Could Athletes Outlive Their Fortunes?

From Short Careers to Long Lives

Professional athletes live in fast-forward. Prime earning years are highly compressed, yet the decisions made in a 5–15 year window now need to support 60–80 years of post-career life as healthspan and lifespan extend. AWM Capital exists to solve that problem as the only family-office built with a human-centered approach specifically for professional athletes and their families, designed from day one to think like a 100-year family rather than a one- or two-generation plan.

For generations, the pattern was predictable: big contracts, lifestyle creep, and too often, wealth erosion within a decade or two of retirement. Today, advances in health and longevity mean more athletes can expect long, productive lives after their playing days—if they intentionally align financial strategy, physical longevity, and purpose and invest continuously in their family’s human capital.

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AWM as the Human-Centered Athlete Family Office

Traditional family offices were built around multi-generational industrial wealth; they were not designed for 24-year-olds managing eight-figure contracts while still chasing championships. AWM reframes the model around the athlete as a whole human—performance, family, identity, and impact—not just as a balance sheet, and then extends that view to the family as a 100-year enterprise.

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AWM’s human-centered approach for pros includes:

Integrated financial longevity

We provide institutional-caliber investment access, tax strategy, risk management, and estate planning, all tailored to short earning windows and uneven cash flows.

We individually design portfolios around contract structures, arbitration and free agency timelines, injury risk, and post-career business ventures, and mapping those assets to long-dated family “liabilities” like lifelong lifestyle needs, education, health, and giving.

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Multi-generation planning from day one

Instead of waiting until “after you’re done playing,” AWM builds a framework that anticipates spouses, kids, parents, and future causes from the first signing bonus forward.

​The goal is for the athlete’s peak years to seed a durable, values-aligned 100-year family system that continually reinvests in both financial capital and human capital across generations.

Human-centered decision-making

We help athletes navigate residency, team changes, private deals, endorsements, and liquidity events with clarity, so financial choices support performance and peace at home.

We keep the athlete’s identity, faith, relationships, and desired legacy at the center of every recommendation, treating physical, intellectual, and social capital as core “assets” to be protected and grown.

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Financial Longevity for Elite Athletes

In the longevity era, the biggest enemy of an athlete’s wealth is not taxes or markets; it is misalignment between a short career and a very long life. If an athlete plays until 35 and lives in good health to 95 or beyond, “retirement” could last 60 years, and multiple generations may be alive at the same time. That shifts the conversation from “How much can I spend now?” to “How do I think like an owner of a 100-year balance sheet for my family?”

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AWM helps athletes:

Treat peak earnings as a once-in-a-lifetime seed.

We view each contract as an opportunity to buy freedom, optionality, and intergenerational resilience, not just lifestyle upgrades.

We build systems that make it harder to drift into lifestyle inflation and easier to stay aligned with long-term purpose, while funding ongoing investments in family physical capital (health), intellectual capital (education and skills), and social capital (relationships and reputation).

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Invest across eras, not seasons

We position portfolios in long-duration themes—AI, biotech, clean energy, real assets, and private markets—where appropriate, to compound beyond the athlete’s playing window and support a 100-year family vision.

AWM stress-tests our clients plans against lockouts, injuries, role changes, and changing tax regimes, using a liability-driven mindset to ensure core promises to the family are matched before taking additional risk.

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Govern like a family enterprise

We introduce family governance early: decision rules, spending policies, entity structures, and protections that survive relocations, new teams, or new businesses.

We feel it is important to move from an individual-centric approach to a family enterprise mindset that can withstand decades of change, where each generation is equipped to steward the family’s financial and human capital.

Biological Longevity as an “Asset Class” for Athletes

For athletes, health is both the source of income and the foundation of a meaningful post-career life. In a world where therapies, technology, and lifestyle can extend healthy lifespan, biological longevity becomes a form of capital—something that can be actively invested in, measured, and protected as the family’s physical capital.

The same excellence that drives an athlete to master mechanics, nutrition, and recovery in their sport can be applied to the second half of life. AWM aligns with leaders in longevity and preventive medicine to help clients bring that elite mindset into retirement and across generations.

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AWM’s approach to health and longevity includes:

Function Health partnership mindset

As a firm, AWM has secured opportunities for our clients to invest in and embrace platforms like Function Health to use deep lab testing and longitudinal biomarker tracking as a strategic tool, both to increase their health, and their wealth.

This enables athletes and their families to see early signals, course-correct lifestyle and interventions, and stay in front of emerging longevity science, turning physical capital into a managed, trackable asset over the family’s 100-year horizon.

