Brian Ouellette, founder and CFO of Pro Athlete Direct, says advisors can add millions of dollars to their asset base in a matter of months by marketing to under-served professional athletes in need of financial planning services to help prevent them from squandering the vast amounts of money they earn during their brief careers.

"The majority of professional players go broke within a few years of retirement," Ouellette says. "For example, 60% of players in the National Basketball Association go broke within five years of retiring and 78% of players in the National Football League are broke after just two years of retirement. Our goal is to help financial advisors fix this problem and improve their business at the same time."

In a recent webinar, Ouellette said some athletes go broke and end up selling their Super Bowl rings or declaring bankruptcy due to various reasons--falling victim to Ponzi schemes; spending too much on luxury items; having limited peak earnings time of three to five years; or having no financial plans in place, among others.

"There is a tremendous opportunity here for financial planners to help sustain these individuals and their families over a lifetime, but the athletes need to take action now because the earnings cannot be replaced and what the athletes are doing now is not working," he says. "This is true financial planning in every sense of the word with new clients with tremendous amounts of money available. Without assistance, these problems end marriages and disrupt families."

To capture this market, planners need to bring a point of distinction to the table that others are not talking about, such as tax strategies, insurance risk management or investment risk strategies.

"Your ability to simplify and explain these things will increase your value to them," Ouellette says. But he advises dealing with the athlete's agent rather than the athlete directly because "the athlete is like a corporation and the agent is the CEO. Great agents are always looking for alliances with good financial advisors. We watched one advisor add 28 athletes to his client base in two years by dealing with a good agent."

Ouellette advises planners to subscribe to Sports Business Daily to keep up with sports issues that can be used to help open doors.

"There is a great opportunity for advisors who are good at what they do because there is a tremendous amount of money up for grabs," Ouellette says. "Advisors market themselves to doctors or lawyers or business owners. They can market themselves to athletes."

Ouellette's firm, Pro Athlete Direct, has a database of 7,500 athletes and agents that members can draw on.

--Karen DeMasters