In a few months, about 300 aspiring agents will assemble in Washington, D.C., for the 2017 NFLPA Contract Advisors Exam. If the last few years are any indication, at some point, one of the lecturers will ask the class how many expect to sign a player who will be drafted the following year. At least two-thirds of hands will raise, maybe more.

The truth is that, on average, maybe six people should raise their hands, and of those six, five are already employees of major agencies that will represent several draftees. Of those who are truly independent, who arrived with no ties to the big firms, maybe one hand should be raised. On an odd year, two.

There’s a perception that if a draft prospect completes four years in a decent FBS college program, starting a year or two, the natural progression is that he goes to the pros and plays 2-3 years. After all, that’s why the average career is so short, right? Everyone gets their shot, but only the Peyton Mannings and Deion Sanders have really long careers? And worst-case scenario, they go to the CFL, where they play for 6-7 years before moving on, right?

This perception is a big part of the problem, both for prospective agents and the players themselves. The problem is that it’s hard to perceive of the sheer volume of players vying for the 250 draft slots and 300 undrafted free agent contracts every year.

Let’s look at raw numbers. There are 125 FBS programs. Let’s say, on average, each of them has 10 graduating seniors that started a season or two, so that’s a pool of 1,250 players (conservatively). Last year, there were 484 rookies that made rosters (53 or practice squad), so right off the bat, that’s less than half of all draft-eligible seniors the NFL can fit onto its rosters. Now consider that of that 484, probably 100 never made it to their senior seasons. So that’s 384 jobs for 1,250 seniors, and we’re not even looking at the hundreds of FCS, DII and DIII players in the pool. Last year, 76 players made rosters from sub-FBS programs. So now let’s say 300 jobs for FBS players, just to make the math easier.

Of that 300, the vast majority will be signed by firms that have been around for years. Let’s say 250 go to established agencies. That leaves about 50 ‘make it’ kids left for mid-sized, small and rookie agents and agencies to divvy up. There are about 800 agents registered by the NFLPA. About 400 of them have active clients, so we’ll be generous and call them all ‘established.’ That leaves 400 agents vying for those 50 kids that slip through the cracks, yet make a practice squad (more likely) or roster (less likely). Oh, by the way, if your client makes a practice squad, you can’t bill him. So you get zero ROI on your training and recruiting investment. Ouch.

Of course, we’re just talking about making a team, for a game or two. All 32 teams are constantly churning the bottom of their rosters, shuffling players in and out due to injuries or just plain trying to improve their talent level. Making a team for any length of time introduces another reducing variable that we won’t even go into. But I don’t think we need to. You get the point.

Bottom line, if you’re taking the test this summer, or plan to in coming years, good for you, and I salute and congratulate you. But I want you to know what you face, and I want you to take seriously the challenge ahead of you. I’m always here to help, and I hope you’ll let me. Good luck.

At this point, while draft prospects and their agents are furiously preparing for next week’s combine or March’s pro days, there are about 300 people who are readying for the NFLPA exam this summer. Many of them will use our practice exam to increase their odds of success, which is a good thing, because the exam is extremely challenging.

Of course, knowing the CBA is just part of the job, and I constantly hear from aspiring agents who don’t seem to have a good handle on what’s ahead in non-CBA matters. With that in mind, my next five blog posts will seek to rectify this. These blog posts are a supplement to the newsletter series all our subscribers receive as part of an ITL subscription. The four topics we’ll cover are as follows:

• The Modern Draft Prospect
• Quid Pro Quo
• The ‘Knowing Scouts’ Dilemma
• The Draft and Your Odds

Without further ado, let’s talk about the modern draft prospect.

I think most budding agents have a romanticized view of young players that borders on fan-like. They see them as young and hungry, with an all-or-nothing attitude about training, working out, and otherwise learning their craft. They see them as respectful of the process and everyone helping them along. They expect players to be cordial and respectful to their agents and advisors, and above all else, grateful, taking nothing for granted. Similarly, they see the player and his parents as supportive but never presumptuous, and mainly only speaking when spoken to; they expect parents and family members to have a healthy sense of boundaries, and to be adult-like and reasonable in their expectations.

