In more recent years, sports have become a much more industrialized and commercialized topic. Brand deals, sponsorships, commercials, the sports have taken a step back to include monetary ventures. The use of business practices in sports is nothing new, but most people only associate business in sports with the front office being in charge of handing out contracts. Agents are typically an afterthought in the minds of the general public, the everyday fan can’t name the top 5 most successful agents, or even the agencies they work at. Major agencies such as Klutch Sports, Wasserman, and CAA are foreign languages to the everyday football-watching dad. However, without these major agencies, many of the professional sports leagues cannot function properly, due to the grasp they have of the clientele in many of these professional sports leagues. The big names, the stars, the legends all sign with these agencies due to their professionalism and guarantee that they can handle business on behalf of these athletes. Where the lucrative business in this is the percentage splits. These agencies can take anywhere from 4-10% of a contract and 10-20% of an endorsement deal, which when you’re dealing with hundred millionaires, it can be a very nice payday from one client alone.
These agents are also trained in a variety of fields and specialties. Most agents go to grad school to get their MBA, they go to law school to pass the bar, and many have even practiced law in a professional setting before a judge. Their people skills are top notch, often attribute their people skills to their solid foundation of soft skills. A firm handshake, eye contact, a smile, and genuine engaging dialogue all are various soft skills that are used frequently by these agents. Business agents are some of the most diverse business professionals due to the fact that there are so many routes to end up being an agent, creating lots of unique competition in the field. Some of these agents were lawyers first, then agents. Some were economic and finance guys, really focused on the small numerical details of every contract. Then others are just sports fans, having fallen upwards in the professional sports setting and networked well enough to have an athlete trust them to represent them in a professional manner. That option is more commonplace than people think. One of the best examples of this was Rich Paul. Rich Paul was a street vendor that was selling NBA jerseys and happened to run into a blooming star from Akron, Ohio. Of course, befriending arguably one of the greatest basketball players of all time has its perks, but it was LeBron trusting Rich Paul on a business sense that allowed Rich Paul to continue his love of sports in a professional sense. In summary, there are many examples of agents coming from all ends of the spectrum on how they got to become an agent. Connections, hard work, law school are all strategies that will get you to this level, but there are many things that separate the cream from the crop.
Finding the right agent can be difficult, but agencies have made that task more manageable. By creating these firms of agents, aspiring professional talent has a place where they can find an agent that matches their own personal desires, being ensured by these firms that whoever they decide on, will be qualified to handle their wants and needs economically. Then, whatever agents the athletes narrow their list down to, they need to begin an almost intensive background check on them to see what connections they have outside of their clientele. Multiple agents have connections to prominent shoe brands, cereal brands, and other sports media, creating lots of opportunities for endorsement deals. This level of sponsorship of athletes is only going to increase with NIL deals becoming a major contribution to where some of these athletes are going to college to pursue their careers, and if agents can help smooth that transition and actually help convince a player to attend a certain high-level college for that sole purpose, agents can actually be the middleman for a lot of these schools as a sort of ‘’Extra-recruiter’’.
The world of sports is changing. Everyday there is a new article or headline of another cataclysmic event that will reshape the landscape of sports that people have become so familiar with. However, the one thing that has stayed consistent is that agents will be a mediator and necessity to professional athletes. Unfortunately, a lot of these athletes aren’t educated enough to be able to negotiate properly for themselves, handle their own brand deals, and find opportunities beyond their sport because these people have dedicated their whole lives to their craft, therefore not having the time to expand their interests in depth or to have the absolute joy of discovering the process of learning about new, mesmerizing ideas. Without the business professionals that love sports, sports won’t be loved by their own professionals.
Sources:
Wikipedia.com