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Excellent Article On Agents
[Star Ledger] [Sports]
The Shark Tank: Sports agents
12/06/98
By Brad Parks
STAFF WRITER
It's the agent's fault. It's always the agent's fault.
Your team lost its best player to free agency? Blame his
agent. Your favorite player is holding out? Blame his
agent. Your seats cost $75 because salaries are out of
control? Blame the agents.
The NBA is stuck in a protracted labor dispute that
threatens to wipe out the season? Blame the agents. That's
what commissioner David Stern is doing, and even if David
Falk disagreed, basketball's biggest heavyweight remains a
factor in the ongoing negotiations.
The Yankees just paid enough to buy a small country --
$87.5 million over seven years -- to keep Bernie Williams?
Blame the agent. That's what the Yankees are doing, and
baseball super-agent Scott Boras is all too happy to take
the credit.
College programs everywhere are awash in scandal? Blame the
agents. That's what the NCAA does, and college sports'
governing body has even hired a full-time staff member to
regulate agents.
No one, it seems, is fond of agents. Not even agents
themselves. Most agents say they would never let their
children become agents. The reason? Because their children
would have to associate with other agents.
"I don't really like too many other agents," New York baseball
agent Peter Gross said. "It's like a shark tank. There are
too many other agents out there nipping at your heels,
ready to steal your clients. Some of these guys I respect.
They're up-and-up guys. But some of these guys? I wouldn't
let them put a Band-Aid on my finger if I was bleeding to
death."
Yet it is here, in this shark tank world of agents, that
the fishbowl of professional sports receives many of its
most familiar features. Increasingly, agents -- much as
owners or general managers or the athletes they represent
as -- play a substantial role in shaping the games we
watch.
In the shark tank, like the world of sports itself, there
are wins and losses, good guys and bad guys, injuries and
fouls. But flags are seldom, if ever, thrown at violators.
At its worst, it's a place where deceit, back-stabbing and
betrayal are the tools of the trade. At its best, it's a
place where good, honest, smart men can make a very decent
living -- earning anywhere from 2 to 5 percent of the
contracts they negotiate -- if they don't mind being a
little greedy.
On a personal level, most agents aren't bad company. Charm
is a survival skill in their business. Then again, they
really don't want the average fan to like them. Most of the
time, being hated by large numbers of people is a sign
they're doing something right.
Taking the blame is just part of the job.
Even though they are universally vilified, that doesn't
stop legions of people from wanting to become agents. The
lines at the door to the agent club are long, full of
people who view the business as both lucrative and
glamorous. Competition for players is just as fierce -- and
certainly more acrimonious -- as the games in which those
players compete.
Why? Because agents need clients. They are defined by their
clients. Who is David Falk? He's Michael Jordan's agent.
Who is Leigh Steinberg? He's the quarterback agent.
But long before an agent ever ascends to that level of the
business, they need to get their first clients. To get
clients, agents need to show them they've been successful
for other clients. In other words, to get clients you need
clients.
Welcome to the all-time Catch-22 of sports agency.
What it breeds is a subculture of young would-be agents and
just-barely agents struggling for their first paychecks.
They swarm over elite, highly-prized high draft picks.
"There is a huge list of wanna-be agents who are looking
for their first clients. Those are the particularly scary
individuals because they're going to be willing to do
almost anything to get that first client and get their foot
in the door," said Bill Saum, Director of Agent and
Gambling Activities for the NCAA. "If you're a first-round
draft choice in either football or basketball, it's
reasonable to believe you have received an offer of
benefits or even accepted an offer from an agent."
What kind of benefits?
"Money under the table, drugs, prostitutes, cars, jobs for
family members," New Jersey-based agent Craig Fenech said.
" Anything you can think of, somebody has done. Anything
you can think of, someone is probably doing as we speak."
It has, in fact, become part of the game.
New York agent Lisa Giordano, who represents athletes in
the NFL, WNBA and ABL, said she recently had a college
football player ask her what her "payment schedule" was.
The young man had simply assumed that she was there to
offer him a payoff.
"Some of these kids think that if you don't offer them a
car or cash, that you must be trying to screw them," said
basketball agent Keith Glass of Red Bank. "This business
has changed a lot. It was always a filthy business. But I
used to be able to take a shower and not stink anymore. Now
you shower and you still smell. I don't even get involved
in the dirty part and I stink by association."
Payoffs are against the rules, of course. A college athlete
who is caught accepting money or other gifts from an agent
will lose eligibility; the agent who provides the booty can
be decertified.
There are examples of agents who are nabbed doing this --
Curtis Enis' former agent, Jeff Nalley, who bought Enis a
suit and other presents, is the most recent. Before that,
in 1995, Jesse Martinez, a runner who worked for several
agents, squealed to the Boston Globe about his activities.
Twenty schools were subsequently investigated. In the
mid-1980s, the story of Norby Walters and Lloyd Bloom --
two agents with mob ties who tried to bribe dozens of
high-round football draft picks -- stunned the sports
world.
