Steve Young is still being paid... (1 Viewer)

[Raider Nation]

Steve Young - Wikipedia

Young signed a record 10-year, $40 million contract with the Los Angeles Express of the now-defunct United States Football League in 1984. He agreed to take his payment in the form of an annuity to help the fledgling team; he would receive $1 million every year for 40 years.

The Express never was able to create a sustaining fan base in Los Angeles. In Young's second and final season with the USFL's Express, between their owner going bankrupt and playing in front of 5,000 to 8,000 spectators, things got so desperate that in one game late in the season, decimated by injuries at running back, Young was forced to play the game at running back while his backup took the snaps.

The league ceased operations in 1986 after losing most of its claims in an antitrust suit against the NFL. Young was still being paid his annuity as of 2008.

This isn't my area of expertise, so maybe someone can explain how this annuity works. The owner who signed him to the contract declares bankruptcy before the ink was dry, and the league folded 22 years ago. How exactly is his contract being honored, and by whom?

 

[dirtyhalos]

thats what i'm ####### talking about!!!!!!

 

[Ozymandias]

From what I heard, he had to give it all back in order for them to release him to play in the NFL.

 

[Raider Nation]

From what I heard, he had to give it all back in order for them to release him to play in the NFL.

Not according to that Wikipedia entry. Those have to be factual, no?

 

[awesomeness]

From what I heard, he had to give it all back in order for them to release him to play in the NFL.

Not according to that Wikipedia entry. Those have to be factual, no?

 

[teamroc]

From what I heard, he had to give it all back in order for them to release him to play in the NFL.

Not according to that Wikipedia entry. Those have to be factual, no?

Anyone can edit Wiki articles. Yes, even you. Things get corrected, but it's not even close to 100% accurate.

 

[The Duff Man]

Now THAT is a good agent!

 

[Jersey35]

While I can't speak to whether or not Young had to "give it all back" to play in the NFL, an annuity is generally designed for someone to pay a large chunk of money (or a number of smaller chunks) to, what would be in this case, a third party (generally an insurance company). Who then invests the $ using their experience/expertise to gain interest. The expectation is that the annuity provider makes enough early on in the annuity by getting the money

"in-house" so to speak, that the interest generated by the money allows them to pay out the 1mm annually quite easily.

It's not as though Young agreed to have the LA Express pay him $1mm per year. The annuity would have had to be purchased and paid for when it was set up. So whether the LA Express (or its owner) went bankrupt should have no bearing on the health of the annuity.

 

[Pictus Cat]

From what I heard, he had to give it all back in order for them to release him to play in the NFL.

Not according to that Wikipedia entry. Those have to be factual, no?

Wikipedia does it's best, but it's all on the authors. Mistakes can be made.Annuity was mentioned as the payment. That sounds like what you would buy when you retire. Could have been set up so the team paid a bank less than 40 million to pay Mr. Young 1 million per year for 40 years. The interest accrues to get to the 40 million and the team pays less upfront. Maybe if the league folded, the annuity is already purchased, so it continues to pay out.Edit to add - What the two guys before me said while I was typing.

 

[Raider Nation]

From what I heard, he had to give it all back in order for them to release him to play in the NFL.

Not according to that Wikipedia entry. Those have to be factual, no?

Anyone can edit Wiki articles. Yes, even you. Things get corrected, but it's not even close to 100% accurate.

So THIS may not be true, either?

Steve Young was originally supposed to play the part of Mary's secret love in the film "There's Something About Mary." However, as a practicing Mormon, he declined, due to the nature of the movie. The part instead went to Brett Favre.

 

[Deuceman]

Players do this from time to time in pro sports. You usually see this in the NBA. Dennis Rodman did this when he signed his last contract with the Bulls. I think I remember reading he deferred money to be paid over a ~20 year period. Something to the tune of $200-$300 thousand a year.

 

[chris1969]

I would imagine that Young's agent either asked for the annuity to be purchased via a lump sum or forced the owner to purchase insurance against default. However good it sounds, Young would have been better served getting the money up front. According to my math, such an annuity could have been purchased with $10 mil in a lump sum. The annuity company gets use of that money and makes a decent profit off of fairly conservative investments. Steve would have been better off asking for the $10 mil up front and investing it in the S & P. Over the long haul, he could have gotten pretty close to $1 mil a year for life.

 

[saintfool]

Wikipedia does it's best, but it's all on the authors. Mistakes can be made.

80% of the wiki articles are written by 20% of its authors.

 

[DoubleG]

Wikipedia does it's best, but it's all on the authors. Mistakes can be made.

80% of the wiki articles are written by 20% of its authors.

80% of stats used to defend a position an argument or make a point are false or completely made up.Including the above.

 

[saintfool]

Wikipedia does it's best, but it's all on the authors. Mistakes can be made.

