On Big Firms Investing in Agencies

14 Tuesday Jun 2016

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I just got done watching this video, in which ESPN’s Darren Rovell interviews social media magnate Gary Vaynerchuk. Vaynerchuk just invested in Symmetry, the South Walpole, Mass.-based agency that includes Michael ‘Mook’ Williams and Brian McLaughlin. The agency will henceforth be known as VaynerSports.

Here are a few thoughts on things that might be hurdles, at least in the near future.

  • Building a brand doesn’t happen overnight. Pitching players on off-field opportunities is smart, no doubt about it. It’s probably the most compelling reason why players fire their agencies, especially when those agencies are still on the new side (as is Symmetry/VaynerSports). On the other hand, most players don’t want to spend countless hours blogging, hanging out on Skype, or whatever. This is especially true of the kind of players that Symmetry has on its client list, i.e., lower-profile linemen, etc., who aren’t by their nature particularly flashy. These players signed with Symmetry because they didn’t need a big, sexy agency. It might be a bit of an uphill climb to convince them they now need to go a different route to gain a Vaynerchuk-style presence that can be monetized.
  • Recruiting is taxing. You can tell in this video that Vaynerchuk (who’s always excited anyway) is super-charged by the opportunity to watch players, talk to players, get to know them, and otherwise enjoy the trappings of working in the business. Still, the ins and outs of the game; the bumps and bruises acquired by travel; the frustration of getting snubbed by players and/or their parents; the road blocks presented by well-meaning but overly bureaucratic schools; and the non-responses to celebrity that might come from NFL types, all tend to take a toll.
  • Recruiting the Northeast is tough. Being based in Massachusetts means there aren’t a ton of top recruits in your backyard, and though the firm has been able to establish its range with a few clients, for the most part, they’re going to have to keep extending that reach. That leads me to my next point.
  • Recruiting is expensive. As we’ve already established in this space, it costs about $35,000 to get a player rated in the top three rounds from college to draft. And those costs are only going up. Fortunately, Vaynerchuk’s got a good young agent (McLaughlin, who’s featured in the video) to help him avoid costly mistakes, but he’s going to have to fight the temptation to take shortcuts.
  • There are no guarantees in this game. Take Vernon Adams, for example. The Oregon QB came from a flashy school; has an exciting style of play that earned him plenty of media plaudits; did exceptionally well at the No. 2 all-star game, the East-West Shrine Game in St. Petersburg, Fla.; and otherwise acquitted himself well during the pre-draft process. Despite all of this, Adams couldn’t even get an undrafted free agent deal with the NFL, and was among the two-thirds of passers that were not selected by NFL teams and went unsigned after the draft. Now, he’s playing in Canada, where the margins are much, much smaller for agents.
  • Celebrity doesn’t always travel well. Though Vaynerchuk is undeniably talented and successful, it will take a little doing to get to the conversation stage with top prospects. For example, I think we can all agree that Morgan Stanley is established in the financial realm. Despite this, I’ve been told by some of my financial advisor clients that they’ll introduce themselves to a player as a Morgan Stanley advisor, exchange pleasantries, perhaps even give the player a business card, and still, as they part, the player will say, ‘nice meeting you, Mr. Stanley.’ Players tend to be laser-focused on their own careers and usually have a good grasp of pop culture, but don’t always have much vision outside of those worlds. Parents may be far more receptive, but ultimately, most players make their own decisions when it comes to agents.

As a student of the player representation business for almost two decades, this is an experiment, and one I’ll be interested to watch. But if it’s a success, I don’t expect it to be overnight.

Follow Your Passion (Mostly)

13 Monday Jun 2016

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I’ve always tried to be encouraging when I can in this space. We all have dreams, and plenty of people that discourage us from that dream. You don’t need someone else telling you you can’t do it, especially if your passion is like mine, to work in the football business.

However, last week, I saw this short video, and it made me think I need to make myself a little clearer.

