OT - Vince Young Close to Broke
Vince Young spends nearly all of $26 million guaranteed contract (and approximately $30 million of endorsement proceeds); claims close associates took advantage of him....! Pleads for understanding because of financial illiteracy (including agreeing to a $1.9 million dollar loan at 20% interest to bide him through the NFL lockout).
Six years after entering the NFL as the third player taken in the draft, Vince Young finds himself without a team and with just a fraction of the money he received from a contract that guaranteed him $26 million.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-400_162-57515781/qb-vince-young-out-of-the-game-and-out-of-money/
Vince argues that he just executed signature pages, but never read the agreements or schedules/exhibits attached thereto (which actually happens all the time in the real world). Essentially, he seems to have given signing authority to his uncle and some criminal defense lawyer who used that privilege to spend down assets and amass additional liabilities under Vince Young's name.
Now that Vince is out of the NFL and the collection calls are streaming in, Vince is looking for hail mary passes that will get him out of this mess.
Does anyone have a job for Vince Young??!
[ED-BiSB: Per ZL's edit, you can't just copy and paste entire articles]
[OP ED - Second try...]
September 28th, 2012 at 1:25 PM ^
This was the funniest three posts I've ever read. I'm easily amused.
September 28th, 2012 at 11:02 AM ^
I'm in the crew that appreciate things like this being brought to our attn at mgoblog. I read this blog more than any other, and wouldn't have seen this otherwise.
When I see a good article elsewhere that I think would be of interest to mgoblog readership, I might post it here. Then again, I sometimes pass, knowing that someone else is likely to post.
In the end, new content or analysis always beats links to material that is elsewhere.
In that vein, I won't start a new thread, but there are two articles out there which someone else can put up as a new post:
- "Inside Michigan Hockey," 9/26, with Doug Karsh, has video of the newly renovated Yost Arena, along with stuff from Red on the upcoming season. Link: http://www.mgoblue.com/
- Tremendous has a nice analysis piece on Borges' playcalling over at his blog. Upshot: he really thinks it is execution that has doomed the playcalling, but execution mistakes extend to how Borges and his crew are coaching. LINK: http://www.michigantremendous.com/
September 28th, 2012 at 11:27 AM ^
Bitching about bitching, however, is cool.
September 28th, 2012 at 1:55 PM ^
Well hell, if we're going there I've just run across some disturbing news worthy of thread.
http://www.inquisitr.com/346447/kate-upton-could-be-ditching-the-swimsuit-for-high-end-modeling/
September 28th, 2012 at 10:57 AM ^
I can think of a lot of ways to blow $20 million. It wouldn't be hard at all.
All you have to do is take all those times you looked at something really cool, nice, and expensive, and said to yourself "that would be nice to have," and imagine yourself with the money to get it.
You start running out of money pretty quickly if you get all that stuff.
But of course it's easy for me to do this a bit more intelligently; I'm 32 and our family has lived on a tight budget for years, and we've had our own brushes with debt. It has helped us determine what is a real priority, and what a real priority would be if we had that kind of money. But someone like Young has never had to learn self restraint--why would he? He was a millionaire four years out of high school. With millions of college kids incurrng heavy credit card debts, he's hardly alone in this.
So he has $20 mil to blow instead of $20,000. It's really kind of similar--you just buy bigger cars and bigger houses.
September 28th, 2012 at 10:59 AM ^
who could go broke after signing a $26 million contract. "But I was taken advantage of..." GTFO! Who does he think he is? M.C. Hammer (or is it just Hammer)?
September 28th, 2012 at 11:10 AM ^
His biggest excuse seems pretty weak to me:
In challenging the loan's validity, Young claims he didn't "knowingly execute" any of the loan documents. Anything he signed was "without the corresponding documents attached and without knowledge as to what the signatures pages referred," one of his court filings states.
Why was he signing stuff that didn't have the necessary documents? I guess that's where he's trying to say he was taken advantage of, but it seems like he made it pretty easy to be taken advantage of. All he had to say was "I'm not signing anything until I see more documentation on this." Now, if someone gave him inaccurate or falsified information, then he'd have a legitimate gripe, because he would have made his decision based on what he thought was accurate information. That doesn't seem to be the case, though.
September 28th, 2012 at 11:21 AM ^
I agree that he doesn't have much of an argument (on both points).
On your second point, almost all contracts have an "Entire Agreement" clause, which basically says that this written agreement is the entire agreement and whatever was told to you previously is not the agreement between us. So you can't rely on previous statements, whether or not they were inaccurate.
