During an interview with fellow NFL veteran Ryan Clark, New York Giants great Odell Beckham Jr. made a surprising case that earning $100 million in five years can't create generational wealth.
After being the 12th overall pick in the 2014 NFL Draft , it didn't take long for Beckham Jr. to make an immediate impact in the pros. In his debut season, he won Offensive Rookie of the Year honors after posting 91 catches, 1,305 yards, and 12 touchdowns.
He topped that in his sophomore season by tallying 96 catches, for 1,450 receiving yards and 13 TDs. What he was able to do over his first five seasons in New York — including missing most of 2017 after an ACL tear — is why he landed a massive $90 million deal in 2018.
While he only had one more good full-season in the NFL after battling injuries the rest of his career, Beckham Jr. still did well for himself by earning over $100 million just from his tenure with the NY Giants. However, during a forgotten chat with Ryan Clark late last year, he tried to make the claim that it wasn't enough to create generational wealth.
"I try to explain this to people. When you give somebody a five-year, $100 million contract, what is it really? It's five years for $60 million. If you do the math, it's $12 million a year that you have to spend, use, save, invest, flaunt. I'm just being real, I'm gonna buy a car. Give my mom a house. Everything costs money."
This is where his point gets even harder to stomach when he claims that if you're spending "$4 million a year, that's really $40 million over five years." But it's not. That would mean spending just $20 million over five years, and still leaving him with $40 million after taxes.
Beckham Jr.'s math may be why he doesn't think that is great money over time. "That's a five-year span where you are getting $8 million [left over after expenses]. Can you make that last forever?"
If some of those expenses are toward investments, yes, in theory, it should create money that builds and lasts forever. Now, if you make bad investments, that is a different story. But either way, the NY Giants veterans' case about that sort of money not being enough to create long-term wealth is likely to fall on deaf ears from regular NFL fans working 9-to-5 jobs.
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