If you want to be an NFL player, or a scout, or an agent, or a member of a football team’s administration, that’s great. But I urge you to understand when it’s time to maybe deviate a little from your goal. Follow your passion, but don’t be stubborn about it.

In the video, TV personality Mike Rowe discusses a septic tank cleaner he once profiled for his show, ‘Dirty Jobs.’ This wealthy owner of a sanitation business — literally, a dirty job — told Rowe that he looked to see which direction everyone else was going, and he went in the opposite direction. That’s pretty much my story, too.

When my buddy, Troy, and I launched our draft service, Lone Star Football, back in ’98, it’s fair to say that our unspoken agendas were to be recognized by an NFL team and hired as scouts. After four years, that didn’t happen, so I retooled. I basically went in the direction that was opposite everyone else. Even today, when I try to describe what I do, the person I’m speaking with kind of squints his eyes, then asks, ‘so you’re an agent?’ My job doesn’t fit neatly into a traditional role like scouting, or recruiting, or negotiating contracts. But that’s OK, because enough people get it that I’ve been able to make it into my business and support my family with it, and by God’s grace, we continue to grow.

This message is true even if you reach your one true passion, be it scouting or working as an agent or whatever. In my business, I work with several ex-scouts. One, in particular, got let go by a team a few years ago, and really struggled for a while before coming to the realization that he couldn’t sulk about not finding work. He had to find another way to make money, at least in the short run, realizing that scouting isn’t an entitlement. He got rehired by a team, but when the end came (again), he was ready, and already had an alternate profession. He’s thriving now because he was willing to face facts and live in the real world.

Today’s message is not meant to dissuade you from joining me in the football business (and I want to help you!). However, I want you to remember that if you go too far down a road that’s clearly too heavily trafficked, find a different path that gets you where you ultimately want to be. If that one gets too busy, try another one. Keep on looking until you find the one that best suits you and that people will pay you to do. That’s where your passion will really be rewarded.

 

Do Teams Really Grade Draft Trades on Points?

09 Thursday Jun 2016

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You get a lot of media narratives when it comes to the NFL draft. Some are true, some aren’t. One storyline that’s gotten a lot of traction is that Jimmy Johnson, during his time running the Cowboys in the 80s and 90s, he developed a value points system for every pick in the draft, and he used it to weigh the draft-day offers he’d get, as well as the offers he’d make.

One year, I was part of the draft broadcast team for a major radio network, and one of my counterparts was a guy who had spent a little time in an NFL front office and used it to market himself as a personnel guru. At one point, the host asked about the value points system, and I kind of brushed it off, explaining that teams wouldn’t lock themselves into something so one-dimensional. He overruled me, countering that all teams used it and it was a routine part of every team’s war room.

I’ve always wondered which one of us was right, so I asked several of my friends in scouting (seven, to be exact) about it. The responses I got fit into three categories.

  • “We don’t use it:” I only got this response from one team, but it’s one of the better franchises in the NFL. The scout said that, instead, the team compares the offer against similar previous offers and uses draft histories to evaluate each trade.
  • “We use it as part of our evaluation system:” One scout said his team uses 11 different charts to measure draft trades, and Johnson’s chart is one of them. One told me everyone uses it to some degree, and estimated that there are 3-4 other charts out there that teams use.
  • “We do our own charts:” One scout said his team uses its analytics people to develop its own value system for picks. Another scout said his team uses a chart that is very similar, but that his team does not use Johnson’s chart. Another scout said his team is always evaluating its charts and they change every year. Things can get pretty complicated: variables include the relative value of a position, which changes from year to year, the performances of players at differing places in the draft, etc. “It’s a very fluid chart,” one scout said, calling it “football’s version of the slide rule.”

In the end, I guess every team has its own way of doing things, but the idea of a chart, and assigning value to picks, is valid. I guess the main takeaway is that teams are always looking for ways to look at data and break the code for success.

NFL Agent Exam: Savoring Success

07 Tuesday Jun 2016

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This time of year is fun for me because it’s when we celebrate our successes at Inside the League.

