Category Archives: Agents

2025 NFL Agent Exam: You Gotta Read This Advice

05 Thursday Jun 2025

Posted by in Agent Exam, Agents, Getting started

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With the 2025 NFL Agent Exam less than two months away, we are officially in the red zone as it relates to the exam. At ITL, helping people pass the exam is a big part of what we do, so I recently reached out to several successful test-takers from last summer to get their recommendations on how to study.

They were all very good, but one stood out in particular. It was the email sent me by Norcross, Ga.-based Sean McIlhinney, who put not one, but two, players on 90-man rosters as a rookie agent despite being independent.

What follows is Sean’s response to my request for advice on how to pass, and I recommend that you heed all of it. OK, maybe not ALL of it, but most of it. Here goes:

“Attending the two-day overview that the NFLPA offers (the week before the exam) is a must! I would not have passed the test but for attending those two sessions.

“(As for study aids,) I only used the materials that the NFLPA provided to study. I focused on the item list that the NFLPA gave to study and actually prepared a typed, detailed outline of the item list. The outline was probably 20 pages. I waited until the last week to actually prepare the outline, and it was super helpful because (a) it helped reinforce everything I had learned from just reading the materials and (b) the outline referenced actual pages numbers in the materials given, so I was able to easily go to the NFL materials during the test if and when needed.   

“I truly did not start studying hard until the last month, when I studied every weekend for eight hours per day (Saturday and Sunday) just reading the materials. I would start off at a breakfast place reading, go to a pool and read for a few hours, and then end at another restaurant and read. Three different places each Saturday and Sunday for approximately 2.5 hrs at each venue to keep things exciting.  No real note-taking – I just read to understand and further familiarize myself with the materials. I definitely used my highlighter while I was reading, but no note-taking.  

“The one thing I wish I did was find some sample salary cap practice questions from a prior test to work through before the test. I understood the salary cap rules well going into the test, but I had never seen any practice questions, and thought it would have been very helpful to have done some practice salary cap questions instead of trying to figure it out on the fly during the test.

“I was told that you could not get up and use the bathroom during the test and was genuinely worried about that, so I sported an adult diaper just in case.  No joke. Fortunately, I never used the diaper and passed the test. 

“Good luck!”

For more advice (that might be quite as offbeat), check out this week’s Friday Wrap, which comes out at 7:30 p.m. on Friday’s (duh). You can register here.

December 2024 Portal Window: Reactions

27 Friday Dec 2024

Posted by in Agents, NIL, Transfer portal, Uncategorized

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Earlier this week, an old friend in player representation made an offhand comment about representing a player in the transfer portal. This is an agent who’s one of the top handful of contract negotiators in the game, but who’s become disillusioned by the cost of repping today’s players. It was refreshing to hear that he had entered NIL representation, because he’s been renewed. The story he told me sounded like a win for all involved — team, player and agent — and I don’t often get to hear such good news.

Curious if there were other positive stories out there, I reached out to several friends on both side of the portal (player representation and personnel/recruiting) to get their takes on the December window. Here’s what I was told.

DPP, G5 school: “There were a lot more players that entered (close to a few thousand in just the first day) and every one of them has an agent and is asking for a lot more money than in years past. It’s impossible to set a market and average price per player when average talented kids are getting offered more money than you think they’re worth. You also see certain schools like Oklahoma State going all in on NIL and portal when they weren’t before, I guess in an effort to save their jobs and bring back a winning culture.”

DPP, another G5 school: “For us, it wasn’t too crazy. We had minimal interaction and impact from agents or advisors and we didn’t get into the bidding war type of deal. We did offer reasonable but moderate amounts of NIL money to guys we anticipate having good opportunities to start for us, but our top guys on our roster are and will continue to get the bulk of, and the highest amounts of, the NIL budget. . . With that said, from what I’ve seen and heard from the portal market is pretty rough. We have always had a problem in college football of handler/street agent types taking advantage of players, and it’s only worse now with the combination of the transfer portal and NIL. There is a significant need in college football for some type of regulations in the ‘agent’ world. It will take time, but there’s a very real need for that. We’ve heard of multiple situations of ‘agents’ gathering the potential market value for players if they entered the portal so that they can then go to the player and tell them how much money they can get them if they go into the portal. As we all know, it’s a broken system that we’re living in just hoping it can end up being rebuilt into something that resembles fair competition with less (or ideally no) corruption.”

