How does a professional athlete sign a contract and earn a certain amount of money but have a lower net worth than the amount they earned?

Question

I was looking over the net worth of a specific baseball player and it says his net worth is between $6 million-$15 million. But in the same article it says he earned $51 million playing four seasons in the majors. If he earned $51 million how is his net worth $15 million max?

In: 5

Answer 1

The short answer is that the net worths that come up are utterly unreliable. The only thing that can (sometimes) be found in public records is their home. Sometimes a boat. Bank accounts and investment information isn’t really out there, unless they own enough of a company need to report it.

If they are buying into businesses, it should be through some sort of LLC, which may not be easily traced to its owner