So tonight on the way home I heard about a game called “Financial Football”. The plug is this: “Visa and the National Football League have teamed up to help students across the country learn financial concepts — with Financial Football. Students tackle financial questions like professionals in this fast-paced, quiz-style game divides classrooms into two teams that compete by answering finance-themed questions to earn yardage and score touchdowns.” When I heard this I thought, wow, what a horrible idea for a game. What kind of kids would play a game called Financial Football? Additionally, it seems like a game that’s geared towards boys since most girls I know aren’t really into football. It was really funny because the news report ended with a man saying, “many people in the NFL are on their way to leaving their careers penniless because they do not know how to manage their money, and we’re hoping that this game will teach kids about finances.” Anyway, curiosity got the best of me and I looked up the game online. Apparently I could play it online.
The game starts off with choosing your teams. I picked the Patriots and the Raiders. Then the “Kickoff” starts and a series of finance related trivia questions are thrown at you. You only have ten seconds to answer each, and some of them were not very easy to answer in ten seconds. For example, one question asked how much interest would you receive if you had $100 and it compounded yearly for 2 years at 10% a year. I got the correct answer of $21, but it’s not super easy to answer in 10 seconds. Some of the questions are so long that it’s hard to read it all in the strict time limit. I was surprised that the questions covered a very wide range of topics including insurance, mortgages, interest rates, credit cards, and simple economics. It even had a question about the rule of 72. However, this is my favorite question out of the entire game:
When do you get the social security money taken from your paychecks back?
A. 10 years
B. At the end of the year.
C. When you retire
D. Never
At first I picked C and the game said that was wrong, and then I picked D, and that was the correct answer. I’m glad to see that Visa is being brutally honest with the children of America.
I didn’t agree with some of the questions and answers in the game. For example, one question asked which investment was the riskiest and listed corporate bonds, corporate stocks, and money markets. Their correct answer was corporate stocks, but actually I think some junk corporate bonds are much worse. Besides that, I think this is a good game for parents to play against their children even thought I am not very fond of the football elements throughout the game. It also contains too much trivial information such as whose face is on which coin. The radio newsclip said that teachers are using Financial Football to teach middle school students, and I’m not sure a lot of these fast paced question and answer sessions will stick. Hopefully some of the good things in this game will be absorbed into the young minds of the future. Anyway, if you’re bored, try your hand at some Financial Football and tell me what you think.
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1 comment so far ↓
I thought it was…….interesting. Like you, I’m not much of a fan of football, AND I thought that the time to answer was a little too short. That being said, I didn’t do TOO horribly – but I only played quarter-long games and only chose medium questions so far (I can handle budgets and the like, but don’t consider myself THAT financially savvy), but I knew more than I realized as well, which surprised me. All in all, I might save it and let my hubby play, though sending it to my (financially UN-savvy!) sister might be better served. Besides, she’s one of those rare ones who actually LIKES football.
As far as sending it to middle-school students…I don’t know that I could have answered these questions in middle school. I’m 26, and the greatest portion of these lessons were learned through trial and error – though my parents DID try to help me understand SOME financial stuff, according to THEIR personal financial situation (which isn’t very sophisticated or diverse – they live simply).
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