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My friend Rand Getlin recently wrote a story about “cash-strapped NFL players seeking high-risk ‘lockout loans.’” In his article, Getlin raised many good points, the most salient one being that players need to be very careful of who they work with to secure loans, and more importantly, the interest rates associated with those loans. Just last week, it was reported that a player borrowed $500,000 at a 23% interest rate. While I do not dispute that it is likely players from at least 16 teams have attained short-term loans with disgusting interest rates, a lot of these players really need the money – as Getlin’s article’s title states, these guys are “cash-strapped.”

A month after Getlin’s article, The Daily published an article titled, In The Pocket: Some NFL players turn to high-risk loans to make ends meet. Lenders, former athletes, and even yours truly were interviewed for the piece, which really dug deep into the borrowing practices of NFL players during the 2011 offseason.

So what interest rates are unconscionable, and what rates are reasonable? I asked my good friend Leon McKenzie of Sure Sports Lending in Fort Lauderdale, Florida his thoughts. He stated,

There are a lot of viable solutions out there.* Unfortunately, conventional credit markets don’t readily make themselves available to professional athletes due to the athlete’s short-term revenue streams and public perception of athletes as wasteful. Sure Sports Lending has spent the last three years educating and creating underwriting guidelines in a network of regional and community banks. We underwrite everything in-house and fund these loans directly through these banks with unsecured loans beginning at 6%.

McKenzie’s experience in the lending of money to athletes, which derives from his years in banking as a senior credit analyst, spans over five years and includes loans to players in the NFL, NBA, MLB & even the EPL (English Premiere League).

Read the rest…

By Paul M Banks – The Sports Bank

http://forums.sportsjabber.net/sjforums/showthread.php?t=88500