DPP, P4 school: “The overarching theme this cycle was a lot worse from the team standpoint than this time last year. Part of that is based on that there were fewer quality players that entered, and along with that, now that everyone has money, everyone costs a lot more. The players (are) getting way more, but from a team sense, there’s less quality. . . There are fewer good players in college football now because, when you look at the grand scheme of things, 2024 was the last year of Covid seniors. So this draft class had two-and-a-half senior classes in one. You had the high school class of 2021 that played four years without redshirting, the high school class of 2020 that played five years without redshirting, then the high school classes of 2018 and 2019 that had a redshirt plus Covid years. So, because of all that, there were so many seniors in college football with no eligibility and they’re all leaving (for the draft), so a lot of the other guys (remaining) haven’t played as much. There were fewer younger guys with meaningful stats. For the immediate time being . . . it’s gonna take some time to balance itself out (talent-wise) with younger players, but in the end, it will be relatively normal. We won’t see the kind of quality and depth that we saw in the 2023 class. With revenue sharing across college football, salaries have skyrocketed. We just won’t see the same depth that we’ve seen in the past.” 

NIL agent with established, NFLPA-certified firm: “Seeing more and more players with representation. Not surprising that this is the direction it’s headed. Agents are still clowns for the most part. Even legitimate NFL agents just don’t know what they’re doing. Still hearing a ton of complaints about that from teams. Player talent was about the same. I think G5/FCS kids think more concretely about the portal as a part of their college career plan. Most of them want to ‘level up.’ There was definitely another infusion of money with revenue share kicking in. The middle class P4s that couldn’t raise collective money competitively got a huge boost. If anything, NIL is creating more parity, at least for now.”

Top NIL agent, also with NFL certification: “From an agency perspective, I think it’s really important to highlight that there are some bigger NFL agencies that are taking NIL seriously and there are those that don’t. . . These (firms) are either hitting on the top guys, doing a ton of volume, or both. Seems like these were the names I heard from players on who had reached out. Last year, I was like one of the only shows in town. Now more medium-sized NFL agencies are getting involved in the portal. In high school, it’s more of the (top-five NFL firms) that are getting all of the top high school talent, mainly QB, skill, (pass rushers) and OT prospects. The point I want to make . . . is that if an NFL agency isn’t on the list, they are probably gonna get passed by in the next 3-5 (years). I know a lot of people are saying that players won’t stick that long, and to a degree they are correct, but I think if a player stays with his NIL guy for long enough, (the agency has) a better chance of landing them for the draft down the road.”

We’ll have more on the portal in today’s Friday Wrap. Register here.

A Busy Week Working with New Agents and More

15 Friday Nov 2024

Posted by in Agents, combine prep, Getting started, ITL

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The fourth quarter of the year is always an exciting time because we’re working closely with the newest NFL agent class. New contract advisors are fun to work with because they’re so excited about the industry and eager to learn. It’s almost impossible not to be inspired by their passion.

Here’s what this week looked like.

Monday: In addition to recording an incredible new edition of Scouting the League with guest Dane Brugler of The Athletic (you gotta check it out if you haven’t yet), I got on Zoom with a new agent who had a few questions and maybe needed a pep talk. There’s so much excitement that comes with passing the exam that, sometimes, new agents don’t know their next step. That’s natural and to be expected.

Tuesday: The NFLPA held its Midseason Virtual Contract Advisor Seminar and we broke it all down for our clients in our Rep Rumblings report (sorry, pay link). The biggest takeaways were that the NFLPA Collegiate Bowl won’t return anytime soon (partially, it seems due to misinformation union officials have received) and that the three-year rule is here to stay. Maybe it’s true that there are more agents than there need to be, but it’s also true that three years is a very short time to figure out an incredibly tough business (especially when you can’t start until October in Year 1).

