Morgan Stanley has tapped former NBA star Antoine Walker, who declared bankruptcy after earning $110 million during his playing career, and former NFL player Bart Scott to present on behalf of the firm’s nascent athletes financial advisory practice.
Walker and Scott have already talked to an NFL team (Jacksonville) for Morgan Stanley, and Scott spoke to Boston College’s football team last week.
“I can’t go a couple months without receiving a call from a former teammate or friend who is in financial distress,” Scott said. “One of the biggest issues with athletes is they never see the end coming.”
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Antoine Walker (left) and Bart Scott are “keeping it real” in representing Morgan Stanley’s financial advisory practice.
Photos by: GETTY IMAGES (2)
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Athletes churning through their riches and ending up penniless has become an all-too-common tale, even if some doubt has been cast over some of the statistics purporting to show the severity of the issue. Nevertheless, introducing young adults, often from disadvantaged backgrounds, to the sudden riches of a professional player’s contract can turn out badly.
Walker is a case in point, and he wants to use his life’s story to teach other athletes about his mistakes.
“Basically keeping it real and putting my story out there: my trials and tribulations,” Walker said of his role.
Athletes have become brokers and financial advisers through the years, and they may speak to groups of players on behalf of, for example, a players union. The Morgan Stanley effort stands apart in having two higher-profile athletes working for a blue-chip Wall Street firm to tell their stories.
“We wanted to have something really unique,” said Drew Hawkins, Morgan Stanley managing director of global sports and entertainment, a practice that launched in November.
The firm is building the practice around a series of financial education seminars that could number into the hundreds each year, Hawkins said. The two-hour classes, for which six colleges and five NFL teams have signed up to date, are not sales tools, Hawkins said. Clearly, though, there is a hope that the athletes Morgan Stanley reaches now may one day later look to the firm for paid financial guidance.
Boston College is approached roughly once a week by a financial adviser seeking to talk to athletes, but their end game is usually a quick sell, said Alison Quandt, assistant athletic director of student athlete development. Morgan Stanley’s program is more educational, free and interactive, she said, noting that the school also has several high-level alumni at the firm.
At last Wednesday’s session with the college football team, Scott acted the role of a player’s brother, who having graduated from culinary school wanted a $100,000 loan for a restaurant.
“You have a lot of people who are asking for favors and asking for money,” Quandt said “A lot of these kids … didn’t come from a lot. The opportunity to give back to their families is actually really, really important to them, but there has to be a line somewhere. How to navigate the process, how to say, ‘No,’ is hard for a lot of kids.”
Walker said when he talked to the Jacksonville Jaguars, “a lot of guys wanted to know how do you handle your family, your friends, your money. How do you tell them, ‘No.’”
For Scott, his poor choice was investing in an ABA team in Detroit that he said would have left him in financial distress had he not secured a second playing contract.
“It was one of the dumbest things I did in my life,” he said. “I never went to a game, and I was writing all the checks for payroll. I got involved with an accountant I shouldn’t have and should have done more due diligence.”
Scott and Walker are not full-time Morgan Stanley employees. Rather, they are paid consultants. The practice initially is focusing on the NFL because it is the sport’s offseason, and on colleges, but it is slated to expand to other sports as they move into their offseasons.
The group additionally has started making rookie loans, with terms of no more than six months, for incoming NFL players to cover their costs until their first paychecks arrive later this year.
Scott’s main message to players is one he said he borrows from Baltimore Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti: “You can either live like a king for a short time or a prince for your whole life.”
