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Playing to Win
Samantha Marshall and Matt Purdue
08/01/2005
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When he came into money, Williams paid his parents’ credit card bills
and bought his mother a new car. He wanted to buy her a house, but she insisted
he invest his money in his own real estate. Williams has only just begun
investing in property. When he signs his second NFL contract, he intends to sink
the bulk of his signing bonus into commercial and residential real estate.
As
Williams plans his career after football, he is immersing himself in the
entrepreneurial facets of hip-hop music. He calls Warner Music Group executive
Kevin Liles (see “Horizontal Money,” below) his mentor. In the off-season,
Williams frequents Liles’ office to learn how he juggles music and merchandizing
deals for Warner and the Def Jam label. “Like Kevin always tells me, ‘If you
want to be truly wealthy, you’d better start hanging around with people who have
serious money,’ ” he says.
Williams has also established a charity, the
Safety Net Foundation, to help poor single mothers. He was inspired watching the
difficulties faced by his sister as she raised his nephew. He insists that
Safety Net’s grantees use the resources to finish their high school diplomas,
undergo job training and write their résumés. “It’s not a handout and they know
that,” he explains.
But Williams is no choirboy; he can occasionally be
found enjoying himself at celebrity hotspots in the Cayman Islands, Miami and
Las Vegas with the likes of Beyoncé and former fiancée Kelly Rowlands. But
Mangum keeps the player on a strict budget, covering fixed costs like mortgage
fees and disability insurance. He explains that the allowance he gives football
clients ranges from $3,000 to $10,000 per month. Williams falls “somewhere in
the middle.”
Williams admits he recently splurged on a sporty Mercedes-Benz
convertible, a purchase he researched and made without consulting Mangum.
“Please don’t tell,” he jokes.
A Conservative Superstar
Dressed in a baggy white T-shirt and blue jeans,
Deion Branch, 25, makes a habit of defying convention. In January, he became
only the fourth wide receiver in the Super Bowl’s 39-year history to win MVP
honors, leading his team to their second consecutive world championship. Three
years ago, Branch received a $1.025 million signing bonus after he was drafted
and is set to earn a total of more than $1.9 million through the 2006 season.
Unlike many of his peers, however, he seems reluctant to actually spend any of
it.
“I’m not one who wants to show off,” says Branch, whose few large
purchases include a home in Massachusetts and a house for his parents in his
hometown of Albany, Ga. “I’m not fascinated by having a lot of things: jewelry
or cars. That’s not what moves me.”
He admits his mother had to convince him
to acquire his one extravagance: a Cadillac Escalade. “It took a lot to get it.
My mom told me, ‘You deserve it. You’re the one who has been working so hard.’
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Branch, who is single with three children under 3, including twin boys,
possesses financial foresight that belies his age. He credits his parents and
his financial advisor, Richard Rosenberg of RR Advisory Group in New York, for
keeping him fiscally grounded.
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