when you play in those games.

Speaker 5 Even if you play play in a non-incomes tax state, you play with the Tennessee Titans or the Miami Dolphins or the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Speaker 5 Every place that you go to play, you have to pay those state taxes as well too. So something to keep in mind, 3% goes to your agent typically.
Then you have training fees.

Speaker 5 You have cost of living, right? You got to have an apartment. or a place to stay.
Some people have places to stay in season. Some people have places to stay in the off-season, right?

Speaker 5 Their real true home. And so, yeah,

Speaker 5 the costs add up really, really fast but i do know just in simple math from just more of a tax and cost of doing business standpoint before any expenses there were games that i was playing with the new york jets where i'd see about 46 47 percent of my salary after the game and yeah that's what made me buy a place in florida

Speaker 7 but but throughout all of it you were still day trading while you were playing right you mentioned tennessee so you were playing for the tennessee titans practice squad you were day trading you said you've gone to the bathroom actually to do some exit trades is that true

Speaker 5 yeah yeah well i would tell coach i was going to the bathroom but i'd go back to the locker room and just be exiting out of different trades that i would make that morning did your teammates think you were nuts did they know what you were doing

Speaker 5 Some of them did. The folks whose lockers were closest to me knew what I was doing, but they also saw me winning.
They saw me winning in my portfolio. I had a guy in my rookie year.

Speaker 5 I had a guy come in and bring $20,000 in cash and just literally throw it in my locker and say, hey, let me see what you do with a kid. And yeah, I was just like, whoa,

Speaker 5 I took it home. I took it home.
I went and bet it all on red. No, I'm joking.

Speaker 5 I took it home and I ended up coming back to him the next day and just said, hey, I appreciate you, but I'm not going to take this money.

Speaker 5 You should talk to a financial advisor because I don't know what I want to do one day.

Speaker 5 And I don't want me taking this opportunity as a rookie in the NFL that could potentially deter some future goals and ambitions of myself so i did the the textbook thing to do i wish i could tell you i took it and i turned it into 70 million and i put it all in bitcoin in 2013 but i didn't

Speaker 5 i gave it back i think what you did was the responsible thing to do it was it was did you feel like you were doing that as a backup plan while you were playing was that like your insurance no great question i think it was for me, football is a means to an end.

Speaker 5 And football gives you the, for, for me, I always looked at it as a startup capital to change my life and my family's life and to start businesses and to go invest in my own dreams and invest in myself.

Speaker 5 And so you get an opportunity to make money.

Speaker 5 I have sat at UBS and I've sat at Morgan Stanley and I've sat at hedge funds and I've watched people literally trade what we're, you know, happy to be earning.

Speaker 5 I watched them trade it and go make more with it. I've also watched them lose it too.
And so for me, I just understood that I need to have my money growing. I need to have my money working for me.

Speaker 5 And it was a muscle that I was able to flex

Speaker 5 and work on while being in a position to go out and earn money in a totally different way.

Speaker 5 And one thing that I've learned over my career is like, if you can make it, if you can invest in a way where you're not 100 needing it banking on it then it allows you to invest with a clearer mind it allows you to say no to things there are some people who are investing in real estate and they need this deal to go right now i i want all my deals to go right don't get me wrong but when you have to get a deal to go right in order to keep the lights on three months from now seven months from now next week Now you are making yourself susceptible to make mistakes because now you're starting to look at things that don't look that good, but you're like, I don't know, maybe

Speaker 7 that's true with anything, right? Like trying to get a job if you come, if you really need, like you have that thirsty energy.

Speaker 5 Absolutely. And so to be able, so to get back to your question, to be able to be in a position where I didn't need to.
but I was using it to learn and to be able to learn in a comfortable state.

Speaker 5 I always figured,

Speaker 5 I knew football was going to end.

Speaker 5 I wanted to work and train these muscles and train my memory and train my stomach for investing and for trading and for the markets while I didn't necessarily need it to feed me and my family because I knew at some point it would end.

Speaker 5 So my grandfather played for 11 years in the NFL. His name is Roy Hilton, played with the Baltimore Colts from 1965.
through 76. His last two years were with the Giants and the Falcons.
And

Speaker 5 I share him because one, he's one of my heroes, my mom and him.

