Riccardo Stewart: Hey, I wanna welcome you guys back to another
episode of the A-W-M-N-F-L Podcast.
My name is Ricardo Stewart.
I have the pleasure of being your host, and I'm joined with my good
friends coworkers, partners in crime, Zach Miller, Jeff Lock, and Sam Acho.
Fellas um, one.
Always good to be on the podcast.
Something I definitely look forward to.
And then today's topic is one that is, is one that is needed, that, and so let
me let start by, by saying this, right.
You guys all played at Division one, what is now known as Power four
Conferences, Arizona State, Texas, UCLA.
And um, you had options like considering the fact that you guys
were highly recruited outta school.
Like all of us had options on where to choose from high school, like where
to go to college, and we landed at our universities and, and so forth.
What's interesting is we had the opportunity to look at brands, whether
that's the University of Texas, SAM or UCLA, Jeff or Arizona State, and
you had an idea to be able to see what kind of offense they ran, what kind
of defense they ran, um, how did they put out specialists before and we, we
had a grasp on what we're choosing.
For me, I wanted to look at a particular defense that a team was running
and we had options and we made a decision When it comes to NFL players.
Particularly our space.
When I'm talking about our space, I'm talking about the broad financial scope
of what people refer to as financial advisors, is that NFL players have
options, and I'm not even really sure if they realize the many options that they
have and the pros and cons or limitations and so forth of their financial advisors.
So I wanna be able to talk about, you know, just the options.
What what comes to mind is as kids, if we were lucky enough.
We would have the opportunity to go to the Cheesecake Factory.
And anybody who's ever been to the Cheesecake Factory knows you look
at that menu and you're just like, there are so many things on there
that you just go to what you know, Hey, I'll just do a cheeseburger,
maybe some bacon on it, and so forth.
And I feel like that's what happens when it comes to choosing advisors.
And so let me just start first with you, Sam.
When did you know that you needed a financial advisor?
And, and, and I know your story.
Go, I know you chose a, a person to go with outta college.
I'm talking about when you start making money, you're in the NFL,
you're with the Arizona Cardinals.
Like when did you go, Hey, you know what?
I need to choose somebody to help me manage my wealth.
Sam Acho: Honestly, Ricardo, it wasn't until.
About three years.
ago, if I'm being totally honest.
And what do I mean by that?
So I've played about a decade in the NFLI played nine years, signed
multi-year, multi-million dollar contract.
And I still thought, man, I could do this on my own.
And the reason I thought that is that a lot of the advice that I felt like I
was receiving, it felt very much like, okay, what are you not telling me?
It's like, okay, well you're just putting me in a 60.
Okay.
Are you risky, Sam?
Are you not risky, are you?
It's like, okay.
What are you doing?
What are you actually doing that's actually providing value?
Okay, let's do taxes.
Oh, well you're gonna send me to somebody else to file my taxes.
What value are you providing?
But it wasn't until the last several, several years since I've been in the
industry, I'm realizing, oh my gosh, like I didn't realize I could have directed
the investments in my retirement.
Everybody checks the box.
At least NFL player.
Okay, max out your 401k, it's a two to one match.
And in the NFL, it's the, it's the best thing you could do.
And I did that and I thought it was dumb, but it's like, no, you
could actually, you're not gonna touch that for four decades.
For three decades, you could actually direct that.
Oh wow.
Um, you could actually have an individual retirement account.
Like I didn't realize any of these things until the last several years.
And I think a lot of that is by design.
And we'll get into it a little bit later, but.
The importance of, I wouldn't even call it a financial advisor, to
be honest, 'cause some financial advisors aren't telling you 'cause it
doesn't benefit them what you need.
But I would say the importance of a, not just the team, but an athlete family
office, an athlete centered team has helped me understand that, oh wow.
Here's the advice that I, number one, I do need advice.
Number two, here's what I need and number three, here's how much it's actually
saving me or how much I'm making.
With this team approach of people who are, have been in my shoes, who
understand what it's like and who actually have this skill, the expertise,
and the desire to want me to grow.