Wednesday: Our weekly Zoom sessions are gaining momentum. We doubled our audience this week as we welcome Lee Smith of Triple F Sports Performance in Knoxville, Tenn., along with three established agents from NFL agencies (the Rosenbach Agency, Generation Sports Group and Turner Sports) who gave advice, provided tips, demonstrated some really impressive software or introduced new offerings designed to give first-year agents a leg up on signing legitimate prospects for 2025. The audience was made up of ITL subscribers, most of whom are rookie player reps.

Thursday: I headed to College Station to address about 50 communications students at Texas A&M as a guest of my friend, former co-worker and editor of my first two books, Paul McGrath. I spent an hour discussing sports editing, at Paul’s request, plus I gave a rundown of my roller coaster career in sports and, well, life. It was fun. If you want to check it out, it’s here. That was my morning. My afternoon was spent editing several scouting reports on 2025 prospects for agents and agencies, all of them written by former Titans scouting executive Blake Beddingfield. For agents who don’t yet have a network of scouts, I see this as an invaluable service, if I do say so myself. I also referred a member of the ’25 draft class to my friends Jose Jefferson and Mike Rittelman of the College Gridiron Showcase (plus I reached out to scouts to get a better sense of the player’s draft possibilities). Busy day.

I’ll spend today writing the Friday Wrap, which I hope you’ll check out. Register for it here if you haven’t already. 

If you’re a new agent, I hope you’ll consider joining us at Inside the League. We’re doing exciting things every week that will give you a better chance at success. I don’t think you got certified to win a participation trophy. We want to help you win, no matter what you do in the game. 

A Few Notes from a Busy Fall 2024

31 Thursday Oct 2024

Posted by in Agents, NFL draft, NIL, Scouts

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Today, I didn’t have any topics I wanted to spend 500 words on, but I had a lot of topics I wanted to spend 100 words on, so here’s a bunch of stuff I found interesting this week.

  • Has Pittsburgh cracked the code on how to intelligently integrate former NFL scouts and executives into the organization in a way that helps identify, grade and reward top performers? Maybe. Per this story, the Panthers have brought in former Bills GM Doug Whaley to help in doling out a $6 million NIL budget based on quality of play. Given the team’s success this season (7-0 entering this weekend’s game against SMU), maybe head coach Pat Narduzzi’s plan to pay players based on production rather than promise will be replicated elsewhere.
  • Mark your calendars: the final resolution of the NCAA’s $2.7 billion deal with the plaintiff attorneys seeking NIL compensation in a class action lawsuit (for players dating back to 2016) is set for April 2025. The agreement is expected to clear the way for a $20 million-per-school tranche of money to be shared with players who participated in NCAA athletics from 2016-21. It also clears the way for schools to begin operating in ways that closely mirror a pay-for-play model, rather than the current system (which pretends that players only get compensated for their respective names, images and likenesses). Bottom line, during a time when all eyes will be focused on the 2025 draft, we could see federal and NCAA oversight of NIL representation change in radical ways. The impact of those changes could be immediate. We will do what we can to prepare you, our client, for those changes well in advance. 
  • Based on feedback from new agents this fall, the stories haven’t changed much over the years. One agent was contacted by the alleged uncle of a star player, only the uncle wouldn’t tell the agent who the player was (he would only divulge the player’s school and home location, and offered that the player is a mid-round pick). The uncle said the player’s focus is newly certified contract advisors, for some reason. We’ve also heard of a runner in South Florida who’s tried to solicit members of the 2024 agent class and wants money up front, with a promise of players later. 
  • So far, the only head coaching changes this season have been made at the G5 level. Maybe that’s why no search firms have been engaged so far, at least as far as we know. Last year, 17 G5 schools made head coaching changes. Of the 17, less than half (eight) used assistance. Of the 14 P4 schools making changes, not surprisingly, 11 hired firms.   

One other thing. If you’re a new agent (or a veteran agent trying to figure out how to keep up with the exploding costs of player representation), you should check out today’s Rep Rumblings at ITL. We’re trying to finalize a program that you might find helpful. 

We’ll also discuss it in the Friday Wrap. You can register for it here. 

