For every player that put on a New York Giants jersey this season, the Super Bowl ring they just won is the culmination of a life-long dream.
Super Bowl Rings: The ‘Three D’s’ That Put Them On The Market
But all dreams come to an end, and if past experience is any guide, a fair number of them will one day be hawking those rings on the open market:
Tim Robins runs championship-rings.net, a California-based website that sells college and pro sports rings. He’s seen business explode in the past decade. Last year alone, he received nearly 1,900 championship rings, 350 of them from the Super Bowl.
According to most re-sellers, the reasoning behind selling a Super Bowl ring comes down to the “Three D’s” -- death, divorce and drugs.
And while the idea of a player selling a championship ring usually conjures up the image of a down-on-his-luck addict pawning his most treasured accomplishment for one more hit, the reality is usually far more banal.
NFL players spend the first part of their lives preparing for a career that, on average, lasts 3.5 years. According to an extensive report from Sports Illustrated, 78% of former NFL players are either bankrupt or under severe financial distress two years after they leave the league.
The biggest contributing factor is the eye-popping divorce rate of marriages involving professional athletes, commonly estimated to be somewhere between 60-80%.
It seems that if Giants players lose their wedding rings, their Super Bowl ring might soon follow.
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