What "Ballers" gets about football and money

Read this in the new york times. Show looks good. Really captures the hustle of PWM

What "Ballers" Gets About Football and Money

HBO’s “Ballers” has been compared repeatedly to “Entourage,” but amid its (many) scenes of dudes partying, the show focuses on something a bit more nerdy: money management.

“Ballers” follows Spencer (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson), a football player turned financial manager (Private Wealth Management) who’s trying to convince some of his athlete buddies to get their financial lives in order. The show is packed with yachts, fancy cars, big jewelry and expensive clothes, but we rarely see a luxury item without discussion of its cost.

When a wide receiver’s girlfriend gets him a diamond-encrusted necklace with his number on it, she reveals she bought it with his credit card. Later, when he tries to trade it to another player in exchange for getting that number back, we hear that it must be worth at least $20,000.

When another player schedules a meeting with Spencer at Miami’s Biltmore Hotel, Spencer’s friend comments, “I thought you said he was broke.” And when Spencer arrives, he finds out the player has brought several tables’ worth of family and friends.

“You can’t keep letting your crew spill what’s left of your cash all over town,” Spencer says. “You want to take care of the people who are closest to you, then take care of you first.”

Spencer isn’t solely doling out this advice out of the goodness of his heart — his boss (Rob Corddry, playing against type as a repellant sleazeball) wants him to bring in more high-earning clients. And there’s evidence he doesn’t practice what he preaches — he wears beautiful, custom-made suits, but he also overdraws his bank account. In episode two, we learn he doesn’t actually know how many bank accounts he has.

But “Ballers” is relatively unusual in pop-cultural depictions of conspicuous consumption in that it recognizes consumption’s hazards. This is especially relevant given its focus on pro athletes, who often struggle financially. A 2015 study published by the National Bureau for Economic Research, for instance, found that retired NFL players are as likely or more likely to go bankrupt than the general population, despite their high pay during their working years. It’s hard to plan for the future, the study’s authors note, when you make almost all your money “in a short burst which ends randomly.”

This is doubly true if you suffer from a sports-related injury that requires expensive care or makes it difficult to work — in a Washington Post survey of retired NFL players, nine in ten said they’d had a concussion while playing, and 44 percent said they’d either had a joint replacement or been told they’d need one. Spencer’s habitual pill-popping on “Ballers” suggests the show may deal with this issue too.

“Ballers” shares some of the problems of “The Wolf of Wall Street” and other popular entertainment about rich guys. Its female characters are largely interchangeable (one woman in the pilot is credited as “sexy mourner”). And no show with this many cool cars can be wholly critical of ostentatious spending — there’s certainly wealth porn amid the warnings. Still, it’s refreshing to see a show that acknowledges that money — especially football money — has a way of running out.

 
Gangster Putin:

It's unsurprising that the media zeroes in on the lack of headstrong female characters when this is a show focused on male professional athletes. Anyway, the show looks pretty decent.

This. If your show isn't about cis-transgender Womyn fighting oppressive, middle-aged white rich males, it's just not worth anything, according to the media.

I'm loving it so far, it's taken a few years but we finally got a worthy successor to Entourage.

"When you stop striving for perfection, you might as well be dead."
 

Disagree. Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, Walking Dead, Sons of Anarchy, etc. all run/ran counter to the hippie liberal themes plaguing our country. Ballers is just a bad TV show. Occasional funny 1 liners and hot women but plot and character development are poor. I watched the entire series of Entourage in 3 weeks. This show is nowhere near that level.

 

I wish this were the case. what happens is the NFLPA has meetings with rookies and bankrupt former players tell their story and kids are dozing off and thinking "this can't happen to me."

yet it keeps happening.

the unfortunate part about this is you have people with no personal finance training suddenly become millionaires getting a crash course in something that takes years of discipline to get right. recipe for disaster.

one of the many reasons most athletes (not all, most) of the big 3 sports make terrible clients.

 

Pretty good show.

I've actually been watching the BBC documentary called "Century of the Self". It's some mind-blowing information about consumption, and the way we've been controlled into always falling into our desires over our needs.

 

The show has been abysmal so far. Problem is that it tries to be a more intelligent money conscious version of "Entourage" without its humor and charm. The characters and plot lines have thus far been awfully bland. I'm also not convinced that this is the right role for the one and only ROCK: a sort of hybrid pseudo-baller/father type figure to pro athletes.

 
Best Response

This is one of the worst HBO shows I've seen yet. I was hugely disappointed. I love the Rock. I want to see him succeed. I love football. The Rock and football together in a show produced by one of the best television production houses in history ... had me at half-mast before I even saw a trailer. Saw the trailer, looked fucking fantastic.

Watched the pilot and was incredibly disappointed. The caliber of production is far worse than Boardwalk Empire, Game of Thrones, The Wire, or The Sopranos. HBO has delivered hit after hit. This show is formulaically very similar to Entourage, and yet they seem to have found a writer one-tenth as talented as Doug Ellin and spent their whole budget on sets (yachts, supercars, and jewelry) instead of good production and editing.

That opening scene was so awful that I turned to the girl I was watching it with and said, "Oh my God, this is the worst opening scene in any HBO show I've seen." I'll watch 5 episodes before quitting on the series, but it was a complete letdown so far.

You're right to say that it's uncommon for its portrayal of conspicuous consumption, the realities of fame and fortune (and how fleeting both really are), and what being surrounded by fair-weather friends and freeloaders is like. I wish the general caliber of production was higher though.

I am permanently behind on PMs, it's not personal.
 

Pilot episode was not that good, but to be honest the show has picked up. The story with his health issues as a result of the football he played is shaping up quite well. I feel as though the show is too short, Entourage was about an hour, and this show needs to be the same.

 
Gronk:
harveyrspecter:
Entourage was about an hour, and this show needs to be the same.

Idk what Entourage you were watching every episode is no longer than 26 minutes...

Damn! You're right. I binge watched the seasons so that explains my confusion.
 

Agree with APAE and @MBAGrad2015" . I had very high hopes for the show (the Rock, football, HBO), but it's been hugely disappointing thus far. I do like the underlying commentary on how athlete finances are typically poorly managed and how difficult the transition to post-NFL can be given injuries, lack of identity, etc., but the show is trying way too hard (have you watched the post-episode commentary on the various storylines that they similarly provide for GoT?), the acting is bad, and the writing is even worse.

 

I think the show is picking up and some of the side stories are developing. IMO, the issue is too much showboating. Like can we have one episode where the Rock doesn't talk about his custom suit (which fits like ass) or how baller he looks. Focus on the athletes being fuck ups and the drama in their lives and you should be all set.

BUUTT, I do think the show is developing. Feels like the first 3 episodes were the writer trying to get their footing. Now it is getting better.

True Detective II was a lot like this also. Took me a while to get into it, now I am sucked in.

 
junkbondswap:

5 episodes in and I'm disappointed. It's definitely no Every Given Sunday or Entourage. True Detective season 2 also sucks. Big fan of season 1.

F Reggie.

Yeah, agree with the disappointment. I almost feel like the episodes are too short.

True Detective season 1 was absurd. Love it to death. I feel as if TD II spent a lot of time making Vince Vaughn a serious character. I just don't know why we need 3 detectives and Vaughn. Too many characters and plot lines.

 

I checked out Ballers Ep1 last night. It's pretty over the top, but still entertaining. I'll prob watch the whole season since there isn't much competition now.

I know TD II is not as good as TDI but I still love it. These types of investigative shows are my wheelhouse. Anyone else notice when Colin Farrell gets very animated his accent comes out more? He sounded a little funny to me in one scene of the last episode.

 

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