Wealth Planning Built for the Demands of Professional Sports—and Beyond
Your earning years as a professional athlete may be short—but your financial future should be built to last. At Mercer Advisors, we provide specialized guidance to help you navigate the complexities of athlete wealth management, tax strategies, asset protection, and career transitions with confidence and discretion.
Why Pro Athletes Need Specialist Financial Advisors
Professional athletes often navigate financial landscapes that are far more complex than those of traditional careers. Balancing substantial earnings with an uncertain future, public scrutiny, and intricate tax obligations requires careful decision-making. Your priorities may range from safeguarding your wealth to efficiently managing financial responsibilities and creating a lasting impact through philanthropy or generational wealth.
At Mercer Advisors, we recognize that financial management for athletes goes beyond simple wealth preservation. It’s about structuring assets to align with long-term goals, helping to ensure privacy and security, and making informed decisions that protect both your future and the financial well-being of those you care about.
Build and Protect Wealth During Peak Earning Years
Your peak earning years provide a powerful foundation for lifelong financial security, but without the right strategy, your wealth can be vulnerable. We help professional athletes structure their finances to support both immediate needs and long-term goals, seeking to ensure stability and sustained success beyond their playing careers.
Our approach includes aligning contract income and endorsement deals with a personalized investment portfolio and plan that balances growth, liquidity, and risk management. Additionally, we implement risk mitigation tools and asset protection structures designed to guard against financial volatility, career transitions, and unforeseen challenges.
Specialized Services
for Pro Athletes
- Wealth Protection & Risk Management to help safeguard assets from career uncertainty
- Institutional-Caliber Investment Strategy to build long-term financial security beyond peak earnings
- Multi-State Tax Optimization to minimize liabilities across contracts and endorsements
- Luxury Asset Management to strategize for real estate, aviation, and high-value purchases
- Philanthropy & Legacy Planning to structure charitable giving and generational wealth
- Post-Career Transition Planning to help ensure financial stability after retirement
- Privacy & Liability Protection to shield assets from external scrutiny, pressure and exposure
- Family Wealth & Estate Planning to help secure financial stability for future generations
Mercer Advisors is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice to clients. All estate planning documentation preparation and other legal advice is provided through select third parties unaffiliated to Mercer Advisors, depending on the complexity of the estate, additional fees may apply. Tax preparation and tax filing services typically requires a separate fee from our investment management and planning services.
Tax Planning That Reflects Your Unique Income Landscape
For professional athletes, tax obligations can be as unpredictable as career trajectories. With earnings spanning multiple states, endorsement deals, and fluctuating contracts, strategic tax planning is essential to minimizing liabilities and protecting long-term financial security.
Our approach helps ensure that athletes optimize their tax position while maintaining strong cash flow. We help clients navigate multi-state taxation, including jock taxes, residency considerations, and income structuring to reduce exposure. By integrating business entities, trusts, and charitable foundations, we create tax-efficient strategies that align with financial goals and philanthropic aspirations.
Our approach includes:
- Managing multi-state tax obligations with precision.
- Integrating business entities, trusts, or charitable foundations for tax efficiency.
- Collaborating with your CPA and agent to help maintain strong cash flow while reducing tax exposure.
Family, Estate, and Legacy Planning for Professional Athletes
Thoughtful estate planning and philanthropic strategies can help ensure that your wealth is protected, structured, and aligned with your long-term goals.
- Preserve generational wealth by establishing trusts designed to safeguard assets for your family.
- Create charitable structures to give back to your community while maintaining financial efficiency. We can help determine whether a foundation or a donor-advised fund is better for your goals.
- Develop estate strategies that can minimize tax burdens and help ensure a smooth, tax-smart wealth transfer.
We help athletes structure their financial plans to support both personal and philanthropic aspirations, ensuring their impact lasts well beyond their playing years.
Additional Solutions
Beyond career-specific strategies, our team provides holistic financial services designed to protect, preserve, and grow your wealth — now and for years to come.
What You Can Expect From Our Advisors
We understand the unique demands and opportunities of a professional athlete’s financial life. Our team brings deep experience, proactive guidance, and a trusted partnership every step of the way.
Discreet, Relationship-Based Service
We prioritize your privacy and build long-term relationships grounded in trust, communication, and understanding.
A Team of Specialists Working Together
You’ll have access to credentialed professionals in investment management, tax planning, estate strategy, and more—all aligned around your goals.
Strategies Built for Every Season
From rookie year to retirement and beyond, we help you stay financially prepared and confident through each transition.Financial Game Plan Checklist
From managing earnings during peak performance to preparing for life after sports, we help professional athletes build a financial game plan that protects and grows wealth.
FAQs for Professional Athletes
-
The sooner you start planning for retirement, the more control you can have over your financial future. Early preparation can allow for structured wealth accumulation, minimizes tax burdens, and helps protect assets from career uncertainties. With proactive planning strategies, you can work to secure long-term stability, maintain your lifestyle, and confidently transition to life beyond professional sports.
-
Tax planning for professional athletes is uniquely complex, especially when managing income across multiple states, endorsement deals, and fluctuating pay structures. Without proper strategy, taxation liabilities can erode earnings faster than anticipated. Athletes often benefit from business entity structuring, trusts, and charitable foundations—all tools that help enhance tax efficiency and align financial obligations with long-term goals. Our advisors collaborate closely with CPAs, agents, and legal teams to help ensure comprehensive protection and compliance.
-
For professional athletes, career changes can happen unexpectedly—whether due to injury, trades, or retirement. Without a solid financial strategy, these transitions can disrupt income streams and put long-term wealth at risk.
At Mercer Advisors, we implement risk management tools and diversified investment strategies to help athletes safeguard their financial future. Our approach includes:
- Liquidity Planning – Ensuring access to funds for immediate needs while maintaining long-term investment growth.
- Diversified Investment Portfolios – Balancing risk and stability across asset classes to help protect against market volatility and career uncertainty.
- Income Replacement Strategies – Structuring investments to generate passive income, helping to ensure financial security beyond active playing years.
- Asset Protection – Using trusts, insurance, and legal structures to shield wealth from unexpected disruptions.
- Tax-Efficient Planning – Adjusting financial strategies to accommodate changes in residency, contract structures, and endorsement income.
By proactively managing investments with flexibility and security in mind, athletes can navigate career shifts with confidence, knowing their financial foundation remains strong regardless of unforeseen changes.
-
Absolutely. With intentional wealth planning, you can provide for your family while working to ensure financial security beyond your playing career. Trusts, estate strategies, and diversified investments help preserve assets, minimize risks, and create generational wealth—allowing you to support loved ones now while building a lasting financial legacy for the long run.
-
Setting up a trust or charitable foundation depends on your financial goals and philanthropic vision. A private family foundation offers control over donations and fosters family involvement but requires ongoing management. A donor-advised fund (DAF) provides tax benefits with less administrative burden. Trusts can also help secure generational wealth while supporting charitable giving, but may require additional administration and cost. A financial advisor can help you determine the best possible vehicle for your philanthropic goals.
