Career Runway Calculator
A playing career is short, and the income stops long before the expenses do. Enter your numbers to see how many years your savings would cover after you stop playing, and how much to put aside each season to reach the age you choose.
Your results
Fix the highlighted fields to see your results.
Projected balance by age
In today's dollars. The balance grows while you play and is drawn down after you stop.
Educational tool. Not financial, tax or legal advice. Results are estimates based on your inputs and a constant real return. Taxes and residency rules depend on your country.
How this is calculated
- Each season you save your net income minus your living expenses. That amount, plus what you have already saved, grows at the real return you entered until your career ends.
- After your career, each year you spend the gap between your expenses and any income you still earn. What is left keeps earning the same real return.
- We count the years until the balance runs out, up to 60 years. That is your runway.
- To find how much to save per season, we work backwards: the balance you need at retirement to pay the gap every year until your target age, minus what your current savings will grow into, spread across your remaining seasons.
- Every figure is in today's dollars because the return is after inflation. Savings are added at the end of each season; post-career spending comes out at the start of each year. Taxes, fees, injuries and changes in income are not modelled.
For context: what the research shows
- FIFPRO's 2016 Global Employment Report surveyed close to 14,000 footballers in 54 countries. More than 45% earned under USD 1,000 a month, about 2% earned over USD 720,000 a year net, and the average contract lasted under two years. The top leagues in England, Germany and Spain did not take part.
FIFPRO Global Employment Report 2016 (PDF) - Carlson, Kim, Lusardi and Camerer (2015) found that 15.7% of the NFL players in their sample filed for bankruptcy within 12 years of retiring. Longer careers and higher earnings did not reduce that risk.
NBER Working Paper 21085 (American Economic Review, 2015)
Different sports, countries and years. Shown for context only.
Common questions
What is a career runway?
The number of years your savings can pay for your living costs once your playing income stops. It depends on how much you save while you play, the return those savings earn, and how much you spend afterwards.
How much should a professional athlete save per season?
There is no single number: it depends on how long your career lasts, what you will spend afterwards and until what age you want your savings to last. This calculator works out the amount per season that gets you to the age you choose, in dollars and as a share of your income.
Why does the calculator use a real return?
A real return is what your savings earn above inflation. Using it keeps every figure in today's money, so USD 18,000 of expenses in fifteen years means what USD 18,000 buys today.