The news: JPMorgan Chase is making a dedicated push into wealth management for athletes, including by enlisting star professional athletes Tom Brady, Dwyane Wade, Alex Morgan, and Megan Rapinoe to help shape the strategy. The basis for the program is athletes’ unique and uncertain financial lifecycles.

Zoom out: Banks’ sports strategies are not limited to wealth management. They commonly reach new-to-banking consumers in high school and early college via sports-team partnerships. JPMorgan, for example, recently partnered with Hudl, a video capture and livestreaming platform focused on high school sports, to distribute financial education content to student athletes.

Implications for banks and wealth managers: Wealth managers have a choice between being generalists, working with virtually any client within a wealth bracket, or specialists, catering to a vertical with unique needs. Ultra high-net-worth firms and family offices take the latter approach for the highest-touch clients.

Athletes also require more distinct services, with their asset levels and often compressed careers setting them apart from average consumers. They can start profiting from their name and likeness in college, quickly accumulate wealth as professional athletes, and suddenly retire. Managing that trajectory requires different insight and experience than for a generational wealth transfer or wealth built in an approximately linear manner over time.

As banks and wealth managers consider how to differentiate, they can leverage new asset classes and adjacent services. JPMorgan’s attempt to cultivate athletes illustrates yet another, more creative criteria.