Speaker 5 But two, when you can grow up and you can see your hero who played your sport at a different time, but you can see that it ends, that he had three knee surgeries.

Speaker 5 He couldn't lift his shoulder past here.

Speaker 5 He shook when he wrote and signed his autograph because of all the things that he dealt with. I understood that, okay, this opportunity I have in the NFL will not last forever.

Speaker 7 And I need to maximize it in more ways than just out there on the football field so that's what led me into trading why do you think so many guys don't have that realization that it's ephemeral that it's fleeting like you hear this as a stereotype do you think it's true

Speaker 5 yeah i think i don't know whether it's true or not i think not everybody gets a chance to grow up with a granddad that takes you to school and takes you out in the backyard and does all those things with you and and promotes you more as a human being than a football player, right?

Speaker 5 like literally after games he would ask me how'd you do and it'd be ah man i missed a tackle in the third quarter blah blah blah he's like no no no no did you have fun right even all the way up through the league which is crazy to say the flip side of that is

Speaker 5 in order to be really good in the nfl in order to last for i'll say it i mean i typically don't talk about this like this about my nfl career but in order to last for 10 years in the nfl the average is 2.8 i think it's 2.3 now after the pandemic, maybe a little less.

Speaker 5 You have to be a little bit psycho, frankly. And when I say psycho, I say it with all due respect.
Please don't hunt me down. If you do hunt me down, that's okay.

Speaker 5 But when I say psycho, like you have to be able to walk out on Sunday morning, whether I'm in the middle of the season dealing with a hip injury, dealing with bruises, dealing with the stiffness in the knees.

Speaker 5 I got to go out of the tunnel and I have to literally physically take grown men who are fighting for their families, fighting for their lives, their livelihoods, and I have to take my hands and I have to move them out the way.

Speaker 5 That takes a lot of just mental training and coaching to go from like, hey, like, hey, let's have a good time to just,

Speaker 5 okay, this is real now, right?

Speaker 5 And to then come down from that, right? And to tell yourself, I'm just a human being. This will be done one day.

Speaker 5 This will be done one day when literally you have to work all week to be able to just mentally train yourself i'm going against tom brady this week

Speaker 5 oh what do i have to tell myself to be in the right mind it's just it's tough to balance the psychology of like get yourself up to go out and be a superhuman but then also be humble and tell yourself you could end it all on one play because it's it's tough to really be able to do that against the San Francisco 49ers or any insert your favorite team there.

Speaker 5 So

Speaker 5 I always think that that's like the challenge. And it's not a what was me at all for anybody listening.
It's just more of like, that's why a lot of guys

Speaker 5 get caught. You don't know when your career is going to end, but you also, you're in the midst of maximizing your opportunity today.

Speaker 5 One other thing I'll share with you is I remember, and I'm a pretty, I'd say, cognizant human being, but I learned about a 401k from the NFL Players Association who came into the locker room with me as a Baltimore Raven as a rookie.

Speaker 5 And they were sharing all the benefits that they had gone out and negotiated for us.

Speaker 5 Hey, guys, if you put X amount of dollars into your 401k, you're going to get it matched up to this amount, which is over 100%

Speaker 5 matched, which is phenomenal. But even as a rookie in the NFL in the middle of training camp, I remember thinking, wow, that's amazing.
Oh, wait. They're cutting people in a couple of days.

Speaker 5 If I don't go out here in an hour and a half and make a tackle on Jacoby Jones, God rest his soul. He recently passed away, but Super Bowl champion wide receiver, I'm not going to be here.

Speaker 5 That 401k isn't really going to matter to me. So

Speaker 5 I love it. Sounds really good.
I should be cognizant of it, but I got to lock back in and focus on today because I might not be here tomorrow if I don't.

Speaker 5 So I think it's just the psychology battle that keeps a lot of players in the moment of now, where it gets a little tough to think about five years from now, 20 years from now at times.

Speaker 5 It's not an excuse.

