Achieving this goal usually requires you to avoid serious brain damage. Repeated concussions and wisely living off the wealth you acquired in a few short years while still very young by managing it extraordinarily well for decades to come are probably mutually exclusive.
Still, medical coverage in the US generally sucks and I would hate to be saddled with medical bills following being a career athlete and no longer having the big NFL salary. I can't imagine it's happy fun times.
But this is not because they don't get enough money and more money would fix it (well, it it could be $trillions then maybe but it is never going to be that). It's because they don't have the right tools (widely understood) to manage their money properly, and their income structure is unlike income structure of many regular people (huge sums for very short period, then nothing - as opposed to much smaller sums over much longer period) and it requires very unobvious actions to make it work. If you have literally millions of dollars in your account, it's very hard not to buy some nice expensive things - even if you know you'd need those millions for decades to come, your brain doesn't really work this way. Some people manage it properly and create brands and side businesses for themselves or just live with reasonable expenses and are ok. Some spend too much and end up broke.
This "no experience managing a budget" stuff is hilarious, you don't need special knowledge not to blow millions. It is not hard. Let's call it what it is for most people - being trash, living extravagantly, and not thinking about the future. It's far more about character than about financial knowledge.
Still though, the median household income is in the $50ks. The 4% withdrawal rate means the base amount still grows with inflation, and so does your yearly withdrawal.
In other words, you can live a middle class life without ever working again. I would probably prefer to live a better lifestyle if that were an option. Sure, $1+ million isn't "fuck you" money, but it is "don't have to work ever again" money.
The median household income thing is also misleading. People earn much more with age. $30k is a good income for a 25-year old. It's in the bottom third for people above age 35. (It's even worse if you consider only college graduates, which NFL players almost all are.)
Are you sure about that? I was under the impression that they were all contractors.
Also worth noting the NFL has a 2:1 match up to $10k/yr. So every year you put $10k into your NFL 401k the NFL gives you $20k in tax free income.
A quick google search didn't give me a good indication of what the royalties are to low end pro athletes. I would not be surprised if the after tax on those is greater than the taxes on their traditional income.
I don't really see your point about $60k not getting you far at all since it's more than half the country makes. I understand you might have a more privileged view of what kind of lifestyle you expect to live, but you'd be doing better than half the country. You'll be fine.
So of course after 3 years of living like a monk you have $1.5 million stashed away...contrary to all rational expectations.
Well, less, because after income taxes and because as a young, invincible man among the best to play sports you spend money, maybe you have $300k left. If you're lucky.
But you're now unemployed, so you need healthcare. And the mortgage on your house is at least half that $60k/year because you're a young invincible sports hero.
You've been earning a half million dollars up to this point, so it's a safe bet it'll be very hard to scale your expenses down to $60k/year.
Anyway, I don't know where I'm going with this, except that your expectations of what an NFL player can/will do after being physically tortured for several years (high school, college, NFL) with hidden mental damage and having been a young, invincible man told you're the best of the best and surrounded by people eager to piggyback on your success...may be optimistic.
If you discount future earnings at 6% you get 1.8 millions for software engineering versus 2.67 million for NFL.
30 year treasuries pay roughly 3% before inflation.
Compare it to programmers who are pretty sure to get job once they finish school, have plenty of time for activities outside of programming and have much lower pressure on them either at the job (NFL equivalent) or while preparing for it.
2 - even at $1m/year, you may collect $550k after tax. Three years of that is not never work again money.
Three years of that is not never work again money.
It's not FU money, but as an emergency fall back it is obviously plausibly never work again money.