- One of the first big checks that I wrote was to Uncle Sam.
Ooh, man. [laughing]
That hurt.
What's up GQ Sports, my name is James Bradberry,
I play cornerback for the New York Giants
and this is how I spent my first million dollars.
I'm from a small city, Pleasant Grove,
around Birmingham, Alabama, it's low key, small area,
everyone kind of knows everyone there.
Also, I grew up in a single parent household.
My mom, she took care of me and my sister.
To my mom, she kept us busy.
We played a lot of sports,
I played football and basketball
but she also helped me with my spending habits, you know,
she always taught me to save money for a rainy day.
I started playing football around the age of eight.
I also went to the Boys and Girls Club,
that's where I also spent a lot of my time.
So I would always pass the football field
and she told me I would always be a beg her
and complain about how I wanted to play football and whatnot
so eventually she took me out there
and the rest was history.
So my rookie, like the base salary,
I think it was like 450 but my signup bonus was 1.1 million.
Well, you can see the first details
of my rookie deal right here.
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So we talked about how I made my first million dollars,
now let's talk about how I spent my first million dollars.
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My first check that I wrote was for my Audi A7,
it was customized too.
That's the funny story about the Audi A7,
so my actual first car was a Challenger
and I ended up getting that car because
my teammate that I got drafted with
and which was close friend of mine,
he bought the Audi A7 first.
He wasn't supposed to get that car.
We had, 'cause we had talked about it,
he supposed to get like A5, I was supposed to get A7
but then he pulled up one day and got the A7
so I ended up buying the Challenge,
but then I traded it in
and then I got my A7, 'cause the A7's my dream car.
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My second big purchase,
it's about 200,000 towards my family.
I paid off my family home.
My sister's tuition was included in that.
I also bought my mom a Audi Q7,
our family, we like Audis.
Shout out to Audi.
Tuition was 15,000.
The home was about 70
and then the AAU expenses in,
the fund that we had as a family, was the rest.
It's pretty nice house, you know,
I can't really say I grew up in a bad neighborhood,
I grew up in a good neighborhood,
it was real nice neighborhood.
I had some family and friends come over
to my home in Pleasant Grove,
that's where we was watching the draft
and my phone started going off in my pocket
and it was a 704 area number, Charlotte area number.
Like my heart kind of stopped a little bit
and then I answered it
and it told me I was getting drafted.
So I rushed back into the living room
and I saw my name come across the ticker
and then kind of went crazy from there, it was surreal.
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My third purchase was, I spent 15K on rookie duties,
unfortunately.
So at the training camp,
you had to take all the vets on the teams at Best Buy,
I ended up spending about 11K on my veteran teammates,
shout to them.
Rookie duties is I, wouldn't call it hazing,
it's paying it forward to the vets
'cause they take you under their wing,
they teach you the ways of the NFL,
just being a pro on the field and off the field, you know,
whatever system you're in, you got to learn the system,
just taking care of your body,
I learned a lot from guys like Mike Adams,
Captain Munnerlyn, Kurt Coleman.
So it's kind of just paying it forward to them,
it's the same way when you move on
and you become a veteran you know.
I spent about 3K at my rookie dinner,
that was at the end of the night.
Well, of course after training camp,
that was my biggest bill was taking him to Best Buy,
which was 11K.
So that was, that was the craziest part you know,
it was really, really mad in there
and you have to take a picture with them at the end.
So you had guys in there bragging about
how they was buying washers and dryers for their new home,
buy microwave, vacuums, big TV's.
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I definitely knew about agent fees.
You talk about that when you, when you select an agent,
I wasn't really good with percentages
so I didn't understand how much it was
as far as percentage wise.
So of course it sounds like a low number
but it's kind of costly.
So I met my agent through a Facebook.
He slid into my DMs, you know, on Facebook
but that's usually how agents get in contact with you
through DMs on Twitter or maybe Facebook or through a scout.
So that's typically how it works,
at least that's how it works for me.
That's how everyone was reaching out to me.
But it was, it was cool though,
like out of all the agents that I had met with,
me and kind of connected off rip,
you know, our first phone call,
was probably on the phone, probably 45 to an hour, you know,
just talking about life, we weren't even,
it wasn't even talking about football.
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I would say my next expense was kind of like
a wardrobe upgrade, I spent 25K on that.
It just kind of happened over time, you know,
throughout those four years
because when I came into the league,
I would say my wardrobe was probably at I mean,
it's probably a two.
By the time I got to maybe year three, year four,
I got a six but also I bought some jewelry,
I had bought a chain that was about 5K
and also a tennis chain, that was about three, four.