Speaker 7 No, I mean, that's the best explanation that I've ever heard with it because you hear about a lot of guys just spending all their money, not having it when, when their career ends.

Speaker 7 But do you think there's a similarity between money management and football, right? I don't know. I know a lot of finance analogies, not a lot of football ones.

Speaker 7 So if you can have some grace with me, like people have to be on the offense and the defense when it comes to finances.

Speaker 5 Absolutely. Who's out of curiosity? Do you have a team? Who's your team?

Speaker 5 my husband's is the commanders the commanders okay cool cool cool so the commander so now it's mine there you go

Speaker 5 absolutely so so in in your money playbook our book we we talk about this but the

Speaker 5 there are a lot of similarities between football and money management the commanders before they go into a game before they go into battle they spend all week game planning they spend all week prepping they spend all week scouting their opponent for the week.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 5 when you relate that to money management, I like to call into question, what are we doing as individuals to game plan, to scout ourselves, to understand our money, understand our strengths and our weaknesses, and understand ourselves better so that we can be better prepared for the obstacles that life is just inevitably going to throw at us.

Speaker 5 For example, do you have a budget? Have you sat down and spent time intentionally writing out your why and what money means to you?

Speaker 5 What you want to be able to do with your money a year from now, three years from now, five years from now?

Speaker 5 And by doing those simple things, one, by writing out your why, now you're strategically mapping out who you want to be, what you work for, why you have discipline and where you want your life to end up, which most people haven't done.

Speaker 5 But how can you ever achieve something if you haven't sat down and really visualized it and wrote it in into existence. But two, you also avoid becoming a hamster on a hamster wheel.

Speaker 5 And what I mean when I say that, right now we're in a hustle culture. We're in a, oh, let me make money, let me make money, let me make money.

Speaker 5 And a lot of people are making money, but it's an aimless goal. It's, you're not chasing fulfillment.
You're not chasing happiness. You're chasing money.

Speaker 5 And so by you tying those things down to those goals, it's going to help make your steps strategic. The budget is so important as well, too.

Speaker 5 I know how many pennies I spend on a monthly recurring basis. I know exactly how much it costs me to live, right?

Speaker 5 And I think by everybody figuring that number out, one, every time I do that, I end up making money because I see a subscription that I, hold on, no offense to Apple TV, Apple TV, ah, man, I got that for the morning show, but I don't really need it anymore.

Speaker 5 Let me go ahead and cut that subscription. Oh, I'm spending on this app over here.
Come on, let me cut that.

Speaker 5 And anyway, I always tell people,

Speaker 5 if you're from the Northeast and it's still snowing in the place that you're in, it'd be like you trying to heat your entire house in the winter, but you don't know that you have basement windows open.

Speaker 5 And so you're working really, really hard to make money, make money, and you're heating up your house. I'm heating up my house, heating up a house.

Speaker 5 And then the whole time, you're just actually secretly working against yourself because you haven't actually mapped out. where all your dollars are going.
And that's backwards.

Speaker 5 That's inefficient use of your time. And so by by doing those game planning exercises of a budget, writing down your why,

Speaker 5 those things are extremely important to making sure that you're just taking intentional steps with your money management. And that's just the beginning.

Speaker 7 It's a leaky bucket. Yeah.
And if you, I think a dream without a plan is just a wish and wishes are amazing, but they don't pay the bills. And so I think that

Speaker 7 I have a t-shirt with that somewhere.

Speaker 7 That's dope. That's dope.
But right, if you, if you're you just say, I just want a million dollars, Nicole and Brandon, the question is, what do you want to do with that million dollars? I don't know.

Speaker 7 Like maybe you need more than a million dollars. Maybe you need less than a million dollars.

Speaker 7 You figure out the life you want and then reverse engineer to get the money to live that life, not just an arbitrary number that you think sounds really good.

Speaker 6 Hold on to your wallets.

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Speaker 6 And now for some more money rehab.

Speaker 7 In your book, Your Money Playbook, you talk about four financial strategies. I want to double-click on the fourth one, which is the promise of legacy.

Speaker 7 So unpacking topics like insurance, wills, estate planning. Do you and your wife talk about estate planning?