On the first point, I agree with the notion that whatever you sign, you're responsible for... but as I mentioned above, most people don't read all of the underlying documents. Practically speaking, most signatories will receive a "signature packet" PDF of the 10, 20, 30, etc. signature pages that they have to sign. Then you sign all of them and send them back in order for the deal to happen. Oftentimes, when the agreements are voluminous (hundreds or thousands of pages), there has to be some level of trust that your lawyers, advisors and your team have thoroughly negotiated the agreements in your best interest.
You can always request the underlying documents, but most people won't take a weekend to sit and read thousands of pages nor understand what they mean even after reading them.
September 28th, 2012 at 11:18 AM ^
Maybe he shouldve taken an accounting or finance class at Texas then...they are actually one of the best public universities out there.
September 28th, 2012 at 11:32 AM ^
Per his transcript, he probably did. Though, having someone attend class for you, do your homework, and take your exams does not necessarily mean you'll acquire that knowledge.
September 28th, 2012 at 11:55 AM ^
Texas really isn't known to be a shady program or an academic joke.
September 28th, 2012 at 12:17 PM ^
As someone who funded the six years at UT it took to get his Ph.D. by TAing, I can say that it varies greatly instructor-to-instructor the degree to which players can get away with stuff. Some will not care at all that a student is also a football player, and others will do everything in their power to get those guys to pass (not necessarily for the benefit of the player, but usually because they don't want the headache of dealing with the football program/athletic department). And players definitely know which professors are which, so it kind of sorts itself out in the sense that players that want to learn take real classes and actually try and players that just want to play football take easy classes with professors who will let them pass no matter what.
I realize that I probably just described about 110% of universities with good athletic programs, but all in all I'd guess that UT is better than most places about giving their players real educations. But I also would not be surprised in the least if a guy like Young could make it through his entire college experience without learning a single thing. (That said, I know Young made the effort to come back to UT to finish his degree after going to the NFL, because he popped up in some classes that friends were TAing.)
September 28th, 2012 at 1:31 PM ^
Texas really isn't known to be a shady program or an academic joke.
If we are being honest, we have to acknowledge that it doesn't make sense that the vast majority of football/basketball players manage to stay eligible for every term despite having much lower academic credentials than their peers AND having to spend 30-40 hours a week in their sport. Academic fraud, to some degree or another, probably goes on just about everywhere. Most of the time it probably isn't as blatant as passing guys who don't even show up to class; it probably is more along the lines of instructors being very, ahem, "understanding" when it comes to grading their work.
September 28th, 2012 at 2:32 PM ^
I agree, but relatively speaking, Texas generally isn't mentioned among the notoroius schools were academic fraud and other shenanigans are or were thought to be rampant (North Carolina, Minnesota, Ohio State, Miami, USC, et al). In fact, I remember back when the tatgate and cargate scandals broke at OSU, there was an interview with a former Texas player who talked about how annoyingly vigilant Texas' compliance department was and how he couldn't even get his car fixed without compliance breathing down his neck to make sure that the mechanic didn't give him any improper discounts (not directly related to academics, but relevant nonetheless).
I'm sure that every school takes advantage of gray areas (including Michigan) and that minor shenanigans occur everywhere, but Texas isn't worse than anyone else in that regard.
September 28th, 2012 at 11:24 AM ^
FYI, ESPN's new 30-for-30 film "Broke" is out on Oct. 2 and focuses on wealthy sports starts who've gone bankrupt. Doubt VY could have made it in as this story only broke a couple weeks ago (perhaps as a postscript).
Description of upcoming films at:
http://www.hitfix.com/news/espn-sets-october-return-for-30-for-30-docs
September 28th, 2012 at 11:38 AM ^
Since this seems to be the year of karmic retribution, there was that 2005 Rose Bowl.
Just sayin'
September 28th, 2012 at 12:22 PM ^
September 28th, 2012 at 12:31 PM ^
Not being a multi-millionaire anymore.
/not what "entire life ruined" is
September 28th, 2012 at 12:45 PM ^
September 28th, 2012 at 1:31 PM ^
So I'd lose a couple hundred bucks...big deal
September 28th, 2012 at 7:32 PM ^
Not a big deal. He could sell his mansion, lamborghinis, and jewelry collection and have more money than most of us will make in a lifetime, and then get signed by the Dolphins, Raiders, or Browns next year. His entire life has not been ruined.
September 28th, 2012 at 2:29 PM ^
Well, personally I am more Princess Leia than Han Solo. But to each his own.
