The NFL Receiver Living Off $60,000 A Year Has The Mindset Of A Businessman Off The Field

NFL players sign multi-million dollar contracts every year. Over the years, many of those players have ended up with empty pockets when they hang up their cleats. Ryan Broyles is hoping to avoid that.

Broyles is entering his fourth year in the NFL. Since being drafted by the Detroit Lions in 2012, he has had some knee injuries that have hampered his on-field production. With the danger of playing professional football, a career can end in an instant.

"When I was hitting the same budget over three, four, five months, it was all right, this is what your budget is and I had some spending money," Broyles told ESPN. "I didn't hold myself back at all on those terms. That's what I tell people when they want to start to invest, I tell them to live your life and see where you stand and then pull back. Don't pull back without even knowing."

Broyles told ESPN he and wife live off a budget of about $60,000 a year. The contract he signed in 2012 was worth $3.6 million, with more than $1.422 million guaranteed.

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The NFL's rookie symposium tries to help players with, among other things, their financial well-being. He has made investments over the years that he checks everyday on his cell phone. As the ESPN story noted:

Broyles immersed himself in the financial world. In March, he went to Washington, D.C., with New Orleans running back Mark Ingram to speak to students about financial planning. He worked with VISA and the NFL on promoting a Financial Football video game in classrooms to help teach financial security and planning in both D.C. and his home state of Oklahoma.

"I studied as much as I could," Broyles said. "Talked to people wealthier than me, smarter than me. So that definitely helps."

"Based on my experience working with athletes, it's actually becoming more prevalent, which is a promising sign for the industry," Darren Heitner, founder of the firm Heitner Legal (which specialize in representing athletes), told Benzinga. "Modifications to the rookie symposium have certainly helped."

Broyles' contract is certainly worth more money than the Average Joe's, but consider his own Detroit teammate, Calvin Johnson.

Johnson will make more than $6 million just this season. He is in the middle of a $114-million deal, with almost $50 million guaranteed.

"Overall, I believe athletes are receiving more competent advice and seem more willing to accept said advice. Disseminating the bad stories also serves to instruct athletes on what they shouldn't be doing," Heitner concluded.

ESPN's award-winning "30 for 30" series produced a special entitled, "Broke." The film focused on the bad investments and bad advice athletes have acted on over the years.