Riccardo Stewart: good.
Jeff Locke: Rick.
my mine was much more simple than Sam.
Sam's put a lot of thought into this.
Mine was literally, I got that first check, right?
I got drafted, signing bonus is coming in, got this money sitting
in my account and I'm like, yo.
Much money in my life sitting in my account.
'cause I was in college, right, doing a stipend check.
So I was like, Hey, time to actually get an advisor, figure
out what to do with this.
So I don't just start doing random stuff with it.
Riccardo Stewart: Yeah, I, I, uh, let me, let me take a step back.
Right.
One.
That's good.
And, and Sam even teased.
Just on even talking about a family office, which by the way,
that's the end of the movie.
And so we're gonna go back and tell you what happened before the end.
Um, just stepping back and look at what I would call like the three big
buckets when it comes to the industry.
So you're an NFL player, you probably have a financial advisor,
somebody you referred to as an fa or you're thinking about switching or
finding one that you don't have yet.
And just to step back and going like, I don't know this landscape.
I wanna be able to have us give a big picture.
The three buckets.
The first one is your general bucket of what you would think about when
you think of fas, and then number two would be a little bit more
private, a little bit more independent that maybe you have not heard of.
And then number three will be probably one you've never heard of.
It's the smallest.
And yet what's best for ultra wealthy NFL athletes.
And so Zach, I want you to tackle that first bucket, like
when most people think of quote unquote fas or financial advisors.
What are they thinking about?
How many are out there?
Just kind of rattle some things off for it.
Zach Miller: Well, yeah, everyone says they, they need an fa,
they need a financial advisor.
There's actually 272,000 financial advisors in the
US and becoming one myself.
The first thing I thought when I passed the test become an fa, like everyone
likes to call us, is how easy the test is.
And that allows you to give advice on people's life savings.
And I think the only easier test might be the, uh, the realtor exam,
the real estate exams probably the only easier test out there.
So there's like just a lot of.
Advisors that are legally allowed to give advice and there's a very little barrier
to entry, or it's just too easy to become.
So any, any advisor that's serious about being able to give financial advice
is gonna be a certified, certified,
Financial,
planner, but there's also 103,000 certified financial
planners in the United States.
So then you say, okay, where did the CFP or where did this
advisor choose to work at?
Okay, now you have Wall Street firms, and that's where most
Financial
advisors work.
They work at the big ones, your Morgan Stanley's, your big
banks, your Wells Fargos, your chase, those
places, and so that's,
where most of them are.
And they advise on people that are 55 plus with a couple hundred
thousand they hope to retire on.
and that's.
the majority of all advisors out there.
And those guys do try to work with athletes.
It's just not a great fit.
So then when I was looking around, I looked at RIAs,
Registered investment advisors.
FDU Fiduciaries that can give the, the best advice to the
clients.
uh, and, and not have conflicts of interest, at least at most RIAs.
And then, like you said, that third bucket is that family office world.
The problem is you gotta have a lot of money.
That's why no one's ever heard about 'em.
That's what I didn't, why I didn't hear about 'em when I was an NFL player.
There is a money requirement for them to make financial sense.
Riccardo Stewart: Sweet Jeff.
If you could speak more to that second bucket and what I'm thinking about now,
and Zach mentioned it, this, this RIA, and particularly the men and women who
could be your advisors that have that certified financial planner and, and maybe
add this to it, Jeff, is kind of what's the general difference between what, what
Zach talked about and the Wall Street and the big firms that we know about
as opposed to these particular firms.
Jeff Locke: Yeah, it's, it's, it's tough to sometimes tell the difference.
Like literally you look at someone's website, you look at someone's
business card, like you don't really know what you're looking at.
So the way we think about it, and what happens in our industry is people
start, advisors start at the big banks.
They're gonna start there on Wall Street at some point.
The story is they kind of get fed up with how things operate within the firm.
They don't like it.
There's a couple things they don't like.