September 28th, 2012 at 12:23 PM ^
Old(er) news and is nowhere near in-season board worthy material. But, it is wife day week and you've already got 50+ comments, so overall, not a bad first thread at all.
Anyways, how someone that makes that much money can go broke so quckly is beyond me. You must have a lot of stupid/evil people around you to make that happen. I'd like to say something like that would never happen to me, but unfortunately, I'll never get the chance to see how fast and thoroughly I can blow millions of bucks.
September 28th, 2012 at 1:04 PM ^
How an athlete, and especially a football player, doesn't understand that you can only play professional sports for so long is beyond me.
Especially in football where 1 hit could end your career.
September 28th, 2012 at 1:15 PM ^
Another example of how to lose lots of money in a short amount of time. Terrance Watanabe lost $112 million in Vegas in 2007 alone. He basically came into a lot of money after his father passed (his father had a novelty company that was sold) and obviously has a huge gambling problem.
There are a lot of interesting highlights - for example, Harrah's made a special "Chairman Tier" of casino status just for him. He was their number 1 customer (Terrance, allegedly, single-handedly accounted for 20% of Harrah's revenue in 2006 and 2007). Terrance argues that he was kept on drugs and alcohol during his stay and had no idea what he was doing, etc.
This article is one of many about how he was being prosecuted (i.e., not paying back casino markers in Nevada is actually a crime, and not just a civil suit) for $14.7 million (after he had already paid off approximately $100 million of his markers).
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/jul/17/whales-ace-hole/
Further, some additional illustrations from another WSJ article:
"Mr. Watanabe resided for free in a three-bedroom suite at Caesars, had access to his favorite bartender, drank a special brand of vodka, Jewel of Russia, and was constantly surrounded by attendants to serve his every need, such as a seven-course meal from the casino's Bradley Ogden restaurant delivered to him while he was gambling."
"One reason Mr. Watanabe was seen as so valuable to Harrah's, say Messrs. Deleon and Kunder, two of his handlers, is that he gravitated toward games with low odds, including roulette and slots. "He was considered a 'house' player because slots and roulette are house games -- they have terrible odds for the player," says Mr. Kunder. "And the way he played blackjack, he made it a house game. He made such bad decisions on the blackjack table."
September 28th, 2012 at 1:28 PM ^
I had a friend who owned a 3rd party AT&T cell phone store which did good enough that he ended up selling it for a few hundred grand. He promptly moved to Vegas and after 6 months, had to move back and start working full time again. Vegas is very efficient at what it does.
September 28th, 2012 at 2:15 PM ^
Vegas is definitely a money pit. It's hard to understand until you actually go. It's hard to do anything without spending a lot of money.
Was there this summer and dropped around 6 grand in three days, and I don't gamble.
September 28th, 2012 at 3:52 PM ^
I've been over a dozen times. I've never gone broke or lost rent money gambling, but I've lost enough where I now get comped rooms at almost every Caesars/Harrah's hotel. Like you said, the fascination with the place can't be described in words. You have to be there to realize how that place is able to so easily empty your wallet while (hopefully) still keeping a smile on your face.
September 28th, 2012 at 4:42 PM ^
September 28th, 2012 at 5:14 PM ^
It's just one of those things I have to do every once in a while with clients. I'm not a club guy but I promised my client I'd take him and his friends out to XS in Vegas one night and that ended up costing me over $4000.
September 28th, 2012 at 3:49 PM ^
Now that's a great story. A high rolling gambler that plays slots and roulette? Granted, there are complicated betting schemes for roulette that make it a little less of a house game, but this guy doesn't sound like the complicated roulette betting scheme type.
Clearly he had no idea what he was doing. The guy lived in a casino and didn't bother to read any $10 books about playing blackjack. You'd think that dropping $100M into slot machines would get so eye-stabbing boring that you'd just quit.
[edit: by "no" i obviously meant "now"]
September 28th, 2012 at 4:57 PM ^
If I had $26 millions, I could live the rest of my life without work. I don't understand how all these athletes end up broke. These guys need to get a clue.
September 28th, 2012 at 6:48 PM ^
September 28th, 2012 at 11:42 PM ^
...or anybody, for that matter, who blows through millions of bucks, while the rest of us work our tails off day after day, year after year over a 30-40 year career. We grind away, while somebody is given a golden ticket, and pisses it all away. Loser.
September 29th, 2012 at 5:16 AM ^
September 29th, 2012 at 6:40 AM ^