I think it’s fair to say this kind of player exists, and some of them even have a reasonable chance to play in the NFL. However, I think they’re pretty rare, and maybe even getting rarer.

The stories I hear most often from my clients are that the average player starts out with a rather heightened sense of what’s ahead, and his chances of NFL success. Most expect to be treated like NFL players from the get-go (car rentals, deluxe apartments, monthly allowances and training extras), and this is completely removed from their actual draft chances. The twist is that often, a player starts out very humble and less than entitled, but grows in his sense of appointment as the draft nears. Sadly, stories about parents are very similar. In many cases, they resemble a parent whose son chose an unsatisfactory spouse. They’re constantly meddling in the agent-plate relationship and even threatening them. There are ways around this kind of player — finding players you can enjoy representing is part of what we do at ITL — but far too often, this is the case.

There are only about a hundred reasons agent-player relationships take this shape. There’s the annual pre-draft hype-fest that makes every draft prospect either a future superstar or an under-the-radar sleeper. There’s social media, where former teammates paint an exaggerated picture of combine training glory and NFL interest. There are college coaches and athletic officials that spend four years painting unrealistic expectations of a player’s pro chances. There’s also the expected ‘loyalty to the program’ that means avoiding any real investigation and study of the NFL draft process. Factor in the family and friends that have been living vicariously through these young men for 20 years, and it becomes a perfect storm. And there you are, the agent, at the end of that wind tunnel.

Again, all players are not like this. In addition, the tactful agent has to figure out how to navigate these challenges. After all, we’ve got dozens of success stories we can cite. The point is, if you’re taking the exam (or hope to one day), be prepared for this.

More next week.

This week, ESPN’s Darren Rovell wrote a good story about the growth of the sports agent industry partly as a result of the release of the movie, Jerry Maguire, 20 years ago this week. There’s no denying there are more contract advisors vying for NFL clients today than there were two decades ago.

Here’s another area that’s boomed: sports management programs at national universities. Rovell notes, correctly, that as more young people have sought to enter sports fields, schools have tried to accommodate them. Today, there are 42 states (plus D.C.) with at least one school offering a sports management program, bachelor’s, master’s and/or doctoral. Five states have at least 14 (14!) schools that offer a sports management program. By the way, these numbers are courtesy of the North American Society for Sports Management. Oh yes, there’s also now a North American Society for Sports Management (NASSM) and dozens of other clubs, groups and fraternities for aspiring sports management types.

The point is that academia has wholly embraced the sports agent trend and — are you sitting down? — even monetized it. Hey, that’s capitalism. There’d probably be no Inside the League, and a host of other small businesses that are part of this cottage industry, if not for the sports agent trend. More power to ’em.

So here’s the problem. Once these young people absorb morsels of wisdom on ethics, contract negotiation and whatnot from these fine institutions of learning for four or five years, they often pursue careers as contract advisors — and immediately become persona non grata at the very schools from which they graduated.

Here’s an example. One of my longtime clients graduated from one of the finer schools in the Southeast (undergrad and master’s), and he’s a proud alumnus. However, when he tries to attend a pro day, or recruit a player, or otherwise conduct business as a contract advisor, his alma mater goes out of its way to make life hard for him. He has to sit in a special section when he accompanies his client to a workout; he can only contact draft-eligible seniors when the school says he can (though there are no laws forbidding it); and there are a number of other hoops he has to jump through. Naturally, the school didn’t mention any of this while it was drafting his account for probably around $100,000 over a five- to six-year period.

So what’s my point? How about a little honesty from schools? It’s not fair for the sports management program to teach these young people that as long as they play by a certain set of rules they can achieve success, then see these schools’ own athletic departments set up a whole different set of rules that are mostly unachievable.

If a school wants to keep its student-athletes safe and warm (and mostly uneducated) behind a big, beautiful wall, don’t accept millions of dollars from students. It’s duplicitous and dishonest, and it would be a better world if we had a lot less of both of those.