JPMorganChase Partners With Athletes on Financial Education

JPMorganChase launched a new financial education program for athletes this week, pairing current and retired sports figures with the bank’s wealth management leaders to build money skills that extend beyond playing careers.

The numbers behind the effort are stark. Less than 2% of NCAA college athletes turn professional. Most professional athletes retire before they’re 35. Yet nearly 65% of athletes say they never received financial education in school, according to LA Business Journal coverage of the initiative. That gap, between the financial complexity athletes face and the preparation they actually get, is the problem JPMorganChase is trying to solve.

The bank’s answer is the JPMorganChase Athlete Council, a group of accomplished sports figures who will meet regularly with JPMorganChase leaders to identify financial pain points at different career stages and shape programs to address them. The council held its inaugural meeting recently, where members shared personal experiences with money management, discussed how athletes’ financial needs shift from college through retirement, and started mapping out an education framework built by athletes themselves.

It’s a smart structural choice. Generic financial advice doesn’t map cleanly onto a career where your peak earning years might run from age 22 to 32, where a single injury can end everything overnight, and where signing bonuses can dwarf anything a financial planner typically sees from a client that age.

“Sports careers can be short and retirement unexpected,” said Kristin Lemkau, CEO of J.P. Morgan Wealth Management. “We want to develop a program by athletes for athletes to help them from college to professional sports to retirement.”

Dwyane Wade chairs the council. The two-time NBA Hall of Famer and three-time NBA champion with the Miami HEAT told LA Business Journal the council gives athletes a real platform to share experience, not just lend their names to a branding effort. “Athletes face unique challenges and opportunities,” Wade said. “Having the right educational resources and guidance is critical to making smart decisions about money as your career evolves.”

Other council members include Tom Brady, the seven-time Super Bowl champion with 10 Super Bowl appearances and 18 division titles, along with Megan Rapinoe, who co-captained the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team and won two World Cup titles, and Ally Love, a Peloton instructor and founder and CEO of Love Squad who also serves as a TODAY on-air contributor.

That’s a deliberately broad roster. It covers team sports and individual sports, male and female athletes, active careers and post-retirement transitions. The range matters because the financial pressures aren’t uniform. A soccer player navigating the NWSL salary structure faces a very different situation than an NFL quarterback managing endorsement income north of $30 million annually.

Stevie Baron, Head of Private Client Banking at JPMorganChase, said the goal is a fully integrated experience rather than a one-time seminar. Done right. That’s the phrase that separates programs like this from the well-intentioned workshops that professional leagues have tried and abandoned over the years.

JPMorganChase already has infrastructure in the athlete space. Chase is the designated financial education partner for League One Volleyball and Hudl, a sports technology platform serving youth through college athletes. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau tracks financial literacy gaps across age groups, and younger earners consistently rank among the least prepared, which maps directly onto the early-career athlete problem this council targets.

The broader context is worth keeping in mind. Research from the National Endowment for Financial Education has documented for years that sudden wealth, especially at a young age, creates specific risk patterns that standard financial planning programs don’t address well. Athletes face those risks at a scale most people never encounter, under time pressure most planners never account for.

Whether the Athlete Council evolves into a durable curriculum or stays at the workshop level will depend on what JPMorganChase builds from the inaugural meeting forward. What the bank has going for it is a chair who clearly understands the stakes personally and a management team that has staked its credibility to the outcome. “I’m excited to join the JPMorganChase Athlete Council and to serve as chair of this incredible group of athletes,” Wade said. “The council gives us the opportunity to share our experience and insights to help athletes build their financial knowledge and plan beyond their playing careers.”