Scott Morrison, CFP®

$1,200,000. College Athlete. 1099 Income. Here’s what nobody tells NIL athletes pulling real money: The moment your first revenue share or NIL check cleared, you became a small business owner. The IRS doesn’t care that you’re a student-athlete in college. They don’t care that your earning window might be just a few years. They want their cut. Today. Here’s what we did to keep serious money in his pocket instead of sending a check to Uncle Sam: 1️⃣ LLC taxed as an S-Corp Put him on his own payroll and paid him a reasonable salary. The rest? Taken available as distributions. Stops 15.3% self-employment tax from gutting every endorsement check. → Saves tens of thousands of dollars. 2️⃣ Maximize business deductions Training. Recovery. Content production. Travel. Equipment. Agent and legal fees. Home office. The real cost of running a 7-figure brand, finally run through the entity. → Saves tens of thousands of dollars. 3️⃣ Solo 401(k) $24,500 employee + $47,500 employer = $72,000 deferred for retirement. At age 20 with 45 years of compounding ahead, that single contribution can grow to millions of tax free money. And we plan to do this every year that we’re earning 1099 income. → Saves roughly $26,000 per year. 4️⃣ Pass-Through Entity Elective Tax State tax paid at the entity level. Sidesteps the federal SALT cap. → Saves about $30,000 5️⃣ Backdoor Roth IRA $7,500 in. Tax-free growth for life. At 20 years old, this is the highest-leverage account he’ll ever own. 6️⃣ Donor Advised Fund / his own Private Non-Profit Builds a giving legacy. Aligns with his personal brand. Generates real federal deductions. → Saves $15,000–$40,000+, depending on giving level Total tax savings for 2026: $150,000+ This is what we do. Same story every time with NIL athletes earning 6 and 7 figures: → Treating the income like an allowance → Spending before structuring → Trusting the same tax preparer their family used for W-2 income their whole life You’re not a college kid with a side hustle. You’re the CEO of a 7-figure personal brand. Your team should look like one. 📍 If you want to see where you stand with your money, take our Moment Money Quiz and find out in two minutes 👇

A $5,000,000 signing bonus isn’t $5,000,000. For many MLB draft picks, it might be the only guaranteed check they ever receive. Here’s what it actually looks like: Signing Bonus: $5,000,000 ∙Federal Taxes (37%): −$1,850,000 ∙Agent Fees (5%): −$250,000 ∙State Taxes (5%): −$250,000 Take-home: $2,650,000 Not $5M. $2.65M. Now the fun starts. What am I going to buy? ∙$1M home ∙$100K vehicle ∙$100K to family Nothing reckless. Just normal decisions for a 18 or 21-year-old who just got a life-changing check. But here’s the problem. Minor league salaries are minimal. Call it $30k-$40k. Arbitration isn’t guaranteed. Free agency isn’t guaranteed. And for most draft picks? They never reach either. We don’t know what comes next. To be clear, that’s not me being negative. It’s just the truth. Working with professional baseball players, we don’t build plans around projection or best case scenarios. We build around the guarantee. Around what we know to be true. That means: ∙Taxes reserved before lifestyle expands ∙Spending defined, not assumed ∙Capital set aside to cover minor league years ∙Liquidity preserved in case Career #2 becomes the conversation ∙Illiquid investments capped early If arbitration comes, great. If free agency comes, awesome. But the plan works even if neither happens. If you were advising a top draft pick today, would you plan for the $100M deal or plan like the signing bonus might be all there is?

Here’s something most baseball fans (and a lot of players) don’t realize: Players in the Major Leagues are sitting on a potential $700,000+ retirement benefit. Here’s how it actually works 👇 When a team’s payroll crosses $241M, they owe a “luxury tax” for the privilege of spending that much. In 2025, 9 clubs went over the line. The bill ranges from under $1M for first-time offenders to north of $100M for repeat heavy spenders (looking at you, Dodgers). It then gets divided into three buckets: ↳ Player benefits ↳ Player retirement accounts ↳ MLB’s revenue sharing program The retirement piece alone works out to roughly $72,000 per player this year. ↳ 43 days of service time = a quarter of the season ↳ Each completed quarter triggers a team 401(k) contribution ↳ In 2026, that contribution is $18,000 per quarter ↳ 4 quarters × $18,000 = $72,000 annually Now Run the Compound Interest The typical MLB player is around 29 years old. Take that $72,000. Grow it at 8% for 30 years. You’re looking at $724,511 at retirement. That’s a six-figure cushion most players don’t talk about, and many don’t fully understand.