One is sometimes they have to push certain investment products that
necessarily the client might not need, might not be best for them, right?
They're limited in what kind of advice they can give.
Maybe they want to give certain advice on your trust or your
LLC or your NFL benefits, right?
And they can't do it.
They're not set up that way.
So a lot of them leave and set up their own RIA that Zach's
talking about that next bucket.
'cause the big difference is they're allowed to give
advice on more stuff, right?
Simple as that.
Still can charge the same way.
They charge a little bit different, the way they charge fees.
Totally different conversation, but it's really just they wanna
deliver more advice in the RIA space.
But then we're gonna get into this, like not every RIA is built the same, right?
They're all gonna be independent.
They're not gonna be attached to the big banks, but they're set up differently.
And most RIAs, unfortunately, still are not specialized, and they still
just work with people that are 50, 55, 60 going into retirement, right?
They're still advising the same type of client, maybe with
just a little bit more money.
Than the ones most advisors work with back at the Wall Street firms.
Riccardo Stewart: So let me ping it back to you briefly here, Zach.
And.
What are like limitations that NFL players need to be thinking about
or aware of when choosing broadly an advisor, especially, particularly the
first bucket that you talked about.
Zach Miller: I mean, one of the biggest ones is, is the tax advice.
A lot of our
RIAs Are still not looking at the tax piece, and every
NFL guy
is in the highest tax bracket.
Taxes matter massively.
And if you don't have
that as part of your advice, you're gonna miss out on
possibly millions of dollars in
tax savings
or overpaying on
taxes, like in my situation that you You should demand that from your advisors.
they should be able to do.
everything as an NFL player in-house and then also some of 'em still don't look
at the NFL benefits or they don't do a
Great job.
We were just, Jeff and I were just on a meeting with a Guy and
he has an advisor and at an RIA, and he
was
not invested.
The
best way possible given the fact that he's supposed to be, have
comprehensive advice in his NFL
benefits.
account and you, we see it time and time again.
Those NFL benefits are millions of dollars of value that should be
incorporated into that entire plan.
Those taxes and those NFL benefits are massive.
Riccardo Stewart: Sam, why do you think players don't know about these options,
and particularly as it relates to, you know, the options of who they can choose
to manage their wealth, to help them grow, sustain multi-generational wealth?
Sam Acho: Uh, I think the reason is pretty obvious.
Going back to Jeff's story of when he first got drafted.
I remember I get first got drafted and essentially I went from, I
got this big signing bonus, right?
Six figure signing bonus, and I went to go deposit it into my
bank, into Chase Bank, and I.
They looked at me a little bit confused 'cause I've given them this
hundreds of thousand dollars check into a college premier checking
account, like a CPC checking account.
But come to find out, a few weeks later, they're like, they saw
how much money was in my account.
So all of a sudden they're like, Hey Sam, we could do your investment planning,
we could all manage all your money.
They're not gonna tell me about all the different options or
opportunities that are best for me.
They're just gonna tell me about the ones that are great for JP Morgan Chase.
Same thing for a UBS or Morgan Stanley.
These are, I just use these names.
As Wall Street firms.
Right?
Wall Street meaning that they're owned by, you know, you can
own stock in these companies.
Well, generally speaking, I'm not, it's not, it's not even, uh, about the
person, but just generally about the, the industry or even a firm, they're going
to tell you best, let me put it this way.
Right.
I have a friend of mine who, who works at a car dealership.
And you might, you might, you might be the best car dealership that
you, you could think about, right?
Let's say you love Range Rovers, right?
Let's say you love, uh uh, Mercedes.
Well, if they work for a Range Rover, they're probably gonna tell
you about the Best Range Rover, but they may not tell you about
the best other car that's available 'cause they get paid by Range Rover.
Same thing by, let's say it's a Mercedes, right?
Man, you might love, you know I love cars, man.
Okay?
You go to a guy who's at a Mercedes dealership, they're gonna get.
Paid and incentivized based off of telling you about Mercedes.
Could be the nicest dude in the world, but they're not likely
gonna tell you about a man.