Speaker 7 And will like it's not a fun, sexy conversation, but it's an important grown-up conversation for sure.

Speaker 5 Yeah, absolutely. We're actually having our third child here in the next couple of weeks, so it's very much top of mind for us in terms of making sure that our children are taken care of.

Speaker 5 Thank you, third boy, third boy. So, yes, they're uncomfortable conversations, but they're important conversations because we both need to be making sure that we're working towards the same goal.

Speaker 5 Yes, sometimes it will uncover some discrepancies in who you think should be managing the money when you're gone or who should be taking care of the children and things like that.

Speaker 5 But those tough conversations are the ones that are going to make sure that you and your family are straight for,

Speaker 5 I don't want to say eternity, but for as long as possible.

Speaker 5 I think that the importance of legacy, while it is a will, it is wills, estate planning, it are those tough conversations that not a lot of people generally want to talk about because most people don't want to talk about their death.

Speaker 5 It's also about teaching your children how to deal with money and teaching your children how to manage money.

Speaker 5 We talk so much about generational wealth, but

Speaker 5 what good is it for me to give my children a bunch of assets and a bunch of money and not teach them how to go fish, not teach them how to deal with the money, not teach them how to deal with the pressure.

Speaker 5 And so those are the other things that are, I would say, more important than

Speaker 5 the details.

Speaker 5 We talk about all of it in the book for sure, but one of the things I've been encouraging my friends to do is like making sure they're emphasizing like bringing your children to work, letting them listen in on calls, letting them listen in on tough calls as well, too.

Speaker 5 Because guess what? If you're leaving them this opportunity and these options, well, you want them to be.

Speaker 5 comfortable handling it. And there's going to be times in their lives where a lot of these lessons we're not going to learn in school.

Speaker 5 so there are going to be times in their lives where they're going to think about i remember sitting on sitting in the room when nicole was having this conversation and it was a tough conversation but this is how my mom handled it so i know how to deal with this now 20 some years later right and that is the greatest gift in the world that we can give to our children as well too Yeah, because they're watching everything that you're doing.

Speaker 7 When people say, I want financially responsible kids, the first question I ask is, are you financially responsible?

Speaker 7 Right? Because they're watching you. They're watching how you deal with money, how you go to the store and talk about money, how you talk about shopping or saving or whatever.

Speaker 7 And like, if you're stressed about it, they'll totally pick up on that. You also talk about optimizing opportunities for generating multiple streams of income.

Speaker 7 It's been said all the stats that the self-made millionaires have about seven streams of income. How many do you have?

Speaker 5 Oh, that's a great question. I have

Speaker 5 a few of them. I don't know if I think I'm over seven.

Speaker 7 Some dividend income.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I have dividends. I don't want to put all my business out there, but I have dividends, real estate, production, financial education.
The book now will be

Speaker 5 is a new one. So, yeah, we have a few out there.
Yeah, I think that it's extremely important to create other revenue streams.

Speaker 5 Ultimately, I think that what we all have seen during the pandemic and also now more than ever ever with AI and companies having to lay off folks, as they used to say, they used to say one income stream is too close to none, two is too close to one, right?

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 5 ultimately, I think whenever you can go into an opportunity and start to strategically think about, okay, well, are there other ways that I can benefit from this thing in completely legal ways, right?

Speaker 5 So if you're investing in Apple, right? Well, now maybe you look at not only owning the stock, but maybe you also are looking at some call options on Apple as well, too.

Speaker 5 That's a simple thing to think about. I'm not telling anybody to invest in Apple, disclaimer,

Speaker 5 consult with your financial advisor,

Speaker 5 all of that type of stuff, right? Don't involves risk.

Speaker 5 Exactly. Exactly.
But, but pretty much, again, I think that

Speaker 5 unfortunately, most

Speaker 5 jobs and careers aren't necessarily built to see you win as an individual. They're there to make the company win, make their shareholders happy and make their shareholders proud.

Speaker 5 And the more you need them,

Speaker 5 similar to the NFL, the more you need them, the more desperate you will be and the more likely you will be able to do whatever I ask you to do.

