February 26, 2026
Over the last few months, I have had discovery conversations with athletic department leaders about how student athlete financial education is being delivered today and what gaps still show up in day to day athlete life. This memo summarizes the themes that came up most consistently, without naming any individual or institution. It is written to be useful for Athletic Directors and Associate Athletic Directors who are planning programming and deciding where to invest time and budget.
Most departments already provide a baseline of financial education. That baseline often shows up as a required online module or class, plus occasional sessions tied to taxes or NIL topics. Departments also lean on external partners to deliver sessions on practical topics like banking, credit, and major purchases. In many places, participation beyond the baseline depends on the coach and the team culture.
This foundation matters. It creates awareness and communicates that the department cares. At the same time, a consistent theme is that managing money is not a one time learning event. It is an ongoing behavior. The baseline can end up feeling like a box check, especially when athletes complete it to meet a requirement rather than to build habits.
A consistent pain point is relevance. Leaders see that athletes disengage quickly when content stays repetitive, generic, or does not connect to real scenarios. Practical examples, athlete specific language, and immediate application increase attention and retention.
Time is another recurring constraint. Calendars are tight for athletes and staff. Even strong content fails when it is hard to schedule or too long. This time pressure also drives a preference for short formats that can be delivered quickly and repeated, with optional deeper learning for those who want it.
Coach buy in matters more than most people want to admit. When coaches reinforce the importance of a session, attendance and engagement rise. When coaches treat it as optional noise, engagement drops, even if the content is good. In some Power Four environments, coaches hold player time very tightly and can push back on recurring programming requests. In some non Power Four environments, leaders described a firmer posture where ongoing financial education is more likely to be treated as a standing expectation.
Segmentation is messy and often under addressed. Athlete income ranges widely, from nothing to significant Revenue Share or NIL earnings. One program for everyone struggles to land equally. Leaders described a need for tiered support based on income and complexity rather than a single curriculum.
There is also a gap between education and execution. Many departments can point to content that exists. The harder issue is whether athletes can translate that content into decisions about spending, saving, credit use, and taxes in the moment. The need shows up as coaching, accountability, and habit building rather than more slides.
Finally, several leaders connected money stress to performance and wellbeing. Financial pressure, family dynamics, and social comparison can reduce mental bandwidth for academics and sport. Some leaders also view this as a retention issue when financial chaos at home spills into the student experience.
Across conversations, a short list of topics kept returning. Budgeting and cash flow management were described as the highest immediate impact areas. Credit and debt decisions were also consistently mentioned, especially for athletes navigating cards, car notes, home purchases, and lifestyle spending.
Taxes remain a major concern, but in a specific way. Leaders worry less about teaching tax theory and more about outcomes like filing rates, avoiding mistakes, and reducing reliance on parents. The goal in some departments is simple: get as close to full filing compliance as possible. Tax support engagements are common and often happen through multiple sessions that are made available to athletes.
Large purchases and financial decision making came up frequently. Leaders see athletes making high consequence choices around cars, phones, leases, stock investments, and travel, often without a plan.
Investing and wealth building concepts were described as the hardest area to teach well at scale. Even when overall financial knowledge improves, investing concepts tend to be the slowest to stick.
Two levers consistently improved attendance and engagement. The first is immediacy. Short content that answers a question athletes have right now performs better than broad financial wellness lectures. Short hooks can earn attention, then create a path to deeper modules.
The second is incentives and environment. Food being provided, along with team based delivery, increases attendance. A coach supported session tends to outperform an optional campuswide invite. Leaders also noted that offering a path into smaller breakout conversations or one on one sessions creates a safer place for athletes to ask specific questions.
One more engagement insight came through strongly. The highest value interactions often happen in one on one conversations, not in large group sessions. Leaders described large group delivery as difficult to schedule and uneven in impact, while one on one sessions surface the real issues athletes are dealing with. Athletes at times are not willing to ask questions in front of peers for fear of looking foolish.
Success is usually defined in practical terms. Athletes understand how money works. They behave responsibly with what they have. They can handle income from work, stipends, and NIL without creating avoidable problems.
Many leaders want better outcomes that they can feel, even if they cannot measure every detail. They want less money stress. They want fewer crises. They want fewer public mistakes and more confident decisions.
A recurring tension is measurement versus privacy. Leaders want proof that programming is working, and they also want confidentiality to be real. The most workable approach discussed was high level, aggregated measurement that does not expose individual details, such as confidence and stress check ins and anonymous behavior indicators.
Several leaders also expressed interest in anonymized summaries of what athletes ask about in one on one settings. They want enough detail to spot patterns. They also want those summaries tagged by sport and gender so programming can be adjusted without compromising privacy.
When departments consider outside support, positioning matters. The easiest path is support that complements an existing holistic athlete development structure, rather than competing with it. Leaders react better to a plug in that fills gaps in execution and accountability than to a pitch that implies replacement.
A common entry point is a pilot. A short workshop format can create awareness and normalize the topic, then offer optional follow up for athletes who want deeper help. Several leaders described the value of confidential coaching conversations that feel like real talk, not a lecture. Some described it as knee cap to knee cap coaching.
The through line across conversations is simple. Most departments are doing something, and many are doing a lot. The remaining gap is not awareness. It is repetition, relevance, and real world execution. When athletes can connect content to decisions they make this week, engagement rises. When support is easy to schedule and tailored to the athlete’s reality, outcomes improve.
As I continue this discovery work, I am focusing on two next steps to round out the picture from the athlete and coach perspectives.
First, I am beginning targeted outreach to student athletes to learn directly from their lived experience. I want to understand how athletes who are receiving revenue share are thinking about money today, what decisions they are facing in real time, and what support feels most useful. In parallel, I want to learn from athletes who are not receiving revenue share, since their needs, pressures, and financial realities can look very different. My goal is to compare these perspectives so future programming can be better segmented and more relevant.
Second, I am reaching out to coaches to understand how they view financial education in the context of team culture and athlete time demands. Coaches often shape what athletes will show up for, how seriously they take programming, and what is realistic to deliver during the year. I want to learn what coaches see as most helpful, what they worry about, what formats they would actually support, and what would make it easier for them to reinforce good habits without adding friction to their schedule.
These next steps are intended to clarify how revenue share changes athlete needs and to better understand the role coaches play in adoption, timing, and sustained engagement.