I liked shoes.
I play defensive back
so you got to take care of your feet.
You gotta always have some comfortable shoes on.
Designer shoes and clothes, they add up to the rest of.
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It increased from what I just said to about 70K
when I got to my second deal with the New York Giants.
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I bought some tennis chains
and the diamonds were a little bit more real.
I had to upgrade on the diamonds and stuff so,
spent about 70K going into my second contract.
And also watches too.
So I bought two watches, real, real nice watches.
So those, those added up into that 70K as well.
I'm a watch guy now, I feel like, you know,
I'm very into watches
and I've always kind of been into watches
but I liked more so like Diesel watches and stuff
when I was in school and also like my rookie year.
But now that I have a little bit more money in my pocket,
you know, I decided I wanted to
upgrade my watch game as well.
It's not very flashy but like people that know jewelry
they notice it, you know?
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So I say 30K in entertainment and vacations,
been to the Bahamas, D.C., Atlanta.
My biggest purchase or check that I wrote
was probably in Miami.
You know everything in Miami is expensive.
The best place I traveled was Bahamas.
That's definitely something that I want to do more
now on is go outside the country.
And I feel like you get more of a culture feel
if you go outside of the country
and you also get a different perspective
when you go visit other countries, you know.
They have different things that's going on in their,
their culture and in that society
that you should be aware of
'cause it just gives you a different perspective.
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I gave this money to my church back home.
I grew up in this church since I was born, you know,
and now my mom's a preacher at the church.
And of course in the Bible, it says, give 10% back,
50K probably isn't 10% but over time I'm eventually get 10%,
that's my goal.
But that was one of the reasons why
I decided to give back to the church, you know.
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One of the first big checks that I wrote, was to Uncle Sam
that was 400K out of my rookie deal
and I didn't have a choice but to write that one.
Like I said, I became more aware of percentages and stuff
when I got into the NFL
because before then I wasn't making a whole lot.
So when I first got my first check and I opened it up
and I seen how much it was
versus how much I thought it was gonna be,
the first thing I did was call my agent.
I was like, where's the rest of my check? [laughing]
But he was just explaining to me, man, you gotta pay taxes,
you know, that's the part of making all this money.
That's a part of this economy, you gotta pay taxes.
Ooh, man. [laughing]
That hurt, man it's so easy to do
when you're swiping a card,
you feel me but now that I actually see like
how much I spent,
I can kind of see it, see it.
That's why like, with my second deal,
like I tried to invest more.
It's making me more aware
of how I spend my money and whatnot.
This is going to people that help our community,
like police, officers, teachers,
I guess, government employees, it goes to them.
They help our community and our society go round
so I'm very appreciative of them.
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For my home that I purchased, that was 750,
so that's kind of over,
but I built a home going into my fourth year
and it kind of worked out to cause COVID had hit,
you couldn't leave the house anyways.
It was hard for us as players to go work out
because a lot of gyms had to close.
So fortunately I had a gym downstairs
and I was able to work out at,
so I was able to still get it in,
still be able to be in shape and whatnot.
And also I had a downstairs and entertainment area,
you know, I go down there, my friends would come over,
just hang out, you know, we'd have to go out to do anything.
Oh, that's back, back in Birmingham.
So that's where I spend my off season at.
Yeah, so like I have a daughter now.
So it felt good being able to get back to my mom.
I actually got her house too, this off season.
That's 650, so she's moving on to a bigger and better home.
She can't wait to move in.
Now that I had my daughter,
I can kind of see like how much hard work she put in
to raising me and my sister, you know,
and how hard it was, so being able to do that for her
and being able to see that smile on her face,
it really meant a lot to me.
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I think I've diversified how I spent my money pretty well.
Like I've had some fun,
which you definitely gotta enjoy the fruits of your labor.
I got that from my agent.
When I first got in the league, I was all about saving.
I was scared to spend my money.
You also have to give back, you know,
you also got to take care of the people
that took care of you, so,
I felt pretty good on how I spent my first mil, you know?
I wish I would have invested more with my rookie deal,
more so than just trying to save money
because now I kind of understand how money works
and how inflation works.
You gotta have your money working for you
instead of just sitting in the bank, you know,
it's not doing anything sitting in the bank.
My advice to the next generation of rookies and stuff,
enjoy your money, you know, comes,
and as you can see it goes fast.
Diversify, you know, just don't spend it all
on jewelry and clothes and stuff,
also give back and invest.
Thanks for tuning in
and watching how I'm made and also spent my first million.
Tune in also to the season, go Big Blue!
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