Is Being An NFL Agent An Addiction? Sure Looks Like It

04 Friday Oct 2024

Posted by in Agents, Getting started

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When someone tells me they want to pursue NFL agent certification, I usually try to talk them out of it. If they persist, I leave them with this: people normally only hang up their certification voluntarily for four reasons. They are:

  • Divorce
  • Bankruptcy
  • Litigation
  • All three.

They usually laugh (nervously) and go on about their plans. 

I’ll sometimes also remind them of one veteran agent’s “gallows humorish” quote shared with me a few years ago. Once again, they treat me like I’m joking. My point is, the feel of being an NFL agent is something that’s more than intoxicating. It’s addictive. This week, we saw another reminder of this with the return of Ron Del Duca and Jeff Guerriero.

Both Del Duca and Guerriero enjoyed success in their first respective runs at player representation. Del Duca was an agent for almost two decades before turning over his agent creds sometime in the last 5-10 years. Guerriero actually represented the No. 6 pick in the draft, LSU DE Barkevious Mingo, in 2013, before getting out in a similar time frame. As recently as 11 years ago, both Del Duca and Guerriero had clients on NFL rosters. However, with Del Duca originally certified in 1992 and Guerriero in 1997, both came of age as agents in a time prior to the signing of the 2011 CBA, when NFL owners basically took away negotiating skills as an agent’s most important trait. When draft picks’ contracts all became cookie cutter in 2011, the lavishing of benefits (in the form of splashy combine training, per diems, signing bonuses, and fee cuts) really went into overdrive. It makes sense. Everyone had to find a way to distinguish themselves from the others, and money’s always a popular way. That’s not to say that “skins on the wall” don’t matter anymore, but experience has begun to hold less and less sway. The “what do I get?” conversation is the one that every agent dreads, and it’s not going away. In fact, it’s only moving up in the time frame for most players in the NIL era. 

Will Del Duca and Guerriero reach their previous heights? Who knows? But this is the landscape they face.

  • The fight now — for every agency, big and small — is for Day 3 types. Generally speaking, all the Day 1 and Day 2 types are already signed to NIL agreements, which gives the NIL agent a generous head start on repping the player on his NFL contracts. That means agents now have to closely monitor and sign the sleepers in each draft class. This is why former Titans scouting executive Blake Beddingfield is now providing 5-7 under-the-radar-and-rising prospects weekly for ITL subscribers.
  • No one, and I mean NO ONE, doesn’t expect $10,000-$15,000 worth of combine training. There are no shortcuts there. At least not for players with any kind of real hope. 
  • There’s total uncertainty about how the federal government and/or the NCAA will rule in the next 10 years with regard to college athlete payments. If college players are made professionals (which everyone expects), it may be a net positive for player representation. However, it threatens to add layers of regulation, and usually that means costs increase even more. 

I wish the best of luck to Del Duca, Guerriero, and everyone else who recently got the good news that they are certified as contract advisors by the NFLPA. But there’s no denying they have a hard road ahead.

 

 

NFL Agent Basics Zooms 2024: A Few More Points

25 Wednesday Sep 2024

Posted by in Agents, combine prep, Getting started

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As I write this, we have just one more session left (tonight, 8 p.m. ET) in our NFL Agent Basics series of Zooms for members of the 2024 class. So far, though I was hoping each session would be about an hour long, we’ve provided five hours of content over three Zooms (two last week, one this week). 

Tuesday of last week, we focused on all things money and finances. Wednesday, it was recruiting and finding your first client. Last night was all about combine prep and deciding on the best way to train your client(s). Tonight, we’ll discuss scouting and how to build a network. 

Since our session last night on combine prep, there are a few things I wish I’d emphasized more. Rather than call everyone back for more (we went 100+ minutes last night), I thought it better to just put them in today’s blog.