I know I'm at Mercedes, but man, you gotta go check out this, uh, this, uh, Aston
Martin, whatever you wanna call it, or the highlight no matter what the car is.
And so I think the reason why most athletes don't know about these different
options is that the industry is not set up for them to know about different options.
It's not set up for an athlete to know about a failure or a, a missed opportunity
that a company may have, right?
So for example, if, uh.
If there's an opportunity for you to win when it comes to benefits, but a
company cannot legally give you advice on benefits, they're not gonna tell you that.
It's just gonna be like, well, hey, this is what we do and
this is kind of how it works.
Right.
And then you'll look at like, oh man, okay, well I see the this, the company
that's been around for a lot a long time.
And man, they have a lot of successful people.
That's gotta be the way to go.
But I know I've been in situations where I've been like, man, it
feels like something's missing.
Or it feels like you're not telling me something and I can't quite
put my finger on it, but I just start to peel back the layers.
You realize, oh, okay, you're not incentivized to give me the big picture.
You're not incentivized to tell me the whole story.
And so that's I think, why certain athletes don't know about all
their different options because the system isn't set up for you to know
about all the different options.
Jeff Locke: And Sam, the only thing I'll add there is like just.
Think about the marketing budgets that these giant banks have also, right?
It's like the analogy we use a lot is like comparing it to gyms, right?
When I'm watching tv, when I'm streaming, I'm seeing ads for LA
Fitness, I'm seeing ads for gold, I'm seeing ads for all the big gyms,
and then when you think I need a gym, that's the first thing you think about.
It's the same thing with the Wall Street banks, right?
They spend billions of dollars a year making sure the second you
think about, Hey, I need an advisor.
They're the ones that have been ingrained in your brain for decades
by being on those ads, right?
RIAs aren't gonna have those giant ad budgets, even though
they're probably gonna deliver better advice for your situation.
Sam Acho: if I could just real quick, just piggyback quickly, Jeff, to
that point too is like you might have that big marketing budget just, but
that doesn't mean you're best for me.
Right.
You might have this biggest marketing budget in the world, right?
You might have, oh man, I see this.
I see their names on the side of buildings.
That means they gotta be trustworthy, right?
It's like psychology, right?
I was a marketing major.
It's like, man, the more you can, they're talk about promotion, place price,
like that's marketing, but just 'cause it's good marketing doesn't mean it's
actually what's best for you, right?
What I think what's best for me is as I'm learning now, is like, oh wow.
I want people who have been in my shoes, people who understand what it's like.
People who have the skill, have the knowledge, have the expertise,
and oh, by the way, they're not being incentivized for.
I remember I got so frustrated and I, I got i'll, I'll maybe we can
save this for a different episode, but just this idea of shareholder.
Stockholder, like, who am I actually answering to?
Am I answering to, to like you as the player or am I answering to, uh,
somebody who owns stock at a company?
Like those are some questions and conversations that I think need to be had.
Riccardo Stewart: So we, we can talk about that first bucket, Zach, which was great.
Looking at the ones we know about, and Sam and Jeff, you talked about
it, there's a lot of marketing there, so we can see the big names and
then you get in that second bucket.
You know, Zach, you said there's about, just about close to, if you
estimate 300,000 advisors, advisors.
Then you get into that certified financial planner, that RA we're, we're looking
about 80,000 and we don't really know as athletes as NFL players about that one.
And then there's a smaller bucket that gives you what we would call open
air architecture to be able to build out the plan that you unique to you.
And there's about 2,500 of those, and that's called the family office.
And that's what we're gonna begin to talk about on the next episode.
What is a family office?
Who is a family office for how come I've never heard of a family office?
And why is it so needed in the NFL space?
If there's anything you heard today in terms about your options as an NFL
player, you're gonna, I wanna have questions or you have questions and you
want resources for 'em, um, or you want answers to your questions, we'd love
to be able to provide that for you.
And so feel free to reach out to us at 6 0 2 9 8 9 5 0 2 2.