Depends on the type of lifestyle you’d want to live. To live reasonably comfortably for ~60 years, you’d probably need to make $5m-$10m. That seems to be pretty rare for college athletes today, but in the next 5-10 years, definitely doable.
Running rough numbers ...
- $5M now and an immediate 45% taxes (38%-53% depending on state) leaves 2.75M.
- If you want to live in CU, you can buy a decent house for 250k, and a really nice one for 500k.
- That leaves 2.25-2.5M. At 3% draw down per year (so it lasts "forever"), that is 67-75k/year.
- This is plenty if you are single. It is dicey if you want to marry and have kids due to health insurance rates. (8-15k/person)
Now if you take that same money, and invest it for a decade at average index fund returns, it doubles relative to (average) inflation in 10 years. Then the 5M is more than enough and an initial 2.5M is borderline. In effect you need to take a job that pays the bills for the decade.
If you want to live in an "upscale" city - NYC, SF, etc. that starter house is going to cost you 2-3M. 10M now isn't enough to immediately retire if you want to own a home.