For the most part, however, violators are so infrequently
caught that the specter of penalties casts a small shadow.
In all, there are more than 1,100 registered agents in the
three major sports. Last year, four of them -- a record
number -- were suspended.
"We have ample reason to believe cheating is going on, but
getting hard evidence of that is something else," NFL
Players' Association counsel Arthur McAfee said. "We'd have
to have athletes, parents and other agents help us out and
testify."
But they don't, in part because they don't want to be
snitches; in part, perhaps, because snitching might cast a
suspicious eye on their own activities. So the cheaters
don't get prosecuted.
That's an enormous frustration for the majority of agents
who say they don't cheat.
"The lack of ethics in this business is appalling," said
Steve Kauffman, who represents NBA players like Dale Davis
and Rony Seikaly. "I recently lost a second-round draft
pick. It was a kid we thought we were pretty secure with,
because we had a relationship with his college coach. On
the night he was going to sign with us he called up and
said he was signing with someone else. We found out later
that someone else had offered him 25 grand in cash to sign
with him that very evening."
That kind of behavior only intensifies when a
student-athlete crosses the threshold into professional
sports, as access to a player improves and rules governing
his behavior diminish.
Winning a client is only part of the struggle. Keeping him
is just as tough.
"These guys are recruited almost from the day they're
born," basketball agent Don Cronson said. "These guys,
especially in the NBA, are superior at every level. They're
used to having done for them whatever they want. So if I
want to steal another guy's client, it's easier for me to
talk a better game than it is for the other agent to
actually carry out that game. And because these guys are so
conditioned to hearing that they're better than they really
are, they already have a predisposition, a mindset, to
believe that kind of thing."
"This is a predatory, competitive business," Cronson said.
"Everyone's got the gloves off. You're fighting for your
life."
There is nothing wrong, legally, with stealing someone
else's client. It can even make good business practice, a
lucrative cottage industry within the industry.
"I was told a story," Fenech said, "that a prominent West
Coast agent was in the hospital having had a heart attack.
While he was in the hospital, a prominent East Coast agent
started calling all his clients, saying, 'I know your agent
is in the hospital, but you need representation now.' And
in one case, from what I heard, it worked."
Some agents hear that story and say: so what? There is
nothing that contractually bounds a player to an agent
forever. And if a player isn't satisfied with his
representation, he has every right to make a change.
"This is a free country and guys are not obligated to stay
signed with one agent for life," said football agent Drew
Rosenhaus, who has denied accusations of client-swiping. "I
think a lot of agents who complain are babies."
The agent business is, after all, service-oriented. If you
weren't pleased with your plumber, wouldn't you fire him?
So most agents figure out very quickly that, in order to
keep from getting flushed, they better keep their clients'
metaphorical toilets in working order.
Contract negotiation is, far and away, the most important
part of the job. Most clients -- even the ones who do well
for themselves -- only sign two or three contracts during
their careers. Maximizing those opportunities is an agent's
foremost concern, since an athlete's peak earning years
pass quickly
But contract negotiation probably takes no more than a
quarter of most agents' time. The rest disappears into the
time vacuum known collectively as personal service. This
vague but sometimes all-encompassing task puts the agent in
any number of roles, from advisors to friend, from
confidant to employee.
An agent's duties can entail anything from making sure a
client's bills are paid, to making sure a client's money is
properly invested, to making sure a client is driving the
hottest car, to convincing a girlfriend that her boyfriend
really does like her hair.
"Sixty percent of our time is really based on helping these
players become comfortable in their lives," said Boras, who
has a sports psychologist on his staff. "Because if they
aren't comfortable, they can't perform."
And that can extend down to the smallest minutiae.
Agent Bob Wolf used to tell a story about the time when
former Bruins tough guy Derek Sanderson was in a hotel room
in Hawaii and the hot water didn't work. Rather than call
down to the desk to complain, Sanderson called Wolf at his
office in Boston and asked him to call and complain.
Often, the agent is just a sympathetic, understanding ear.
Kauffman remembers a time when his then-high school-aged
son wanted to know what he did for a living. So Kauffman
brought the boy to work for a day. He sat quietly in his
father's office all day, reading a book. At the end of the
day, his mother asked him what he thought of his father's
occupation.
"Well," he said. "I would say Dad is a fairly highly paid,
totally untrained therapist."
Whatever it takes to keep a client happy.
Steinberg, who represents Troy Aikman, Drew Bledsoe and
Steve Young, among others, said he trains his staff to be
like the White House staff -- ready, willing and able to
handle any request at any time. Aikman likes a particular
kind of taco from a place in Los Angeles. Steinberg makes
sure he gets some now and then. Another quarterback client
likes to have Happy Birthday sung to him over the phone.
Steinberg's staff assembles around a phone and sings.
Some clients want to be introduced to famous females they
have crushes on -- from swimsuit model Heidi Klug to
actresses Jennifer Love-Hewitt or Cameron Diaz. Steinberg
can help play match-maker, calling up their agents to
arrange a meeting.
Or, sometimes, his job becomes to shoo overly-persistent
pursuers away.