Here goes:

  • Recognize that your training relationships will be some of the most important ones you build in the industry, so find reputable trainers and trust them (or at least give them the benefit of the doubt). If you feel you are getting a raw deal, try not to burn a bridge. The football world is a very small one and you don’t want a reputation for volatility. Not sure if your trainer is reputable? Let’s talk.
  • Look at your relationship with a trainer as collaborative more so than service provider/customer. This is why it’s very important to build a good rapport so there are no surprises at the NFL Combine or pro day. You want your client’s trainer to be comfortable sharing bad news.
  • Don’t put anything in a training rider that you aren’t willing to enforce.
  • Your client may not be comfortable in the first training facility he chooses, and might want to transfer. If this is the case, explain what restrictions, if any, you place on his next training choice, and how quickly he must come to this decision.
  • Understand that the player usually comes to see his trainer as his advocate, and often will choose the trainer over you. It’s not fair, but it’s true. 
  • Sometimes, players get hurt when training. Work out all the issues beforehand on insurance policies, who pays in the instance of injury, etc. I promise you won’t be sorry later if you do this.
  • There are times when players don’t take good care of where they stay. Find a way to diplomatically set expectations on how your client leaves his residence post-training, as well as how he maintains it during training. If he breaks something, or trashes the place, do you pick up the tab? 
  • If you choose to rent a car for your client (and we discussed several things we recommend as alternatives), make sure to opt into the insurance plan.
  • There is always a lot of shock when we discuss the cost and value of combine prep, and this is the area where every new agent thinks he’s gonna save money. OK, but understand that, generally speaking, you get what you pay for when it comes to combine prep. Don’t believe me? Check this out. 

Want more? All of our sessions so far have been recorded, as will tonight’s session. All four are available for $350, and it’s not too late to join us tonight as former Falcons and Titans scout Rodrik David joins me as we break down all you need to know about the NFL scouting industry at 8 p.m. ET. I hope you can join us. 

2024 NFL Agent Basics Zooms: Week 1 Highlights

19 Thursday Sep 2024

Posted by in Agents, Getting started

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This week, we began teaching about 30 newly certified NFL contract advisors the fundamentals of player representation. Our focus was on giving them everything they’ll need for their first year of working with players.

Our topics this week were money on Tuesday and recruiting on Wednesday. We were joined by Christ Turnage of UA Sports on Tuesday and Aston Wilson of Agency1 Athlete Management on Wednesday. Next week, we’ll focus on training and combine prep on Tuesday and building your scouting network on Wednesday.

Here are a few highlights from this week’s sessions.

  • Wednesday night, I knew we would be discussing how to make contact with prospects, so I reached out to several new and newish agents for ideas on what to say that evening. Obviously, social media is key, but just bombing them with DMs probably won’t work. “When you see something happens big for them, you have to leave a congratulatory note . . . birthday, baby shower, engagement (fiancé), family member events . . . You have to acknowledge those things to build rapport,” suggested one agent. “I also have used a (WhitePages.com) subscription before to pull numbers and email addresses,” said another contract advisor. The key is to use social media to let the player know you’re rooting for him. “The kid we’re (recruiting now) was a kid who followed us on Instagram,” offered one agent. “I never messaged him. He had a good game . . . and I messaged him, ‘big win.’ He responded right away and I knew we had something.” One more piece of advice: “Make sure you are strategic with your target. UDFA/potential Day 3 guy and you may get a response.”
  • I hoped that the cost of representing a player would have declined (or at least stayed the same) since I wrote this post in 2015. What I found, unfortunately, is that it has risen to the $12,000-$14,000 range. Of course, you can sign players without any investment, but you get what you pay for.
  • Having legitimate contract advisors with years of experience has been a tremendous part of the program. For example, Chris had great advice on how to save money on rental cars. Aston had great advice on how to get a player into an all-star game (and make sure the player understands who got him there). Their contributions are part of the reason that, though we promised hour-long sessions, we went 90 minutes on Tuesday and a full two hours on Wednesday.
  • You’ve got to be able to walk away. That’s one of the main takeaways from Tuesday.  “I had a defensive end that I was recruiting,” Chris said. “I think he was gonna be a high PFA at the time. He said, ‘hey, this first-year agent is offering me a $10,000 signing bonus. If you can match, I’m gonna go with you. I said, ‘I’m not gonna match that, based on where you’re projected. I’m not doing that. He went with the first-year agent and he didn’t get drafted and he got cut off the 90 and he never played again. So that (agent) dropped 10 grand on him to get him, but it wasn’t worth it.”
  • Chris on holding the line at billing the full three percent on every contract: “My background is in banking, and they always told us not to compete on price. . . if you train your (potential) client that you’re going to compete on price, guess what: they’re gonna leave you on price as well. So you have to provide value outside of price.”
  • The temptation, as a new agent, is to sign someone from FBS (or even Division II or III) as your first client, but Wednesday, Aston said he doesn’t recommend it. “If you’re signing a player who’s not at an FBS school, he’s gotta be the best player you’ve ever seen play football,” Aston said. “Don’t think, ‘oh, I’ve got this diamond in the rough at James Madison.’ Don’t do that, because the odds aren’t in your favor.”
  • By the way, the feedback from our sessions so far has been fantastic. “Mannn these sessions have been priceless,” said one participant. “A lot of the questions I had or was unsure about have been getting answered or put to bed.” Said another: “Neil, great session last night. Really informative.”  

