Brandon Ghee is a rare combination — a former professional football player turned banker — and a uniquely qualified fit to start up Cogent Bancorp's athlete-focused business line.
The $1.8 billion-asset bank in Orlando launched its sports and entertainment banking vertical late last year to provide young athletes, both at the collegiate and professional levels, with the financial literacy education and banking resources needed to effectively manage and preserve sudden infusions of wealth.
Star athletes in football, basketball and other sports often enter lucrative but unpredictable careers. They can go from living with their parents and earning little or nothing to garnering six- or seven-figure salaries and signing bonuses. Even with financial planners and agents, Ghee said the sudden windfalls for people just entering adulthood can prove overwhelming. Money mismanagement and regrettable spending decisions too often leave even elite athletes with sparse savings or insufficient long-term income.
"It can be a shock to suddenly have a $650,000 signing bonus," Ghee said in an interview, using his own National Football League sign-on experience as an example. He "luckily" had family with financial expertise to help him manage the transition, but many of his peers did not, and some burned through all of their wealth before their playing days ended.
"I know the horror stories," he added.
While pros command big bucks, their careers are often short — injuries and fierce competition make it difficult for many to endure for more than a few years.
"If you aren't performing at the highest level, you can be let go at any time," Ghee said. "The business side is very much corporate America. … And injury, it's always an issue. You have to plan for the worst."
Some players last into their 30s; others do not make it past their 20s. That noted, Ghee said top athletes can, if they understand their finances and bank half or more of their playing-day earnings, can set themselves up with a
"Each person is different, but it can be a great start to life," Ghee said. "I try to be as hands on as possible." The bank provides "a concierge service" that spans deposit accounts, customized loans and wealth management services.
He said the goal is to onboard 30 to 40 athletes per year. Cogent's sports service is national in scope.
Ghee, a six-year NFL veteran who was drafted in 2010 by the Cincinnati Bengals and also played for the Tennessee Titans, was a star defensive back at Wake Forest University in his collegiate days. The one seismic change since then — and a big reason Cogent sees opportunity now — is the move by the National Collegiate Athletic Association in 2021 to allow college players to get paid for use of their names, images and likenesses, or NIL.
The NCAA long resisted paying college players, in part due to worries it would effectively overshadow the academic element of the student-athlete experience. But pressure from major states such as California and Florida, which argued that players earned huge sums of money for universities but were unfairly prevented from sharing in the wealth, ultimately acquiesced.
"Now, there's no going back," Ghee said. "It's here to stay."
Michael Keenan, PwC's U.S. sports leader and managing director, said that on top of the NIL change, more leading NCAA sports conferences are on the cusp of major changes in 2024. These include top schools jumping from the Pac-10 to the Big 10, for example, in pursuit of even more television revenue and sponsorships. Such shifts may prove wise, financially, for leading sports programs and many players, but other colleges and conferences may fall behind.
"While realignment promises significant financial gains for universities and media companies," Keenan said, "it raises questions about the impact on the institutions, athletes, fans and the NCAA itself."
Ghee said the ongoing evolution of college sports makes the intersection of banking expertise and student-athlete financial planning all the more important and timely.
Michael Jamesson, a principal at the bank consulting firm Jamesson Associates, said that, if a community bank can carve out the resources, it may make sense to dive into the sports fray at a pivotal time. Like college sports, he said banks are also in a period of transition, adapting to an era of high interest rates that drove up
"Let's face it, there's a
Cogent Bank also recently expanded its private wealth offerings and added aviation financing to its lineup of services. It said it would continue to add more niche operations.
With Cogent's sports vertical, Ghee said he would draw upon his firsthand experience and industry knowledge, noting that with all the change in the NCAA, in particular, athletes will need bankers and other advisors who genuinely understand the hurdles they are trying to clear.
"Right now, it's the wild, wild west," he said. But "with the right help," athletes reaping the financial rewards of big-time sports, "can set themselves up for a great life, set their kids up, too. There's a lot at stake."
