The firms join together to protect sports stars' financial affairs from crooked advisors, a sign of how the sports business segment of the wealth population is growing.

Vanguard Sports Group, a sports and consulting agency representing Major League Baseball and NFL athletes, has agreed a strategic alliance with BrightLights, a company that monitors and reviews professional athletes' finances for fraud, in a move highlighting a need to protect such individuals' business affairs. 

Under this partnership, Vanguard's clients can ensure that the advisors managing their investments and banking put clients' best interests first. Potential rogue advisors will be deterred by periodic checks on clients' finances, the firms said in a statement.

The founder of BrightLights, David Byrne, previously worked as a financial regulator at the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, where his investigations resulted in over $30,000,000 in fines, the suspension of six individuals and banning of two individuals barred, and two firms expelled or withdrawn from the industry. Prior to that, Byrne was licensed as a financial advisor at Merrill Lynch on a team managing $600 million in assets.

"Many athletes rely entirely on the people managing their money," Byrne said. "This creates an extreme lack of oversight. Without a trained financial advocate ensuring their investments and activity align to the goals and objectives set in place, every athlete is exposed to increased risk of fraud or abuse. BrightLights' services decrease that risk as much as possible."

Founder and chief executive of Vanguard Sports Group, Joey Branion, added: "We are constantly looking at ways to enhance our client representation services. This alliance with BrightLights supports that mission and provides needed checks and balances for our clients' finances that will help ensure their success while playing and into their retirement."

Sports wealth planning is starting to become a mainstream segment within the wealth management industry, as more money is pumped into the world of football, tennis, Formula 1 and rugby. Our sister publication, WealthBriefing, has spoken to various institutions on the subject, including RBC Wealth Management. The development of such offerings is also a sign of how banks and other organizations are trying to develop value-added propositions in a war for high net worth clients' business, moving beyond simple segmentation based on assets, for example.