BUSINESS MANAGEMENT · ATHLETES

Business management for professional athletes — through the career and after.

For NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL, MLS, and individual-sport athletes. Multi-state jock tax. Endorsement income. Signing bonuses. Image-rights entities. One CPA firm coordinating all of it.

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What we do

Professional athletes have three problems most business managers underestimate.

One: the money arrives fast and unevenly — signing bonus, roster bonus, per-game salary, endorsement, image-rights licensing — and the peak-earning window is short.

Two: the tax picture is multi-state to the extreme. NBA players earn income in every state and Canadian province with a franchise. NFL players earn income in roughly two-thirds of states over a season. The duty-days sourcing rule applied by most states requires allocation of every dollar of contract income to the state where each duty day was worked — training camp, preseason, regular season, playoffs, offseason team activities, and mandatory events. Jock tax is a real and expensive discipline.

Three: the post-career transition. A player who earned $40M over eight years may still need that money to last five decades. Endorsement books, business ventures, image-rights entities, and real estate portfolios need active management for the rest of a life.

We handle all of it. Bill pay, cash flow, entity management, multi-state tax, endorsement royalty tracking, and coordination with the athlete's agent, financial advisor, and estate-planning attorney. One monthly price. No hourly CPA fees. Named partners on every engagement.

Who this is for

Active NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL, MLS, and WNBA players with multi-state duty-day exposure.
Individual-sport athletes — tennis, golf, boxing, MMA, motorsports — with tournament and prize money across many jurisdictions.
Retired athletes managing endorsement books, image-rights entities, and business ventures.
Athlete families running households, foundations, and family businesses.
Agents and family offices looking for a CPA firm to hand a new client to.

Deliverables

Duty-days sourcing analysis — every game, practice, and mandatory day allocated to the state where it was worked.
Multi-state tax preparation — resident and nonresident returns for every state with tax exposure, credits reconciled to avoid double tax.
Endorsement income tracking — royalty statements matched to license agreements, minimum-guarantee reconciliation, image-rights entity flow-through.
Signing and roster bonus planning — allocation between W-2 and (where structured) contract-services income through an image-rights entity.
Business management back office — bill pay, cash flow, monthly close, household payroll, foundation management.
Post-career transition — coordination with wealth advisors and estate counsel on the shift from earning to preserving.

Frequently asked

Q: What is jock tax and why does it matter?

A: Jock tax is the informal name for the practice of states taxing nonresident professional athletes on income earned within their borders. Most states apply a duty-days sourcing rule: contract income is allocated to a state based on the ratio of duty days spent there to total duty days in the year. For an NBA player, that means income allocated to ~20 states a year. Aggressive states (New York, Illinois, California) audit these allocations regularly. Correct filing is not optional.

Q: Can endorsement income be structured through an image-rights entity?

A: Yes, in appropriate cases. An image-rights or licensing entity (LLC or S-corp) can hold the athlete's name, image, and likeness rights and license them to endorsers. Income flows through the entity, subject to careful transfer-pricing analysis so the IRS accepts the arrangement. Not every athlete needs one; when the endorsement book is substantial, the analysis is worth running.

Q: How do you handle signing bonuses?

A: A signing bonus is typically W-2 income sourced to the state of residence at the time of payment (with some states applying different rules). Timing of receipt, deferral through the collective bargaining agreement, and coordination with the state-of-residence election in the year of signing all matter. We model the cash and tax picture before the ink dries.

Q: What about Canadian income for players on Canadian teams?

A: Toronto Raptors, all Canadian NHL teams, and Toronto Blue Jays generate Canadian-sourced income subject to Canadian tax, treaty relief, and foreign tax credit calculations on the U.S. return. We coordinate with a Canadian accountant on the T1 filings and reconcile the FTC on the U.S. side. Cross-border tax is its own project.

Q: Do you work with agents and the family?

A: Yes. Regular touchpoints with the agent, the family (when appropriate), and the financial advisor. We do not manage investments and do not accept referral commissions. Our role is coordination and financial administration — the tax, accounting, and cash-flow layer.

Q: What happens after retirement?

A: Business management continues — often for decades. The mix shifts from active-income handling to portfolio-oversight coordination, endorsement-book management, small-business venture accounting, and household administration. One monthly price covers the ongoing work. Extraordinary projects (ventures, real estate, business acquisitions) are quoted separately.

Peak-earning window. Multi-state exposure. One CPA firm.

Business management for professional athletes and their families. Duty-days sourcing, endorsement income, post-career planning. Named partners. Thirty-minute consultation.