Former MLB all-star steps up to the plate for fellow athletes to avoid 'horror stories' of going broke

For many professional athletes, retirement can be a stressful road to navigate. According to one former MLB all-star, the league is doing little to help players manage their sudden wealth.

Former MLB player Matt Joyce learned this lesson the hard way, revealing to Fox News Digital that he lost about $1 million through multiple disastrous business ventures – an "extremely painful" mistake he vowed to never make again.

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"In the MLB, in our rookie symposium, we didn't touch on money. And honestly, that was the one thing I was excited about. I was like, 'Oh man, they're going to teach me what to do with my money.' They didn't say anything about money. I was so upset, it was all media training," Joyce revealed in a recent interview. 

"Really, when you think about it from their perspective, it becomes kind of a risk for them if they're giving you financial advice, right? So, I went back to the room and I ended up reading some financial money books," Joyce continued.

The outfielder played 14 seasons in the MLB, tallying spots on eight different teams — beginning his longer-than-most tenure with the Detroit Tigers and ending with the Philadelphia Phillies. His most notable stint was playing for the Tampa Bay Rays, where he earned a spot on the 2011 all-star team. 

Once his lengthy career was winding down, the MLB veteran resorted to self-education for financial guidance in attempts to avoid becoming the next broke pro.

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"I was one of the guys, in the minor leagues, reading 'Rich dad, Poor Dad,' because I've heard of all the horror stories of how many athletes go broke within the first five years of retiring. I really didn't want to be one of those guys. I started investing in real estate when I was first called up," he told Fox News Digital on Wednesday.

Joyce's early career interest in business, finance, and real estate put him in a better position than many other athletes once retirement arrived — though it did not make him immune to the overwhelming multitude of faulty business ventures that can arise post-retirement. 

"As a professional athlete, you have such a short window to make a lot of money, and you're asking a 25 and 30-year-old who has never dealt with money to make really important decisions in a short time frame, in a short window, where those decisions will affect them for the rest of their lives," the former MLB all-star explained.

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"I've even had terrible experiences relying on someone next to me that was very close to me where I lost $1 million on a couple of deals. And it was awful. It was the worst experience. But I was also very fortunate enough to play 14 years and to be able to kind of sustain that damage and that loss. And then from there it was like, 'okay, well, I don't ever want to have that happen again. That's extremely painful. I'm going to learn as much as I possibly can.'"

Joyce told Fox News Digital he has "learned a lot" since retiring in 2021, pointing to one pivotal step he's taken in joining the Pro Athlete Community (PAC). 

PAC is a start-up company working to help players most effectively manage their finances post-pro by uniting a network of professional athletes and advisers.

The former pro baseball player said that PAC has been a massive help in "shortening the learning curve and mitigating the risk" of failure in any and every potential business venture.

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"There's a lot of pain, anxiety and stress going through that transition because you just don't know. You lose your sense of identity. Your income goes to zero. Your lifestyle is still really high. So you're still spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, and you're scrambling this whole time. You're scrambling like, ‘what do I do? Somebody help me,’" Joyce candidly revealed.

PAC has over 300 members — including both current and former professional athletes — and continues to grow under the leadership of co-founder and co-CEO Chip Paucek.

Joyce, whose investment portfolio now includes several F45 gyms and a baseball e-commerce company, concluded the interview with Fox News Digital by bolstering support for the Pro Athlete Community — urging that post-pro financial guidance is a "huge need" for all players.

"There is a huge demand. It's just a matter of, as players, I think we have to reach out and get other players involved," Joyce said Wednesday.

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