Dan Carter's journey from All Blacks great to philanthropist, full-time dad and businessman is captured in intimate detail in Sky Sport's latest 'All Access' documentary.
The 'All Access' series, Sky's version of the latest wave of fly-on-the-wall sports documentaries to enter the streaming ecosystem, has been a refreshing viewinto the lives of Kiwi rugby players, from profiles on Super Rugby stars to the Black Ferns.
The latest episode, which was released this week, sets its sights on life after the game through the lens of rugby's most marketable man.
Carter, now 40, is a Unicef ambassador, involved in three start-ups, and loves luxury items.
But perhaps the most interesting part of the vlog-style documentary — which mainly follows the lead up to his 24-hour kickathon for charity in April — was his meditations on retirement, a peculiar aspect of professional sport that often gets forgotten.
"Retirement, it's actually quite a scary word," Carter says in the opening minutes of the doco.
"You're in your 30s and you're talking about the word retirement. You're not supposed to talk about retirement until you're in your mid-60s. Here you are, still young — it's quite daunting. If anything I'd been putting it off by signing contracts in France, Japan because there was a real fear about what's next."
It's a predicament that is a lot scarier when you're not the biggest name in rugby history, and Carter admits this himself, but he also shows how he continues to lead the way when it comes to transitioning from rugby to business.
The episode ends with Carter conquering his latest sporting challenge, where he kicked 1598 goals (to match his points total during his rugby career) in 24 hours and raised over $500,000 — a symbolic moment where he also gets past his fear of the unknown world of life after rugby.
Should sports billionaires exist?
Tiger Woods is now a billionaire, according to Forbes. Photo / AP
Speaking of extremely rich athletes, two of sport's biggest names, Tiger Woods and LeBron James, have just achieved something that's never done before: become billionaires during their playing careers.
According to Forbes, Woods and James joined Michael Jordan — whose net worth passed 10 digits after he retired — as the only sports stars with the increasingly maligned (for good reason) title.
It's an interesting achievement for an athlete, because unlike most other billionaires who profit from the exploitation of workers, athletes are basically employees or independent contractors themselves.
But of course, Woods and James didn't become billionaires purely through their wages. Woods earned his fortune largely from massive endorsement deals, while James has leveraged his fame and influence by taking equity stakes in a number of businesses.
There's no such thing as an ethical billionaire — everyone gets to that obscene level of wealth through exploitation of some kind, if not actively then somewhere down the chain — but the ones that manage to do it as free agents in things like sport are at least more admirable.
After the controversial start to the Saudi-backed Liv Golf tour last week, it was a breath of fresh air to hear world number two Jon Rahm speak about his reasons for playing golf.
His response to the rebel tour (in his second language no less) was eloquent, fair and got right down to the key differences between the traditional way golf is played and the blatant financial draw of competitions like Liv Golf.
"I do see the appeal that other people see towards Liv Golf," he said ahead of this week's US Open. "To be honest, part of the format is not really appealing to me. Shotgun, three days to me is not a golf tournament, [with] no cut. It's that simple. I want to play against the best in the world in a format that's been going on for hundreds of years. That's what I want to see.
"Yeah, money is great, but … would my lifestyle change if I got $400 million? No. It would not change one bit. Truth be told, I could retire right now and live a happy life and not play golf again. I've never really played the game of golf for monetary reasons, I play for the love of the game and I want to play against the best in the world.
"I've always been interested in history and legacy, and right now the PGA Tour has that."
🗣️ "My heart is with the PGA Tour"
Jon Rahm says that he can understand the allure of joining the LIV Golf Series, however, he says the competition format doesn't appeal to him. pic.twitter.com/Euq1JMBXzc