Speaker 5 And so however you decide to create another revenue stream, whether it's Uber driving, whether it's DoorDash, whether it's Airbnb renting out in a room in your apartment.

Speaker 5 I just think that it is extremely important not to get

Speaker 5 so caught up on one stream of income that you lose sight of the other opportunities that may be sitting under your nose.

Speaker 5 Even thinking about just, hey, I have cash sitting over here in this normal basic checking account. I probably should put that in a high yield savings account because I don't plan on touching it.

Speaker 5 Well, now I'm making a smarter investment decision. One thing going very, very long on this topic, but one thing I always tell people too, a lot of sometimes I'll go to a room of people.

Speaker 5 I'm like, hey, who's ever invested before? And sometimes there's no one in the room that's invested. And I'm like, okay, cool.
Well, I'm here to tell you that everybody here has invested before.

Speaker 5 You know, what? What do you mean? Well, if you have a dollar to your name, you have invested.

Speaker 5 Whether you choose to leave that dollar under the mattress and get a 0% return, put it into your checking account and get a 0.001%

Speaker 5 return or 0.011% return, whatever, or put it in a high yield savings account and get 4% to 5% right now, or put it into a CD or put it into the stock market, right?

Speaker 5 Those are all generating returns on your dollar. And that's an investment decision.

Speaker 5 Yeah, even a zero return is a return.

Speaker 7 Zero percent return is a return and that's your choice. Yeah, the 5% high yield savings account, the easiest additional stream of income you could possibly make.
So no excuse.

Speaker 7 Though you didn't mention social media as one of your streams of income, a lot of athletes monetize it, but your Instagram is private. Why is that? Yeah.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 5 I am going through a phase right now where I'm trying to lock down and hone in on

Speaker 5 this next level of my life. And so I think that whenever you're in those things, for me, during football, for 10 years of football, there were times where I would just go dark.

Speaker 5 I wouldn't talk to anybody. Literally in training camp my rookie year, there was a guy named Josh Bynes.

Speaker 5 He coaches for the Seattle Seahawks now, and he used to say, In training camp, I don't talk to anybody besides my mom, my wife, and my children. And I'm just zero, dark, 30 on this goal.

Speaker 5 This goal, this goal, this goal. Laser focus.
Exactly. And right now, I'm in that phase of laser focus, one with the third child on the way, two, with just business and just refining certain things.

Speaker 5 And I need to avoid as many distractions as possible to become,

Speaker 5 to reach my fullest potential. It'll be unlocked soon.

Speaker 5 I'm already, a lot of folks have been reaching out to me about that, but right now I'm like, the opportunity I have to be the best version of myself,

Speaker 5 social media, I could care less right now. But we'll turn that revenue stream on soon, though.
I'll take it that much.

Speaker 7 You reserve the right.

Speaker 5 Amen.

Speaker 7 To opt to monetize. I want to get your thoughts really quick on Travis Kelsey.
He's peaking financially between the NFL brand deals. There was just a story that came out that he sold his podcast to

Speaker 7 Amazon for 100 million. He's going to be in a movie.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 7 What kind of financial advice would you give him? What would you tell him to do with this money or start thinking about?

Speaker 5 Listen, I'm sure he is surrounded by.

Speaker 5 a bunch of great mentors and advisors. So hopefully they're giving him the right advice.
I'm sure they are.

Speaker 5 He also has his big brother Jason and a strong family that I know will make sure that he does the right thing.

Speaker 5 At this point, he should make sure that a certain amount is put away, tucked away, where it's just spitting off whatever his cost of living is every single year between your NFL salary, your podcast salary, your brand deal salary, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 5 Right. So a certain amount should just be put away.
Then there should be an amount, in my opinion, that is going out and investing and working for you.

Speaker 5 And it's just like, hey, we're going to the level we want to be 10 years from now, 20 years from now, because we're not always going to be comfortable with this lifestyle. And we want to grow, right?

Speaker 5 And for him, I think the biggest thing is if I'm him, and I'm sure he is, he's probably not watching

Speaker 5 the podcast and the shows like I am. He's probably talking to these people directly.
But for me, I'm watching Kevin Hart. I'm watching Tyler Perry.
I'm watching 50 Cent. I'm watching Oprah.