"There was one odd gentleman who claimed that he had been
married to several of our quarterback clients," Steinberg
said. "He would come to games and offer them jewelry. He
would start coming to speaking engagements. It made things
very uncomfortable."
Eventually, Steinberg got NFL security to deal with him.
Still, even if an agent can successfully convince the
strange man that Steve Young doesn't really want that
diamond brooch, an agent can get fired. It happened to Arn
Tellem, who recently lost Antonio McDyess. It happened to
IMG's Hughes Norton, who was fired by Tiger Woods after
negotiating $120 million worth of contracts that made Woods
the richest endorser in the world (Earl Woods said Norton
was overcommitting Tiger).
It has happened to almost every agent at one time or
another. And it can happen at any time for any variety of
reasons.
"Sometimes there is no reason," Gross said. "You get a cold
letter in the mail and your player wasn't even man enough
to confront you about it, even though you treated him like
a son. Because, for whatever reason, some guy has sold them
some pie-in-the-sky idea about what he's worth, and the
player has bought it. It happens to everyone."
It happens, and it can hurt. Atlanta-based agent Alan
Manheim is still smarting over the client he lost a few
years back. A University of Georgia alum, Manheim had
watched the player develop up close. The kid had these
powerful legs, these sweet hands, this indefatigable
determination to succeed.
Manheim knew the kid had "potential for greatness." He knew
long before most NFL executives, who let Terrell Davis slip
to the sixth round and 196th pick of the 1995 draft.
So Manheim courted him, wooed him and eventually signed him
-- over at least 15 other agents who had a serious interest
in Davis, and 100 or more who at least had a passing
interest in this player who was projected as no better than
a third- or fourth-round pick.
And then, after negotiating Davis' rookie contract, Manheim
lost him. To another agent. For reasons he won't discuss.
For reasons that scarcely matter now, because Davis is long
gone. He has since signed a nine-year, $56 million
contract, 3 percent of which (more than $1.5 million) will
go to his new agent, Neil Schwartz, who negotiated the
deal. Manheim didn't get a cent.
"I'm still proud to say that, even when he was in college,
we saw something in Terrell that almost no one else did,"
Manheim said. "More than anything else, I felt a sense of
loss because I wouldn't be involved in all the positive
things that would come from his hard work."
Manheim's partner, Andy Ree, calls Davis "the big one that
got away."
Sometimes the reasons for a lost client go beyond mere
contract negotiation. Sometimes it's sex. Sometimes it's
color. Sometimes it's religion.
Giordano -- one of just 17 females among the NFL's 736
registered agents -- doesn't think she's lost a client
because she's a woman. But she does know she's had trouble
getting clients for that reason.
"It's hard to get clients whether you're a man or a woman,"
she said. "But (being a woman) probably makes it tougher.
Players who have signed with me have said I surprised them
at first because I was a woman in this business. They have
an image of what an agent should be, and I don't fit the
mold."
White agents have accused black agents of "playing the race
card" to steal their clients. Black agents have bemoaned
the white-dominated status of sports agency even though
black athletes make up the majority in both basketball and
football.
More recently, religion has become an issue -- especially
in the NFL. When Enis became a born-again Christian, he
fired his agent, Vann McElroy, and hired Greg Feste, also a
born-again Christian.
Glass believes the same thing happened to him. He was fired
by former Sacramento King and converted Muslim Mahmoud
Abdul-Rauf. Glass said Abdul-Rauf wanted an agent who also
embraced his faith.
And Glass is still a little baffled. He got fired a few
weeks after Abdul-Rauf attended a charity function put on
by Glass, who was raising money for the medical expenses of
a family who had lost its 4-year-old daughter to cancer.
During Glass' charity auction, Abdul-Rauf purchased two
airline tickets, good for anywhere in the country.
"He walks up to the stage and hands me his check, and I'm
saying, 'Mahmoud, what are you doing?' He's this NBA player
who can go anywhere he wants and he's buying these things,"
Glass said.
"At the end of the auction, he calls me to the back of the
room and looks at me and says, 'I just wanted to let you
know how I feel about you.' I say, thanks Mahmoud, you know
I feel the same way. Then he continues: 'I didn't buy these
tickets for me. I bought the tickets for the parents. I
want them to get away. Don't you think they should get away
after all that's happened to them?'
"That was a real high for me. I get a little emotional just
thinking about it."
Shortly thereafter, Glass was fired.
But, hey, a shark never cries. That's just another day at
the office.
"I got fired one time by a guy in the Mariners
organization," Fenech said. "He had been bouncing back
between Triple-A and the big leagues a lot. His wife was
from Seattle, and she wanted to buy a home there. I told
her I didn't think it was a very good idea. One, because
her husband wasn't in the big leagues yet; two, because
even if he does get in the big leagues, there's a strike
coming and you don't know what is going to happen; and,
three, because there's a substantial likelihood your
husband is going to get traded."
Fenech got fired the next day. The wife didn't want to hear
it. She blamed the agent.
© 1998 The Star-Ledger. Used with permission.