“Daddy Ball” is a negative term for when a youth sports team is coached by a dad who shows favoritism to his own kid, deserved or not. They give their own kid the most opportunity to become the star player, at the expense of other players. It’s selfish. You may have been part of one of these teams growing up or dealing with one now. 

I was exclusively on teams coached by another player’s dad. Yet, I only recall one summer league baseball team where I had a true “Daddy Ball” coach. He played his son in the prime positions of shortstop and pitcher, which I felt he didn’t deserve based on his middling ability. The team wanted me to join for the upcoming fall season and I politely declined.

On the whole, I was fortunate with my youth sports experience. Others are not so lucky and it can discourage many from playing team sports at all.

I coached a youth baseball team in the Koa Sports League in my early 20’s. Many families joined Koa baseball to get away from terrible “Daddy Ball” situations elsewhere. Koa promised something different: every team had a professionally-trained coach with substantial playing experience. No parent coaches.

Removing the “Daddy Ball” conflict of interest proved to be a major selling point. Koa had 10 teams and ~120 families involved when I started. After a few seasons coaching, I became the head of all baseball operations. During my tenure, the organization peaked at 27 teams and 350+ families playing a season. 

No league is perfect, but we had scores of rave reviews complimenting the overall experience and how fairly managed the teams were. Positive word of mouth helped the league grow tremendously over a few short seasons. 

On Wall Street, there are parallels to “Daddy Ball”. Like a coach who wants to give their own kid the best opportunities to succeed at the expense of others, many financial professionals are incentivized to make as much money as possible at the expense of others. 

You are encouraged to become a “top producer” and an “asset gathering machine”. The focus is on enriching the firm and enriching yourself. There is an inherent conflict of interest if the incentive structure is not focused on helping the customer.

You can still find amazing advisors who charge asset-based fees. Like my excellent experience with my parent coaches, the vast majority of advisors I’ve been around are great people who mean well and do right by their clients.

I also know some who are not so great, these are the “Daddy Ball” advisors. They focus more on the paycheck, less on the “helping people”. It’s selfish.

The problem is it’s a lot more difficult for the average person to diagnose a “Daddy Ball” financial professional than it is to figure out when a “Daddy Ball” coach has gone too far. Financial pros all appear trustworthy because they’re well-dressed and know how to make you feel comfortable. It’s tough to decipher who will actually care about you long-term. With sports, It’s pretty clear when little Johnny keeps getting passed over for playing time because “Daddy Ball” coach needs his nine-year-old son Brett to make varsity in seven years to fulfill his own failed dreams. It’s time to find little Johnny a new team.

I built Nine Inning Finance to remove “Daddy Ball” conflicts of interest, modeled on my experience at Koa. It’s an “advice-only” firm. This means I don’t directly manage your investment accounts, which allows me to provide unbiased advice and counsel on all investing and financial matters. It’s not a perfect model, but I like it for these reasons:

• Objective, unbiased view to help solve customer problems: My incentives are focused on the customer, and I am not beholden to recommending whatever is available to me or tempted to offer whatever pays me the most. I can focus on providing objective, evidence-based reasoning while being product and platform agnostic. I believe this is the best way to act as a fiduciary. 

• Lower cost for customers: I don’t have large overhead expenses like massive office buildings, bloated management teams, and costly advertising budgets. Big firms use your money to pay for all those, I don’t need to. I charge for services directly from your cash flow, leaving your investment accounts free to compound. Other firms take fees directly from your investment accounts, disrupting compounding.

• Transparent: Cost information is listed upfront on my website and written very clearly into client agreements. I’m not trying to hide anything. At other firms you might need to check your statement each month to be sure how much you’re paying in fees.

• Customer control: You maintain control of all accounts instead of being forced to transfer your assets to another firm under the control of someone else. I’m here to help educate and assist when needed, not take over everything for you. On the baseball diamond, you have to get up to the plate and hit for yourself. A coach can’t get up in the box and do it for you. Your finances should be the same way. 

You can avoid “Daddy Ball” advisors by teaming with an advice-only financial planner. You can also “do-it-yourself” without any help from a professional. But you may benefit from having an advice-only planner take an unbiased look at your situation. That’s why I’m available on an on-going or one-time basis. 

Who wants to join the team?

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