If you’re reading this and you’d like to join us, even if you’re not certified yet (but especially if you are), we’d love to have you. Cost is $350 (no tax), and you’ll get each of the two videos from this week as well as a chance to join us for both sessions next week. For even more information on our New Agent Basics course (and ITL), sign up for our weekly newsletter. 

By the Numbers: Position Scarcity in the 2024 Draft Class (and others)

13 Friday Sep 2024

Posted by in Agents, Getting started, NFL draft

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This week, I finally got a chance to finish up the 2024 Draft By the Numbers grid. It always provides an interesting look at different draft classes. As a reminder, we take a look at every position (QB, RB, WR, TE, OC, OG, OT, PK, PT, CB, DE, DT, ILB, OLB, FS, SS and CB) based on eight categories, from signing with an agent to making a 53 or practice squad.

Here are a few thoughts:

  • It was a great year to sign a center. This year, a fourth of them were drafted and more than 60 percent made it to a 90-man roster. Last year, the same number of centers were signed by agents (44) but only a third of them (36 percent) made it to camp and eight were drafted. Last year was a lot closer to normal numbers. Generally speaking, if you’re an agent, stay away from centers.
  • On the other hand, signing a tackle is as close to a guaranteed player on a camp roster as you’ll find. This year, two-thirds of all tackles who signed with agents made it to a 90-man roster, while a third (!!!) were drafted. If you factor in tryout players, almost 90 percent made it at least as far as rookie mini-camp. That’s unbelievable. 
  • Incidentally, only twice in the last 10 years have half of offensive tackles signed by agents not made it to a 90-man roster. Think about that. Getting a player into camp is the biggest challenge an independent agent faces, yet he’s got a 50-50 chance on every client if he just signs tackles.
  • One more point to make about tackles: 32.5 percent of all the tackles signed for the 2024 draft class were drafted. Only three positions had half as many drafted, percentage-wise: cornerbacks (19.2 percent), defensive tackles (17.2 percent) and defensive ends (16.6 percent). 
  • Defensive ends and defensive tackles are a pretty good bet, as well. Generally speaking, both are drafted or signed as UDFAs at about a 40-45 percent rate. 
  • At the other end of the spectrum, among regular position players, both free safeties (9.6 percent) and outside linebackers (8.9 percent) got drafted at less than a 10 percent rate. Those were the lowest rates, not counting fullbacks. Last year, the lowest rate was at strong safety (10.3) and inside linebacker (8.8 percent). Generally speaking, linebackers and safeties are the least-drafted positions.  
  • Wide receivers (253) and cornerbacks (182) were the most popular positions with agents this year, and that’s not unusual. In the last 10 years, wide receiver has been the most popular client every year (the high-water mark was 313 in 2016). Likewise, cornerback has been second-most popular all 10 years.
  • Come draft time, wide receivers are normally drafted at a 10 percent rate and cornerbacks at a 15 percent rate. 

I know if you’re a scout, or even a seasoned agent, these numbers probably don’t matter. However, if you’re a new or newish agent, it pays to get a look at the analytics before you start recruiting. Make sure to review the numbers yourself over the last decade before you start deciding who you’re going to target for 2025. 

2024 NFL Agent Exam: An Open Letter to the Class

05 Thursday Sep 2024

Posted by in Agent Exam, Agents, Getting started

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If the results of this summer’s NFL Agent Exam aren’t provided to test-takers this week (specifically, tomorrow), it won’t be long until they are (agent fees are due Oct. 1). With that in mind, the business is changing faster than ever, and I wanted to give my advice with the hope that it is beneficial to the newest agent class.

