Playing the long game — With athlete-turned-advisor Ronnie Kaymore

Ronnie Kaymore began providing financial advice and assistance to athletes more than 15 years ago when a decades-old system largely decided when they would make money.

Today, the “amateur” athlete who doesn’t get paid is almost an anachronism. Even more change is on the way as the last remnants of big-time amateur sports fade away and billions are shared with younger players.

Those athletes are going to need plenty of help, said Kaymore, CEO of Kaymore Sports Risk Management and Consulting in South Orange, N.J.

“You get some of these five-star recruits or All-Americans, and they’re being recruited by some of the top universities athletics wise in the country. And that creates a need for them to now be seniors in high school receiving financial literacy,” Kaymore said. “The financial planning industry will have a very unique opportunity to be a blessing to these kids as well as their families a lot earlier than usual.”

Kaymore shares a lot with the athletes he works with. A prep football star in New Jersey, Kaymore played college ball for Texas A&M Kingsville. In 2003, he joined the Bismarck Roughriders of the National Indoor Football League.

Kaymore later played for the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Pioneers, a team in the Arena Football League’s AF2 player development league, and then the AFL’s Las Vegas Gladiators before moving beyond football in 2006.

Having that playing experience is immensely helpful in relating to athletes and their financials, Kaymore said.

“That can be an advantage in terms of knowing what they have to deal with both physically and mentally,” he explained. “And knowing and understanding that you can be the first pick of the draft and yes, you’ve got a lot of money now, but that’s not even your concern. Your concern is the playbook and becoming acclimated to being a professional.”

Football to finance

Once his own playing days ended, Kaymore wasted little time pondering his next career. He had worked for two years in banking, and his wife, Monique, worked at a bank. With the move to financial services decided, Kaymore did not have to look far for potential clients.

Research shows that athletes start declaring bankruptcy as early as two years after the end of their athletic careers, according to the Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center. The reasons are well known: Short careers, lack of financial awareness and the quick onset of wealth are three.

It starts with education, said Kaymore, father to two girls, Kirsten and Kayla, and two boys, Caleb and Joshua.

“I do think that there’s a great need to educate athletes in particular, relative to all sorts of financial planning,” he said. “I’ve never met an athlete that understands what a stock, bond or ETF is. I’ve never met a young man that understands what a whole life policy or index [universal life] is. It’s just information that they were not privy to.”

Kaymore got his life insurance producer license and his accident/health insurance license in 2009. His agency focuses on insurance and risk management, and has partnerships with other experts, such as accountants and registered financial advisors, to provide holistic financial services.

“We run it that way just to present that collaborative effort,” Kaymore explained. “One hundred percent of our clients at Kaymore Sports are athletes, and a lot of the time that permeates into their family.”

For example, players will often create a business or foundation and put one or both of their parents in charge. For Kaymore it creates a true family atmosphere that makes his job easier.

“What we try to do is make sure we get Mom and Dad some training, or whoever those family members are,” Kaymore explained. “We’ve done things like cash balance plans and defined benefit plans to make sure that when this player retires, Mom and Dad also have a retirement stream of income.”

Having the parents involved adds another benefit as well. Young athletes who go from virtually no money to a multimillion-dollar bonus check do not always respond responsibly. The immediate tax bite alone shrinks that big bonus check significantly. Then there are friends and family and girlfriends all wanting to share in the bounty.

‘Educating the parents’

Having that strong parental influence can go a long way to establish guardrails on spending, Kaymore said. Kaymore Sports created a Parental Advisor Council, which counts Stacy Elliott, father of NFL star Ezekiel Elliott, as a close “strategic connection.” 

“Our model has always been to educate the player by educating the parents,” Kaymore said. “I think a lot of these kids do come from good homes, maybe sometimes not real affluent homes, yet the love is there. The care is there. The nurture is there. And I think that if the parents are educated and empowered, they’re able to provide some guidance to their children.”

Kaymore primarily represents NFL and NBA players. Many clients play for the hometown Philadelphia Eagles, but Kaymore Sports counts players on all 32 NFL teams.

Since 2010, Kaymore Sports has been affiliated with American Business for agency support. An Integrity Marketing Group company, American Business is led by Bruce Mesner, a former NFL player with the Buffalo Bills.

“What that did for me was it gave me in essence a partner that understood the NFL pension plan, understood the benefits,” Kaymore said. “So, when we’re designing these plans for these NFL and NBA kids, we’re also taking into consideration the benefits that the league provides.”

The way Kaymore fights for clients is what differentiates him from other agents, Mesner said. For example, insurers will attach exclusions to a typical disability policy. While many agents just accept it, “Ronnie will fight them on it,” Mesner said.

“When somebody goes on claim, Ronnie is there to help and support the family as opposed to just leaving it to the family and whomever they can hire to help them,” Mesner added. “I’ve seen it over and over and over again. He does not take the path of least resistance when working with these players and their families.”

Kaymore, a member of the Million Dollar Round Table, a group for top financial services producers, is a fan of what annuities can provide clients in terms of lifetime income. The COVID-19 economic turmoil and resulting inflation showed how valuable annuities are to a financial plan, he added.

“They ended up providing really good buffers and performed really well during that volatility,” he said.

Dramatic NCAA changes

The dramatic and ongoing changes to how NCAA athletes can be compensated are something Kaymore is watching with interest. First came name, image and likeness rights. NIL originated with former UCLA basketball player Ed O’Bannon arguing that college athletes should be compensated for the use of their name and image in video games.

That led to a class action lawsuit, which led to new NIL rules three years ago. The college sports world responded swiftly, with athletes signing million-dollar deals and moving from school to school yearly.

In May, the NCAA settled another class action lawsuit by agreeing to share $2.7 billion with past athletes who were denied NIL opportunities. More importantly, the settlement would come with a corresponding commitment from conferences and schools to share revenue with athletes moving forward, ESPN reported.

It all means that a lot of real-world financial concerns are starting even earlier for the best-paid athletes, Kaymore said.

“The need for financial literacy for athletes, in my professional opinion, has always been there,” he said. “But now this has just accelerated that even further. I think it even shifted a little bit of the burden to now high schools to educate their student-athletes for what the kids are going to soon embark on once they’re being recruited by these universities.”

InsuranceNewsNet Senior Editor John Hilton has covered business and other beats in more than 20 years of daily journalism. John may be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @INNJohnH.