With OTAs under way and rookie mini-camps in the rear-view mirror, there’s no more mystery about who’s going to be drafted and which players will line up an NFL contract despite not being selected. So many agents dream of having first-rounders in their inaugural year certified, but this is incredibly unrealistic. A far greater measure of success is simply having a player in the league in your first three years registered with the NFLPA. In fact, if you don’t have someone certified in that time, you have to start over, taking the exam again and paying the initiation fee.

For the last 3-4 years, we’ve spent June interviewing the agents we partner with who’ve had such success. It’s a lot of fun celebrating this accomplishment while learning a little more about their experiences in their first year, as well as how they wound up becoming contract advisors. Every year, only 15-20 independent agents — i.e., agents who came into the business with no connections, no hookups and no relatives slated to be first-rounders in the coming year — actually land a player on an NFL roster, and 70-80 percent of those agents are part of our team, I’m proud to say. That’s why it takes all month to interview them, and why we publish our interviews to the people taking the exam this summer in a daily newsletter.

This year, I turned the job of interviewing ITL clients over to my ace intern, Mark Skol. So even though I’m not doing the interviews myself, it’s still awfully informative to read each account.

One of them, Maryland-based Jon Howard, got interested in the business when he tried (unsuccessfully) to get his brother into the league.

Another interesting thing: opinions on the NFLPA exam really vary. Some of them feel the test was pretty easy (like Mississippi attorney Jay Bolin, whose interview is tomorrow). Some of them, like South Florida-based CPA and attorney Bob Engler, feel it’s quite hard. Others, like Baltimore-based attorney Gary Leibowitz, feel it should be a bit more practical and based on actual agent practices, rather than simply about the CBA. Most, but not all, used our practice agent exam (the only one on the Web) to get ready.

Of course, some of the things they’ve said weren’t exactly shocking. All of them are passionate about football and wanted to find some way to become involved in the game, and saw the agent avenue as easiest. One of them is my former intern, Murphy McGuire, whom you’ve already read about in these pages.

If you’re getting ready to take the exam this summer, I hope you’ll join us. One of the things you’ll get is access to our newsletter. I want you to be one of the people whom we write about next summer.

Who Gets Hired As An NFL GM?

03 Friday Jun 2016

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With the dust settling in NFL front offices, I thought it would be interesting to look at the general managers hired in the last three years. Where do they come from? What do they have in common? What do NFL teams seem to be looking for in the best candidates?

To answer these questions, we came up with this graphic comparing the 10 GMs hired in the last three years. The 10: Ray Farmer (Browns) and Jason Licht (Bucs) in 2014; Mike Maccagnan (Jets), Scot McCloughan (Redskins) and Ryan Pace (Bears) in 2015; and Sashi Brown (Browns), Chris Grier (Dolphins), Bob Quinn (Lions), Jon Robinson (Titans) and Howie Roseman (Eagles) this year.

Here’s what we came up with:

Finished at 50: The oldest GM hired in the last three years is Maccagnan at 47, and his hiring comes with a bit of an asterisk because his relationship to the man conducting the Jets’ search (former Texans and Redskins GM Charley Casserly) was central to his selection. Second-oldest is new Fins GM Grier, and like Maccagnan he’s a bit of an outlier because the real iron in Miami’s front office belongs to Mike Tannenbaum, the team’s Executive Vice President of Football Operations. Toss out those two, and average age of the last six GMs hired is 40. In fact, all four GMs hired this year (except Grier) have been 40.

Patriotic: Four of the 10 on the list had experience at New England on their respective resumes. Two others, Farmer and Pace, had the Belichick ‘scent’ as Farmer worked under ex-Pats executive Scott Pioli during his time in Kansas City while Pace was schooled in the Parcells way in New Orleans by head coach Sean Payton. The other four are outliers for different reasons. Brown and Roseman both earned the trust of ownership and worked their way into the GM position from within, while Maccagnan benefitted from his time with Casserly and McCloughan had a different, though substantial, pedigree from his status as a Ron Wolf protege.