Here goes.

  • If you pass the exam, give yourself credit for that. The agent test got immeasurably harder in 2015, and it’s a true challenge now, no matter what anyone says. You should also give yourself credit for being among the few who actually pursued certification rather than those in the “one of these days” group.
  • Do not, under any circumstances, quit your day job. You will need those funds, plus the sanity of an anonymous, stable, ordered profession, to keep you on course while you build out your agency practice.
  • Proceed as if you don’t want to get hired by a big firm, because unless (a) you have a direct familial relationship with a player rated Day 1/Day 2 in a coming draft class, or you (b) have a six-figures investor willing to finance a firm, you are probably not going to get hired. There are just too many others in line ahead of you, and the line’s not getting shorter. 
  • It’s natural to want to swing for the fences, but you’ll need to be realistic about expectations. As I discussed this week at Inside the League, the number of firms that really have a crack at the difference-makers in each draft class is shrinking. For the most part, the top 100 players in the draft are already spoken for months, sometimes years, before the draft due to NIL representaton.
  • Name, image and likeness have changed the game in other ways, too. For one, we’re seeing more first-year contract advisors who are adept at the business, as evidenced by the number of new agents who had clients in the Senior Bowl and the fact that we saw so many rookie contract advisors with players drafted or signed to 90-man rosters. That used to be unheard of, but many agents today pass the exam with a number of relationships with players already locked in. 
  • Meanwhile, the expectations of those players are higher than ever. I realize you may be coming into the industry without a lot of money, hoping to beat the odds by finding a humble but highly talented diamond in the rough somewhere in the country. However, that’s a true rarity these days as the better players — even the Day 3 types — have been recruited all their lives not just by top college programs but also agencies eager to build a relationship before these players become recognizable names. 
  • For the most part, every agent class is made up three types of people. The first is youngish people, usually with limited resources, who have wanted to be agents all their lives. The second is more established people, usually attorneys, who are middle-aged, bored and looking for a new challenge and some excitement. The third is the growing body of NIL agents seeking to turn their marketing clients into NFL clients. 
  • The temptation is going to be to think that you can succeed in the business by spending minimal dollars. Given the forces at work in today’s game, I guess that depends on how you define success. If you simply aim to sign a player, that won’t be a problem. However, signing a player with a reasonable chance of making it to a 90-man roster is considerably harder. You’ll simply have to spend money, and generally tens of thousands of dollars, to get from NFLPA-certified contract advisor to actual representing an NFL player. I recognize that this is the very least popular thing I’m writing, and the least-believed thing I tell people. It’s still true. 
  • The NFLPA is not your friend. In all honesty, more often than not, it will be your adversary. It’s called the NFL Players Association, not the NFL Agents Association, for a reason. In the NFLPA’s defense, truly providing a policing body that can enforce the rules would be a near-Herculean task anyway. If you reach out to the NFLPA and someone returns your call or email within a week, count that as a big victory.
  • On the other hand, we’re moving ever-closer to a seismic shift in the business related to how players get paid, how the business is regulated, and when and how players go to the pros. No one really knows when this will take place or how it will manifest, but the dollars are just too great and soon a major entity will try to provide some guardrails, some way of regulating things. That’s a good and bad thing, but either way, it’s a major variable that’s out there, somewhere on the horizon. 

There are a few free or low-cost things you can do to become a student of the business. 

Good luck! I look forward to working with you, and I wish you great success in football.

 

Gauging the Progress of the NCAA’s Antitrust Litigation Settlement

09 Friday Aug 2024

Posted by in Agents, NIL, Transfer portal

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There isn’t a lot of chatter about it in college and pro football circles — at least none that I’ve picked up — but big parts are moving into place that will determine the future and structure of college football. Late last month, we got a story that was pretty telling about what direction things are going, and until now, I really haven’t had a chance to give it a close look.