I’m writing this as a lifelong Knicks fan who has waited his entire life for this moment. If there’s something that being a New York sports fan has taught me it’s the idea of delayed gratification. Fifty-three years. That’s how long we waited. Saturday night we watched Jalen Brunson drop 45 points to close out the Spurs and bring a championship back to New York. How did the Knicks get here? LinkedIn doesn’t allow this many characters for a singular post. High level: Jalen Brunson made a decision a few years ago: he left more than $100 million on the table to re-sign with New York. He passed up a Supermax Extension - I’ll write about this more this week. That choice gave the front office the cap space to build around him. He gave something up in the short term for something (potentially) far greater down the road. It’s a principle I talk about with our clients constantly. The natural instinct is to take the bigger number today. But wealth isn’t built in the moment you feel you’ve “earned” the payout. It’s built over the years you choose to reinvest rather than cash out. Smaller withdrawals now for greater freedom later. The money clearly mattered to Brunson. He just understood that taking less of it now would make something much bigger possible later. Let’s go Knicks. 🏆 Where does Jalen rank among all-time New York athletes? All I know is that right now, he’s the king of New York.

Nike’s ad for the Knicks winning their first championship since 1973. “Never slept. Always dreamed.”

2026 Sports in Kansas 6A Player of the Year Beau Peterson, Mill Valley, Sr. For the second consecutive season, Beau Peterson earns Sports in Kansas 6A Player of the Year honors after another dominant campaign against the state’s highest level of competition. Peterson helped lead Mill Valley to a 24-5 record while producing one of the most impressive offensive seasons in Kansas baseball, hitting .535 with 46 hits, 19 doubles, 3 home runs, 36 RBI, 37 runs scored and 22 walks. A Texas signee and one of the most highly regarded prospects in the nation, Peterson’s impact extends far beyond the high school level. The Canes National standout owns a staggering 107.8 mph exit velocity and can also reach 95 mph on the mound. MLB scouts have taken notice, ranking him among the top prospects for the 2026 MLB Draft and placing him No. 59 overall among all draft-eligible players. Widely regarded by many evaluators as the top position-player prospect to come out of Kansas since Bubba Starling became a first-round selection in 2011, Peterson has consistently performed on the biggest stages while facing elite competition year-round. His combination of power, athleticism, arm strength and baseball IQ makes him one of the premier talents in the country. Peterson closes out a remarkable high school career as a repeat Sports in Kansas 6A Player of the Year and will now turn his attention toward a decision between professional baseball and continuing his career at Texas. Either path points toward a bright future for one of the most accomplished prospects Kansas has produced in more than a decade. #sportsinkansas

Essenburg gets the offense up early!

NICK KURTZ 🔥 ABSOLUTELY. DEMOLISHED.

All aboard the Ess Express AGAIN!

Essenburg a big fly to get things going!

Some big time talent on these lists ‼️

A $40M contract just got more expensive. Why? He just switched states. Most people have no idea how athlete taxation actually works. It's based on where you work. Every game, every practice, every team activity gets logged. Each state where you performed work takes a percentage of your income proportional to the days you spent there. It's called the jock tax. And for years it worked in Garrett's favor. Cleveland. Ohio. 2.75% state rate. The majority of his workdays stayed in one of the most tax-friendly states for athletes in the country. On $34M of taxable income, Ohio collected roughly $935K a year. The Rams are paying him the same money. But now the majority of those workdays land in California. 13.3% top rate. That same $34M slice now costs $4.5M a year. The trade didn't change his contract. It changed his tax zip code. That's $3.6M more per year to the government. $18M over the life of the deal. Gone. Not from a bad investment or a bad agent. From a transaction that had nothing to do with money and everything to do with football. This is why tax planning isn't a thing you do in April. It's a thing you build into every major career decision from day one. The contract is just the starting point.

Colby Shelton goes to the batting cages in RF for his 4th AA HR. #Barons up 4-2. Burke also comes in on the blast.