Some experience necessary: Though all 10 could be considered experienced in league circles, none could be considered an old hand, per se. Only four (Grier, Licht, Maccagnan and McCloughan) had more than two decades in NFL front offices when they were hired. On the other end of the spectrum, the Browns hired not one, but two, GMs in the last three years who had 14 years or less in pro football management. Farmer and Brown combined for 26 years’ experience. That’s just two more years than Maccagnan and McCloughan each had (24) when they were hired.

There’s plenty more to know about the men who are being hired as general managers these days. We develop it a bit more in our Friday Wrap, a free weekly newsletter that goes out to more than 3,000 people all around the game. Want in? Register here.

 

 

How Effective Is Your Agent?

31 Tuesday May 2016

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Today, I got into a heated but respectful exchange on Twitter regarding Miami Beach-based Drew Rosenhaus of Rosenhaus Sports. It was based on the fact that Drew leads all agents in total clients, and in fact has (literally) double the amount of clients that the second-place contract advisor has.

My counterpart’s argument: Rosenhaus must essentially ignore all his clients, because no man can give that much time and attention to that many players.

I understand his argument, but let me explain why I see this as a false presumption. Once an agent signs a player, there’s no expiration date on the SRA. Unless the player (or sometimes the agent) ends the relationship, he represents him in perpetuity. That means that many agents are walking around with hundreds of clients, but none of them are in the NFL. Don’t believe me? Google the websites of some agencies. You may find the pictures of dozens of players, many of them in NFL uniforms or whatever. Then go to that team’s website and see if they’re actually on the roster. In most cases, they aren’t, and haven’t been for years. In fact, in a lot of cases, they were only on the roster for training camp. That means they didn’t make a penny, relatively speaking, beyond their UDFA bonus.

It’s important to understand that simply representing a college athlete is not a valid measure of success in this business. Unless he’s in the NFL, he’s not getting paid. That means, he’s costing his agent time — which is a resource — and in some cases money, in the form of training fees, housing, out-of-pocket expenses, etc.

A player on an NFL roster really doesn’t (shouldn’t?) need to stay in daily contact with his agent. I mean, the agent’s job is to seek out opportunities for his clients, and once found, the client has to take it from there. One of the central complaints I get from agents all the time, large and small, is how much hand-holding a player expects. This is a problem that’s probably getting worse instead of better. The number of services a player expects is sometimes unreasonable.

There’s no easy way to measure the number of clients an agent has on the street versus in the league, but short of doing that, there’s no way to determine how much attention players get from various agents. It would be a valuable metric, but I don’t know how you’d determine that. In the meantime, I certainly don’t fault agents who try to help dozens of young men realize their NFL dreams, but I don’t necessarily think they’re better agents because of it.

My Dilemma

27 Friday May 2016

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On Wednesday morning, my phone buzzed, telling me an email had arrived. It was my mother sending me a link she’d found to a story about a person from my past. This person is a former employer, and the first person I’ve met who was a real, live con man.

Of course, con men are almost common in the sports and entertainment business, so I guess it’s a little naive to say such people are rarities. But he was the first person who really conned me, lock, stock and barrel, and on a much larger scale than most who operate in the football world.

This man was part of an organization with tradition in the football square, and when we crossed paths, he seemed to be a person of unimpeachable integrity and personal honor. About eight months later, I found out that not only was this not true, but that he had victimized countless people, and that, through me, he’d exploited even more people because I’d been blind to his methods. In the end, I had to pursue legal means to get back a fraction of the money I’d spent on his behalf, plus the checks he owed me for working for him.

The part that’s most difficult is that, like so many hucksters, he wears his faith on his sleeve and uses it to gain trust. In fact, he’s now attached himself to a major faith-based organization, and is taking advantage of a recent development in the national news to gain leverage over the people that are part of this organization’s audience.

So the dilemma is this: do I risk the terms of the agreement I signed with him in order to expose him? And if I do, how do I expose him? Do I reach out to this organization, and if I do, how? And if I can reach someone, what do I do if they don’t believe me (he’s firmly entrenched with them, and was even in the days when I worked with him)?

