How did Evander Holyfield become broke? What went wrong?

[BigNuts]

I saw the house in atlanta he used to own in person years back and WOW!!! It's enormous. Online it says he made around $230 million throughout his career, so where did it all go? How did all of that money vanish in such a quick amount of time? I find it very hard to believe that all of it is gone. Did this man not have anyone he could trust to manage his money? His brother/sister, anyone??? This is sad.

[Redd Foxx]

People with jobs that provide a short -term income (sports, music, etc) often buy things that reflect their current income. House, car, etc. Things like maintenance, property tax, deflation, divorce, kids, and so on continue to eat away at a high level, even when your income drops. 10mil a year in maintenance on your life/lifestyle becomes 150mil in just 15 years. Just because you're making 50mil a year doesn't mean you can spend 50m a year, or even 10m for that matter, if it's a temporary income. Being wealthy and not living like a wealthy person is an incredibly difficult thing.

[FeFist]

Hand to mouth lifestyle.

When you have millions in the bank, it is imperative that you move away from the mindset of budgeting your life around what you can afford to spend in the here and now. People like Holyfield didn't do that; they burned through their money without realising they would not be able to continue topping up their bank account with 8 figure pay cheques.

[paulf]

The above and not only is he paying out the ass in child support (8 kids), but I believe he voided a prenup or two with infidelities.

[OctoberRed]

He made several mistakes. More than half a dozen kids in child support. Two divorces where he lost heavy. And he spent a fortune building a home that milked him dry. Did he really need a home with 100 bathrooms? I believe the landscaping alone was like 250K a year.

[low blows]

When I saw that house I knew he was heading to Brokeville. He would need an income of 2 million a year just to maintain the property and then having a starting baseball team for children he needed probably another 2 or 3 million. So if he was spending like a lottery winner how was he going to make 4 percent a year off of municipal bonds? Also what did he net off of his gross income?

[Sun_Tzu]

Same thing that happens to most of them. They come from a background of being dirt poor, they make enormous sums of money and the only people they have around them are people they pay for the most part. They have no idea how to deal with the kind of money they are making all of a sudden and spend like its never going to end, then it does.This is the norm not the exception, a large percentage of professional athletes end up broke.

[Earl-Hickey]

Main problem is child support and alimony payments

They would have taken him to the cleaners with that child support, like millions upon millions and it's all regular payments.

As well as that as others have stated, the upkeep on his property, various bad business decisions and so on.

[-Kev-]

It's the way he grew up. An athlete who came from a middle class family is not going to go crazy with his money. An athlete who comes from a poor family will make poor decisions. Even Manny Pacquiao impregnated multiple women, it's just that in the PI he has more power than Holyfield has in the US, he was able to make pretty good cover ups. But Pacquiao's past troubles are well documented, he changed his ways in time. Just mentioning Pacquiao to show examples that race does not matter, it's all about your background growing up.

[Weltschmerz]

People with jobs that provide a short -term income (sports, music, etc) often buy things that reflect their current income. House, car, etc. Things like maintenance, property tax, deflation, divorce, kids, and so on continue to eat away at a high level, even when your income drops. 10mil a year in maintenance on your life/lifestyle becomes 150mil in just 15 years. Just because you're making 50mil a year doesn't mean you can spend 50m a year, or even 10m for that matter, if it's a temporary income. Being wealthy and not living like a wealthy person is an incredibly difficult thing.

Totally. Who said boxers are financial wizards, they need good people around them that don't want to just steal their money. You have exceptions obviously but Holyfield's financial woes whatever they are, are in no ways unique for 'stars and celebrities'.