Speaker 5 I'm watching all of these amazing entrepreneurs who've taken their platform and turned it into real true ownership of something bigger. LeBron James, billionaire playing basketball, right?

Speaker 5 Like, I want to understand how he's taken his brand and now infused himself into so many other brands that have built him this incredible empire because Travis Kelsey, he's just.

Speaker 5 as crazy as it sounds in a beautiful way. Shout out to ET.

Speaker 5 He's just getting started.

Speaker 7 And speaking of ownership, this is breaking news. I want to get your thoughts on private equity firms can now hold ownership stakes in NFL teams.

Speaker 7 And this is a really big deal because the NFL was the only major American sports league that didn't allow PE investments. So what do you think about this update?

Speaker 5 Yeah, I think it's... Yeah, I think the sport is going to be the sport.
It's still going to be just as good. I think it's an opportunity for owners to create liquidity for themselves.

Speaker 5 There's folks who've owned this team for generations at this point, and some of them may want to take some chips chips off the table.

Speaker 5 It also gives the opportunity for new people to be able to potentially purchase into teams as well, too, clearly, but now not necessarily having to do it all with just their bank account. Right.

Speaker 5 And so, hey, this is a prime example.

Speaker 5 I'm talking about people who are owning teams and they're trying to find more ways to be more strategic and create more liquidity in that, own in that market, which is obviously some of the they're not trading very often.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 5 exactly exactly and so i i think it's cool to see it's definitely going to be a major case study but the good thing is they can look at the nba the nf and nhl the mlb etc and see where there's pathways for them to do it but the nfl has always prided itself on being different and being the number one league out there so i'm sure they're going to continue to try to keep that restriction on it or keep it somewhat exclusive of a club.

Speaker 5 Looking forward to seeing the next phase of the NFL.

Speaker 7 Would you want to invest in the upside of athletes or would you want to invest in a team potentially?

Speaker 5 Oh, absolutely.

Speaker 7 Team ownership in your future.

Speaker 5 Absolutely. Absolutely.
I don't know team ownership is in my future, but I'll say you never say never. I absolutely want to invest.
I've had.

Speaker 5 those conversations and continuing to explore those conversations, but I do know the next frontier of ownership is college, it's college athletes, it's college sports space.

Speaker 5 They become pros right before our eyes. Next year, there's literally a settlement that recently passed, the House versus NCAA settlement, that is $20 billion settlement for college athletes,

Speaker 5 $2.576 billion in back pay. over $15 billion for the next 10 years,

Speaker 5 other

Speaker 5 ancillary opportunities to make money and through NIL and things of that nature.

Speaker 5 And so there is going to be a huge opportunity for college athletes, but also the college sports space you're hearing here first. It's going to look very, very different years from now.

Speaker 7 Brendan, we end our episodes by asking all of our guests for just one tip listeners can take straight to the bank.

Speaker 7 If there's something you want to leave our listeners with, it can be anything, investing in sports, saving, investing in general in the market. day trading, budgeting, what would you be?

Speaker 5 What would it be? Yeah. You have to put your money to work for you.
If you don't put your money to work for you, you will always have to work for it.

Speaker 5 So whether you're comfortable with it or not, learn as much as you can about investing and growing your money because an older version of yourself, a more seasoned version of yourself, will be extremely grateful that you did.

Speaker 6 Money Rehab is a production of Money News Network. I'm your host, Nicole Lappin.
Money Rehab's executive producer is Morgan Lavoie. Our researcher is Emily Holmes.
Do you need some money rehab?

Speaker 6 And let's be honest, we all do.

Speaker 6 So email us your money questions, moneyrehab at moneynewsnetwork.com to potentially have your questions answered on the show or even have a one-on-one intervention with me.

Speaker 6 And follow us on Instagram at MoneyNews and TikTok at MoneyNews Network for exclusive video content. And lastly, thank you.
No, seriously, thank you.

Speaker 6 Thank you for listening and for investing in yourself, which is the most important investment you can make.