Are today's athletes using Twitter as a means to a second career?

This may be coming from a region of my body that usually only extracts sounds and smells that have been described as not human, or it could be that 5 years of destroying my brain in college has caught up with me, but I can't help but think that athletes today have a hidden agenda when it comes to their use of Twitter.  Sure, there are some that just like to have their business and thoughts out there because they love them some them, and others were told it would be a good marketing move and make them more personable to their fans, but I know there has to be a few athletes out there with the understanding that they will need to make money once they retire and what better way for them to make money than to get paid to talk about the sport they once played.
It's no secret that Twitter isn't going away, and in a society that wants the latest news and updates immediately, with the push for being the first person to crack a story, there isn't anyone closer to the action than athletes.  If someone can tweet something polarizing enough to spark a conversation or be the first to break the news about someone being fired, hired, traded, signed, arrested, injured... the list goes on... then what better source is there than the people that were just there?
I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that people will start to get paid for breaking stories on Twitter and sharing their thoughts throughout championship games and other major sporting events.  Hell, they do it now for free!
But, like I said, I could be just be talking out one of my loud and smelly orifice.