In this episode of the Price of Business podcast, host Kevin Price is joined by media commentator Chris Kidd and guest Carlos Dias Jr., founder and managing partner of MVP Wealth Management Group. The conversation centers on the unique financial challenges faced by professional athletes—especially rookies entering the league with sudden, substantial contracts. Carlos explains how his firm, which focuses on NBA, NFL, and emerging MLS players, provides education, transparency, and trust to help athletes avoid common pitfalls such as overspending, taking high‑interest offseason loans, and misunderstanding contract structures (signing bonuses versus base salary). The discussion also covers how MVP Wealth acquires clients through college workshops, networking, and referrals from sports agents, and highlights the importance of early financial planning to protect long‑term wealth. The episode concludes with a reminder to visit Chris Kidd’s site (chriskidd.com) and MVP Wealth’s site (MVPwealth.com).
Chapters
Welcome back to this, already the final segment of today's Price of Business. I am your host, Kevin Price, talking to you about you and your business. Got Chris Kidd in the house. We always like to have him on. He does a phenomenal job, uh, bringing great stories and great guests. His column over at usdatareview.com is blowing up as he combines the worlds of entertainment and sports and business for some really interesting stories and commentary. And Man, I was checking out who you had lined up today, Chris, and it looks like we've got another great segment lined up. Do you want to mention you can learn more about Chris at chriskidd.com? That's K-I-D-D, chriskidd.com. How you doing, bud?
I'm fantastic as usual.
Yeah. Uh, tell us what you got for us. First of all, before you do that though, tell us about, uh, about what you do, uh, to, uh, your contribution to mankind, if you will.
Uh, my, uh, contribution to mankind is to help people with money problems and, uh, even if they, may not seem like they have some serious problems to help them just become better with money. I noticed that one thing with like the divorce rate and stuff, a lot of stuff comes back to money issues. And I figured if I could do something about that, then I can help, you know, save a lot of families and just basically work with people on the personal finance side, on the entrepreneurship side, helping start businesses and I think everybody needs a business of their own and, uh, the investment side so that they can understand what their money is doing, uh, how to manage it on their own if they're managing it, or how to check up on it and find out what's going on if they have someone else, uh, like my guest who might be managing it. Uh, my guest today is, uh, Carlos Diaz Jr., and he's the founder and managing partner at MVP Wealth Management Group. They're a, uh, wealth management group specifically for professional athletes out of Orlando, Florida. So great to have you on, Carlos.
Great to be on. Thank you, Kevin. Thank you, Chris.
I think it's a really unique niche. Tell us how you got into it, and while you're at it, kind of give us the elevator speech, if you will, about your firm.
Sure. I have been in the business for about 10 years, and years ago when I was a kid, I saw a special on TV on sports agents I knew at that time that I wanted to help professional athletes and I thought I would become a sports agent. However, that didn't turn out. I started working in the financial services business and I saw a lack of education and a lack of transparency. When I incorporated this company, I wanted to bring all those aspects to the table. Again, trust, transparency, and that's what we've been doing with professional athletes.
Very good, Chris.
Well, that's a, uh, a huge need, uh, for a market like, uh, professional athletes. And, um, I guess one of the things that, uh, we discussed before is, uh, we just had the NFL draft and there's so many guys, it's always good to catch them early on versus, you know, at the end of their career or once they've already retired. And then they're saying, hey, uh, I really screwed up, help me. What are some things that some of the rookies that are coming in now need to know about just handling their newfound wealth?
Yeah, the couple things that they need to really focus on, I think the first one is spending it before they have it. A lot of people on the outside see these big contracts, $25 million such as the one that Jameis Winston just recently got. They don't really see the intricacies of the math within the contract, that it's not all upfront. They don't get it all at once. I see that they need to save the signing bonus and at the same time, they need to avoid a lot of these high-interest loans during the offseason.
Talk a little bit about that because I've had former players that I've worked with who have told me some of the stories about that. Talk a little bit about How that stuff happens?
Well, a lot of times it's a locker room competition. If you look at the first-round draft pick versus someone in the 5th round, it's a huge difference. I did some research and like I said, it's $25 million for one and the 5th round I think came out about $2.2, $2.3 million. There's a huge difference and for someone that's in the 5th round, that has a teammate that was drafted in the first round and they're going head-to-head in competition with who has the better car or the biggest house. It's kind of like that thing, keeping up with the Joneses.
Yeah, no question about it. Kind of give us a profile, if you will, of the type of athletes you work with without naming names, obviously.
Well, we started off working with retired athletes and actually came from a background of working with pre-retirees and retirees. I take that approach into the athletes because of the short shelf life that they have. So we work with current athletes now. We work with a few different sports, football being one of them.
Very good. So is there one particular area of sports that you tend to represent more than others or work with? More than others? Say basketball?
We've been working with more NBA players, and actually this year we've picked up MLS soccer players. That's been a hot sport lately.
Very good. Go ahead, Chris.
I noticed that on your website, and soccer is huge. I mean, it's starting to warm up in America, but man, I mean, it's the most popular sport in the world. When you go like everywhere else, you know, with the, you know, the World Cup and stuff, when you, when you see that playing, I mean, people just, it's the biggest event ever. Um, one thing I wanted to—
go ahead.
Sorry. I was just gonna say it's kind of like years ago where we would say that people living in the North would retire to the South, Florida. It's the same thing. These European soccer players are retiring to America to play in the MLS.
How do the athletes that you work with normally find you? Is it— do you normally get them— are you trying to get them now as they're, you know, when they sign as rookies, or is it just, you know, word of mouth or through agents, or how do you normally get to your clients?
It's a variety of different ways. The first one is through the colleges and and setting up different types of workshops. Ultimately, everything comes down to meeting people. It's networking. That's why I like to network with a lot of different types of people and people in the sports arena. But that was one. And then the other way is through sports agents. A lot of it is word of mouth. Once you start building a reputation and people know you as that guy that they can trust, they can lean on you and get great advice, then a lot more people start coming in.
I want to get your website real quick as we get ready to wrap up the segment. Can you give that for us real quick?
Yes, it is MVPwealth.com.
And Chris, with that, uh, your final thoughts? And I bet we'll see an article about this over at usadireview.com, I would, I would expect.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure we will.
Wrap up with your final thoughts.
Well, I certainly think it's, uh, important for Everybody, but especially professional athletes, to be thinking about their financial future and to learn how to handle things, especially when they're coming in, you know, as rookies. And people like Marcus are great assets. And that's really important to have a good financial team, a good team of people around you. So.
You want to remind the listener too, they can check out Chris Kidd at chriskidd.com. And has many columns now over at usdailyreview.com, which always accompanies some really cool media. And, uh, when we come back tomorrow, we will of course have much more for you. Do want to remind you, best content here shows up over there at usdailyreview.com. You've been listening to The Price of Business.
