Even by normal standards, Canadian Evander Kane stands out from the average North American hockey forward profile. Not only is he quick and dangerous, he’s also aggressive and fearless, which is why he concedes a lot of penalty minutes.
Kane also stands out because of his skin color and is confident enough to handle that. “I’m black,” he once said. “And that in a white sport. With white coaches, white team managers, white club owners, white TV commentators.”
Most importantly, Kane, who has been playing for the Edmonton Oilers with Leon Draisaitl from Cologne for a while, has made a name for himself with a very different story. With an application for private bankruptcy in 2021. At that time he was still playing with the San Jose Sharks and earned at least seven million dollars gross a year. What was his debt level? Exorbitant: Kane is said to have had a debt of 27 million dollars.
Lehner is said to be $50 million in debt
Since then, the grinder of the American bankruptcy system has been working through the matter. Meanwhile, a few days ago, news of another spectacular bankruptcy hit the headlines. The Swedish goalkeeper Robin Lehner of the Vegas Golden Knights, according to many media sources, is said to have accumulated debts of up to 50 million dollars. However, the checkout with the details and the actual total is still pending.
What only catches the eye at second glance: there is a name on the list of Kane AND von Lehner creditors. A loan broker specializing in loans for athletes. The company is called Sure Sports Lending, is based in Florida and is doing well. You live on brokerage fees.
Successful completions are announced by employees via Facebook video. Like in early 2022, when they celebrated a huge loan for an unnamed baseball pro. With the bang of the gong: $2.125 million at 4 percent fixed interest for a former champion baseball player about to be inducted into the Sports Hall of Hame.
8.5 percent commission for Sure Sports
How much Sure Sports earns when everything goes well was publicly calculated in the case of Kane for the first time. One would like 1.2 million dollars from Kane. And this on the basis of a total credit volume of 14 million dollars. Calculated differently: around 8.5 percent commission. The New York journalist Daniel Kaplan, who takes care of sports commerce for the influential online sports publication “The Athletic”, told Deutschlandfunk how it came about: It was a constantly rotating spiral of more and more debt and more and more new loans :
“The new loans served to repay old ones. He has borrowed a total of $46 million over the years, of which only about $9 million remain. The remainder was used to pay off old debts and settle dues. It was a cycle.”
Sure Sports is a good address among athletes. The company already charms young players in the early stages of their career before they sign lucrative contracts. And she lends a helping hand to agents who mostly advance these athletes’ living expenses. Daniel Kaplan says about these bridging aids and the work of company founder and boss Leon C. McKenzie, who discovered this niche in the financial market in 2009:
“For example, he arranges six-month loans that you pay back when the first salary comes in. There’s nothing wrong with that. But the thing with Evander Kane is something else entirely.”
Gambling addiction as a core problem with Kane
Not only is it different, it’s very controversial. And not just because Kane was obviously driven by a gambling addiction, as he admitted to television network ESPN: “I have a gambling problem. It’s like a drinking problem or a drug problem. Sometimes you lose control of yourself.”
A problem that could be concealed for a while with the help of the credit broker. However, Sure Sports could pay more this time. Kane’s attorneys want the bankruptcy court to dismiss the claims. The company not only gave the ice hockey professional bad advice, but also allegedly received a brokerage fee from the lending financial institutions. A conflict of interest of the first order.
Kane and Lehner as exceptions
Headlines about the two NHL players suggest that debt and bankruptcy are prominent problems for American athletes. Daniel Kaplan believes this impression is deceptive:
“That probably happened a lot more often when the athletes made less money. But there are always cases that amaze people – given the enormous sums. Kane and Lehner are rather the exceptions. The leagues and teams are aware of it We have been aware of the problem for a long time and train the young professionals in a very targeted manner in how to deal with money.”
The situation is different with those athletes at the universities, who are no longer flawless amateurs and are allowed to sign advertising contracts. How good their relationship with money is and what kind of lifestyle they possibly afford on credit and go broke as a result will only be found out in America in the future.