This week, however, I did. The lawsuits involve antitrust actions against the NCAA (three of them, in fact, that were resolved collectively). Per the story, the resolution of these lawsuits “outline how past athletes will share the $2.78 billion in damages that the NCAA has agreed to pay, sets up a new system for revenue sharing and outlines new roster limits for a long list of college sports, among other items.” Obviously, $2.78 billion is a lot of money, but that only reflects the back pay previous athletes will receive. It’s just scratching the surface of what’s ahead.

Anyway, no one seems to want to acknowledge what’s ahead and how it will change player representation, so I thought I’d try to comb through the story and draw my own conclusions. Here are a few passages and my comments.

  • “Schools will be permitted for the first time to pay their athletes directly via name, image and likeness (NIL) deals under the terms of the settlement. Each school could provide up to 22% of the average revenue that power conference schools generate from media rights, ticket sales and sponsorships — a sum that is expected to be between $20 million and $22 million per school when the settlement goes into effect at the start of the 2025-26 academic year.” — OK, but this seems like another effort to keep players from getting paid as university employees, which seems completely inevitable. If it is inevitable (and I believe it is), it’s almost stupid to wade through and try to figure out how the terms of this lawsuit will change things, because someone else will sue again soon and tear this agreement down. As for the numbers, $22 million seems a little conservative given that I’ve heard that many schools’ budgets are already north of that number for football only. With the money pouring into football programs, it seems like this number could soar higher quickly. If this is the case, and nothing is done to slow portal movement, the dollars are going to make things even crazier.
  • “Athletes would still be able to make money from NIL deals with third parties, but the NCAA said the settlement will allow them to install a more ‘robust and effective enforcement and oversight program’ to make sure those third-party deals are ‘legitimate NIL activity.'” — I think this is good, but I wonder if there will be real teeth in these oversight programs. More and more, the bigger agencies are signing up the top draft prospects years before they are draft-eligible just so they’ll be at the front of the line when it comes to signing an NFL contract. Sure, the top five percent are getting big national deals, but those are few and far between. 
  • “The NCAA plans to create a database of NIL deals to try to objectively assess whether arrangements between an athlete and a third party qualify as a legitimate endorsement deal.” — Great! But will the results be public? If not, who will have access? Schools? Agents? There’s not an NFLPA-comparable body that can regulate all this, though I presume the NCAA thinks of itself as such a body.  
  • “The settlement allows for the court to appoint a ‘special master’ to rule on any disputes about new rules related to player compensation. . . The two sides have not yet determined who will serve as the new enforcement entity or who will oversee the arbitration process of any future disputes.” — I don’t think this can work through civil litigation processes, which means it will have to be collectively bargained . . . which requires a union. 
  • “It is highly unlikely that football players — who generate the majority of revenue for most schools — will receive 50% of the money that the football team generates. Some of those benefits have to be shared equitably due to Title IX regulations. The settlement does not provide detailed instructions on how to apply Title IX to these new benefits, leaving some potentially tricky decisions up to each individual school.” — This is why this doesn’t seem tenable. Football teams will eventually not want to share revenues. If this isn’t settled promptly, and just left to the schools, it’s going to accelerate football’s pull away from this agreement.
  • “As part of the settlement, the NCAA agreed to remove any limits on the number of scholarships a school can provide to athletes. Previously, NCAA rules dictated a certain number of scholarships per sport. If the settlement is approved, there will instead be a limit on how many total players each team can have on its roster and each individual school will decide how many of those players it wants to put on scholarship.” — This is probably the NCAA trying to throw the bigger schools a bone, but I doubt it works. 

At the end of the day, most agents just want to know what they’ll have to deal with. A nationwide NIL contract database would be huge if contract advisors have access to it. I think most would like to know if there’s going to be some kind of certification process, as well, with most NFL agents I know welcoming that. It’s becoming less necessary, however, as more and more NIL agents pursue NFL certification. They’re a growing part of our exam prep course every year.

Anyway, I may have come across as negative during some of this, and I grant that it’s easy to deride people who are trying to do the virtually impossible, i.e., build a framework for the college game going forward. If the settlement is approved and this 10-year agreement is binding, it will bring some positives. However, it’s hard not to see the overwhelming power and potential of dollars the big football schools would be turning down to abide by this. I just feel like the major conferences will build their own league, and play by their own rules, sooner rather than later.