80% of the wiki articles are written by 20% of its authors.

80% of stats used to defend a position an argument or make a point are false or completely made up.Including the above.

This top-heavy structure of social-media sites isn't news to researchers and technophiles. Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales has acknowledged that what he expected to be an "80-20" rule—a system where 20 percent of people control 80 percent of the resources—in fact understates the site's top-heaviness. Palo Alto Research Center's Ed Chi, the scientist who determined that 1 percent of Wikipedians author half of the content, told me he originally hypothesized that the site's most energetic editors were acting as custodians. Chi guessed that these users mostly cleaned up after the people who provided the bulk of the encyclopedia's facts. In reality, he found the opposite was true (PDF). People who've made more than 10,000 edits add nearly twice as many words to Wikipedia as they delete. By contrast, those who've made fewer than 100 edits are the only group that deletes more words than it adds. A small number of people are writing the articles, it seems, while less-frequent users are given the tasks of error correction and typo fixing.

while i got the numbers off - only slightly - the statement is supported (recent slate article. not that this has anything to do with FF...

 

[Southside Stosh]

I remmember hearing something about Steve Young not cashing the checks he received from the 49ers until he became the starter. Something about not having "earned it". I was impressed by that and I wondered how he payed the bills. Later, I learned he was making a cool 1 million a year from his USFL contract.

Can anyone coroborate the part about him not cashing his checks while he was the 2nd QB at San Fran?

 

[acapella]

I remmember hearing something about Steve Young not cashing the checks he received from the 49ers until he became the starter. Something about not having "earned it". I was impressed by that and I wondered how he payed the bills. Later, I learned he was making a cool 1 million a year from his USFL contract. Can anyone coroborate the part about him not cashing his checks while he was the 2nd QB at San Fran?

Have you checked Wikipedia? Very reliable source.

 

[mad sweeney]

I remmember hearing something about Steve Young not cashing the checks he received from the 49ers until he became the starter. Something about not having "earned it". I was impressed by that and I wondered how he payed the bills. Later, I learned he was making a cool 1 million a year from his USFL contract. Can anyone coroborate the part about him not cashing his checks while he was the 2nd QB at San Fran?

His bloodline is Mormon royalty. I doubt they had financial difficulties ever in his life.

 

[Irish]

Now THAT is a good agent!

Quite the opposite. Forty million in the 80's is worth a lot more than 1 million per yr.

 

[JoeSteeler]

I remmember hearing something about Steve Young not cashing the checks he received from the 49ers until he became the starter. Something about not having "earned it". I was impressed by that and I wondered how he payed the bills. Later, I learned he was making a cool 1 million a year from his USFL contract.

Can anyone coroborate the part about him not cashing his checks while he was the 2nd QB at San Fran?

From NY Times storyIn his early years as Joe Montana's backup on the 49ers, Steve Young was a millionaire, but he wasn't living like one.

"He was staying in my house," offensive tackle Harris Barton recalled. "One day late in the 1988 season I opened his dresser drawer to get a pair of socks, and there were 13 uncashed checks in there. More than a million dollars. I guess he didn't feel like he was earning those paychecks enough to cash them."

 

[5-ish Finkle]

"He was staying in my house," offensive tackle Harris Barton recalled. "One day late in the 1988 season I opened his dresser drawer to get a pair of socks, and there were 13 uncashed checks in there. More than a million dollars. I guess he didn't feel like he was earning those paychecks enough to cash them."

This begs the question: WTH was Harris Barton doing wearing Steve Young's socks?

 

[Southside Stosh]

I remmember hearing something about Steve Young not cashing the checks he received from the 49ers until he became the starter. Something about not having "earned it". I was impressed by that and I wondered how he payed the bills. Later, I learned he was making a cool 1 million a year from his USFL contract.

Can anyone coroborate the part about him not cashing his checks while he was the 2nd QB at San Fran?

From NY Times storyIn his early years as Joe Montana's backup on the 49ers, Steve Young was a millionaire, but he wasn't living like one.

"He was staying in my house," offensive tackle Harris Barton recalled. "One day late in the 1988 season I opened his dresser drawer to get a pair of socks, and there were 13 uncashed checks in there. More than a million dollars. I guess he didn't feel like he was earning those paychecks enough to cash them."

Thanks for this. I seem to remember John Madden commenting on this as well. Although not cashing those checks may have had as much to do with tax planning as with his character.

 

[glock]

"He was staying in my house," offensive tackle Harris Barton recalled. "One day late in the 1988 season I opened his dresser drawer to get a pair of socks, and there were 13 uncashed checks in there. More than a million dollars. I guess he didn't feel like he was earning those paychecks enough to cash them."

This begs the question: WTH was Harris Barton doing wearing Steve Young's socks?

Nicely played.