Shaquille O'Neal was $80K overdrawn two days after getting his first $1 million. Here's exactly how it happened. He thought he was getting a million dollars. Forgot about taxes. After FICA and everything else, it was $600K. He bought a $150K Mercedes with no negotiation. His dad asked where his was. Bought another one. His mom wanted one too. Just like that, $500K was gone. Then suits. Jewelry. Sound systems. Everything he thought he needed. A few days later the bank called. He was $80K in the hole. That was the moment Shaq realized he needed a real financial advisor. He met guys promising to turn $40 million into $200 million overnight. He passed on every one of them. Then he met one guy who actually talked about saving money, protecting assets, and building wealth the right way. That guy changed everything. But that's not the real story. Shaq didn't lose his money to a scam. He lost it because nobody told him the truth before the check hit. Nobody explained what $1 million actually becomes after taxes. Nobody had the hard conversation with the family. Nobody built the structure before the pressure did. That's exactly where I come in. At @momentwealth I work exclusively with professional athletes and elite NIL athletes. My job is to be the person in the room before any of that happens. Before the check clears. Before the family starts asking. Before the guy at the dealership figures out you don't negotiate. The advisors promising to multiply your money are easy to find. Someone who tells you the truth about what you actually have and builds a plan around that is not. Who in your corner is having that conversation before the check hits?

Coby Mayo continues to absolutely mash left-handed pitching. His 9th home run of the season for Orioles (and 6th against a lefty) cuts Mariners' lead to 4-3 in the bottom of the 9th inning.

“Don’t steal my money because the result ain’t going to be good for you.” That’s how LeBron James opened his relationship with his financial advisor. He said it on a recent podcast with Savannah. LeBron talked about growing up in the projects in Akron, Ohio, not having much, and how that shaped the way he sees money and trust. Every athlete stepping into wealth for the first time should think about that exact moment. The first conversation with the people managing their money. Too many assume that signing a contract means their financial life is handled. It’s not. Building wealth after the draft takes more than talent. It takes the right team behind you. Here’s what LeBron’s story reminds every athlete: 1️⃣ Set boundaries early. If you don’t define how your money is handled, someone else will. 2️⃣ Build systems, not just relationships. Trust is earned, but it’s also verified through structure and accountability. 3️⃣ Hire people who educate, not just execute. If you don’t understand the why, you’ll never feel in control. LeBron didn’t say don’t help me. He said don’t steal from me. There’s a difference. You can’t build lasting wealth on fear, but you can build it on structure, clarity, and the right people in your corner. Photo Credit: Bleacher Report

If I had to guess, almost every NIL athlete overpaid in taxes last year. Let me explain. The fees you pay your agent on NIL deals, marketing contracts, trading cards, any off-field income are tax deductible. The actual out of pocket cost to you is significantly lower than what the invoice says. Most athletes don’t know this. And it’s not their fault. NIL income is self-employment income. It doesn’t come with a handbook. Nobody sits you down and explains that the IRS treats your on-field and off-field agent fees completely differently. On-field fees: not deductible. You’re paying that with after-tax dollars. Off-field fees: deductible. That NIL deal, that brand partnership, that content contract. You can write it off. Real money back in your pocket every single year. Completely available. Almost universally missed. Getting a great agent is one of the best investments you can make. Understanding what it actually costs you after taxes makes it even better.

Super Regional Friday ‼️

🗣️ talk to him nice @ConorEssenburg 🗣️

As the 1st overall pick of the MLB Draft, everyone talks about the $11M signing bonus. Here’s how to actually keep as much of it in your pocket as possible. You're about to live every young ballplayer’s dream. The cameras. The contract. The life-changing check. But here’s what most athletes, and their families, aren’t prepared for: You won’t keep $11 million. Not even close. And if you don’t have the right financial team around you, you’ll lose far more than just taxes. Here’s what you need to know before the check clears: ✅ Signing bonuses are taxed as ordinary income ✅ Only 22% is typically withheld for federal taxes ✅ Actual tax owed? 37% — leaving a huge bill due next April ✅ State income tax can strip another 10–13% — if you aren’t actively planning for it ✅ A standard 5% agent fee comes off the top 📉 What’s left from that $11M bonus? Often $4.6M–$6.1M — less than 55% That surprise tax bill? It happens because players aren’t prepared. They don’t know what to set aside. They don’t have a tax strategy. They trust the wrong people — or no one at all. This is why you need a financial team that works exclusively with professional athletes. One that understands: – How bonuses are taxed and paid – How to plan across multiple states – How to defer and structure smartly – How to reduce taxable income with proactive planning – How to turn one payday into lifelong wealth If you're about to be a top pick — this is the moment to build the right financial foundation. This is the work we do at Moment. If you’re heading into the MLB draft, or you’re working with a player who is, let’s connect.