​ Today’s top players aren’t waiting to “be coached” on longevity—they’re already building a personal operating system for healthspan using the same mindset they use to earn a roster spot and secure contracts. We witness them pull from trusted thinkers and translate the ideas into repeatable routines that keep performance high now and keep the back half of life strong.

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How players apply it

· Many of our clients follow Dr. Mark Hyman’s functional-medicine approach by treating food as a lever for better metabolic health and lower inflammation—then extending those habits to the whole household so the “default settings” at home match their goals.

· They also borrow Andrew Huberman’s practical protocols around sleep, light exposure, stress regulation, and neuroplasticity to protect focus, mood, and decision quality—because cognitive and emotional resilience are part of their real competitive edge.

· They stay educated by using Peter Attia’s “Medicine 3.0” frame to think proactively about prevention and long-run capability—training strength and aerobic capacity (including VO2 max) so they can dominate the “Centenarian Decathlon” with the same intention they once brought to making a team

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Treating longevity like a core holding

We encourage athletes to see strength, mobility, cardiovascular fitness, and brain health as compounding assets that can be built intentionally over decades and modeled for children and grandchildren.

Integrating health-span goals directly into financial plans: funding high-quality care, testing, coaching, and environments that extend quality of life, not just length of life, for the entire 100-year family.

From “Retired” to Elite in a New Arena

The scoreboard stops, but the athlete identity does not disappear. Without a plan, the end of a playing career can feel like a cliff: money slows, the clubhouse disappears, and decision-making shifts overnight to a world of agents, advisors, and opportunities that may not be aligned. AWM’s role is to help athletes carry the same elite mindset that made them world-class in sport into the next chapters of life and into the stewardship of a 100-year family.

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Key elements of that transition:

Redefining what “winning” looks like

We help our clients set clear post-career goals across family, faith, business, and community so that the next 40–60 years feel purposeful, not reactive.

We use structured planning to replace the rhythm of seasons and schedules with a new cadence for growth and contribution, including intentional investments in intellectual and social capital.

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Education as a performance edge

AWM equips athletes and their spouses with decision frameworks around private deals, operating businesses, philanthropy, and real estate, so they can say “no” as confidently as they say “yes.”

We then build financial and biological literacy—understanding cash flows, risk, and longevity science—as a way to remain in control for decades and to pass that intellectual capital down the line.

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Interdependence, not dependence

We design family systems where spouses, children, and even parents participate in values, giving, and large decisions over time, strengthening social capital across generations.

We replace one-and-done inheritance thinking with interdependent structures: family councils, family charters, and shared philanthropic projects that keep the 100-year family aligned and engaged.

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Purpose, Philanthropy, and Legacy for Pros

In a longer, healthier life, the central question shifts from “Will I run out of money?” to “What is all of this for?” For many athletes, the most durable legacy is not statistics or career earnings, but the lives changed through generosity, mentorship, and presence, amplified across a 100-year family.

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AWM helps athletes:

Turn giving into a lifelong practice

Structuring donor-advised funds, foundations, or targeted giving strategies around causes that matter—youth sports, education, faith communities, local impact—rather than one-off checks.

We help our clients use philanthropy as a way to involve children early, teaching stewardship, empathy, and responsibility as core elements of the family’s intellectual and social capital.

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Address “longevity equity”

As access to advanced healthcare and longevity tools becomes more unequal, athletes are uniquely positioned to support efforts that broaden access, from community clinics to research funding.

Aligning giving with the same longevity themes they invest in, reinforcing both impact and legitimacy as their influence compounds over generations.

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Anchor identity in meaning, not money

Building a narrative where the athlete is remembered less for what was earned and more for who was served and how the family showed up in its community.

Framing legacy as the ability of the 100-year family to live well, live long, and live with meaning together, supported by resilient financial and human capital.

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Why AWM: Built by and for Athletes

Most advisory firms see athletes as a niche; AWM starts with the athlete as the core design principle. The firm combines institutional-grade investment and planning expertise with lived experience on the field and in the clubhouse, giving clients a partner who understands what it means to compete at the highest level and then step into what comes next—for themselves and for their families.

In an era of extended healthspan and longer lives, the challenge is no longer just preserving capital; it is aligning wealth, health, and purpose so that an athlete’s best decisions are not confined to their playing years. AWM’s human-centered family office model exists to help athletes build and sustain a 100-year family—investing deliberately in physical, intellectual, and social capital—so they can live well, live long, and live with meaning on the field, in the locker room, and far beyond.

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