The advisor needs to join the team earlier

NIL and revenue sharing have not simply created a younger generation of wealthy clients. They have changed when financial advice must begin – and what genuinely valuable advice looks like.

There has always been money in sport. What has changed is when it arrives, who receives it and what those young people are suddenly expected to manage.

For generations, the professional contract was the gateway. An athlete made the league, signed the deal and only then began thinking seriously about financial advice. Today, high school and college athletes can earn significant sums through NIL agreements, while college athletes are also entering the era of revenue sharing. This can happen long before a professional career is guaranteed. Their income may depend not only on what happens on the field or court, but on their name, image, following and public identity. In effect, an athlete can become a business before they have finished their education or even learned how to manage a monthly budget.

That is why we have made sport and finance the central theme of this issue. Most clients build wealth gradually over several decades. For an athlete, the entire experience can be compressed into a few intense years. Income can be substantial, volatile, highly public and unexpectedly short-lived. Add tax, agent fees, family pressure, transfer decisions, sponsorship obligations and the ever-present risk of injury, and it becomes clear that a balance sheet alone will never tell the whole story.

For advisors, this changes both the timing and the scope of the relationship. Waiting until an athlete declares for the draft may already be too late. The most valuable work can begin before there is a large portfolio to manage: building financial literacy, planning cash flow, coordinating tax and legal advice, arranging appropriate protection, checking opportunities and helping the athlete assemble a trusted team. Just as importantly, it means giving young people and their families the confidence to say no.

Our contributors examine this changing relationship from several revealing perspectives. Dr Sarah McLaughlin explores how, in the NIL economy, wealth and public identity have become inseparable, while Nisiar Smith describes a fast-moving “microwave environment” in which education and delayed gratification matter more than ever.

Ken Boyd’s interviews then turn the lens around. Former NFL players Shawn Wooden and Brandon Wilson, together with former college football player Dasarte Yarnway, explain how their experience as athletes shaped their understanding of money, risk, identity and life beyond sport. Having stood on both sides of the advisor-client relationship, they offer a particularly valuable perspective on what athletes genuinely need from an advisor – and what the wider profession can learn from sport.

Sport also provides a powerful lens through which to look at the advisory business itself. The Savannah Bananas demonstrate what happens when an organization stops copying its competitors and builds an experience around its audience. Elsewhere in the issue, our features on the long road to $1 billion, operational scale, investing through the AI transition and asking prospects better questions all point to the same principle: visible performance rests on preparation, trusted teams and the ability to adapt.

What struck me most as we put this issue together is that an advisor’s greatest value often comes before the obvious financial event – before the contract, the draft, the business sale or retirement. The best advisors do not simply arrive to manage money once it has been created. They help clients develop the judgment, structure and confidence that allow opportunity to become enduring wealth.

For athletes, that opportunity is arriving earlier than ever. Financial advice needs to arrive earlier too.

I hope you enjoy the issue.

Alex Sullivan
Founder & CEO
Modern American Advisor