Getting employees to prepare for retirement is difficult — even if the employees are the highest paid athletes in all of professional sports.
That’s why the National Basketball Association (NBA) has rolled out a mandatory retirement program.
It’s probably a good idea — especially when you consider some 60% of NBA players are financially insolvent within just five years of hanging up their jerseys.
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That’s a startling statistic when you consider just how much NBA players earn during their careers.
NBA players make an average of $5.15 million dollars each year, with minimum salary for a rookie or first-year player falling just below $500K mark and the minimum take-home for a 10-year player being $1.3 million.
So the league will now take a more proactive approach to ensuring its stars retire in the black. As part of the new 10-year collective bargaining agreement between the NBA and its players union, the league will put around 1% of the “basketball-related” income an annuity for the players’ retirement.
Then players will also have to fork over 5% to 10% of their own earnings for retirement purposes — unless they specifically opt out of the NBA’s plan. In most cases, players will have to wait until they reach age 50 to dip into their retirement money.
Struggling former pros like Antoine Walker probably wish something like this was in place during their playing days.