I’m trying to prayerfully balance the concerns I have for him taking advantage of even more people vs. my own desire to remain free from litigation that could be costly and take away a lot of bandwidth from my own pursuits. So I guess that’s why I’m bringing it to you, my readers, perhaps to solicit your thoughts and perhaps to assemble it more fully in my own mind.

Thoughts? Let me know in comments. Have a great weekend.

A No-Win in Waco

26 Thursday May 2016

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The dissolution of Baylor’s football coaching staff, about three months before the Bears kick off the ’16 season, has consumed much of my morning. Until today, I thought the hiring of Lovie Smith at Illinois had been late, but that’s nothing compared to what’s happening in Waco with Art Briles now out of the picture. For several hours now, I’ve fielded texts from friends and associates. It’s a weird, wild time.

I talked to a few friends in the business who handle coaches to get their feedback on the situation. Would they send a client into the unsettled situation that Baylor offers? Bay Harbor Islands, Fla.-based Brian Levy of Goal Line Sports, who represents several hot young college and NFL coaches as well as Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin, said he’d stay away.

“I think with this situation, you’re not gonna send an up-and-coming guy,” he said. “The program is great, but it has a lot of problems. With the President (Kenneth Starr) on the chopping block and the AD (Ian McCaw) too, I don’t know what they’re going to do and how they’re going to restructure. They’ll probably want to get a big name to reestablish dignity and order there, and they’ve gotta bring in the right guy.”

Brian said it could be a no-win situation with so many variables and so little time until the season starts.

“Do (the circumstances that led to Baylor’s upheaval) have a lot to do with the caliber of players they recruited? I can’t answer that. They may have been taking a lot of guys whose ACT and SAT scores are not the greatest and they get them in. Sometimes those are the kids you have to babysit a lot. These coaches aren’t looking to be babysitters. They want structure, and you don’t know how these programs are run. There’s no accountability and no system set up for the player to come in and ask the right questions and get the right results before the program imploded. All these big sports supporters who will do anything to win, that doesn’t go over well (with the better coaches), and then all of the sudden you have a disjointed program.

“(The school will) have to spend money. I really believe they’ll try to keep the continuity this year. Who are you gonna get (at this point)? It won’t be a big-name guy. You can’t get a guy from the NFL at this point. Your next coach will be a disciplinarian, an experienced, veteran coach who will bring them respectability. . . At this point, you can’t build a staff.”

He said the team is probably conducting two searches simultaneously.

“This (hiring) process will start immediately for next year. Now, the interim head coach could do an incredible job. You don’t know. But I’m telling you, anyone with the stench of the past regime they will want to get rid of. As we’ve seen with the Lions, who got rid of their whole offensive staff. I think you’ll see that there. Will get new a new President and a new AD, and then they will immediately begin the search for a new head coach.”

 

The NFL’s Draft Gurus

25 Wednesday May 2016

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Next week is a big week for the 2017 draft. I know that sounds odd, but it’s true. The week after Memorial Day is traditionally when BLESTO and National Football Scouting (NFS) introduce their subscribing teams to the next draft class.

If you read this blog, you probably already know what I’m talking about, but if not, here’s a quick primer. About two-thirds of NFL teams subscribe to one of two scouting services, NFS and BLESTO. BLESTO is the older of the services (and based in Jacksonville, Fla.), but National (based in Indianapolis) probably has a slightly better reputation among teams (and a few more subscribing teams). Both services command six-figure sums to provide teams with a detailed but preliminary look at the top rising seniors. Their lists usually number in the 800- to 1,000-player range, and players are given a grade (each service has its own proprietary grading system).

On one hand, these services give subscribing teams a big hand up on evaluation. Based on what these ‘combines’ tell teams, most scouting coordinators put together travel schedules for their scouts. Players with high scores achieve tremendous status going into their senior seasons, and automatically head to the top of the draft list, at least in the early stages of the season.

On the other hand, these services are far from infallible. Subscribing teams have to provide a scout to pitch in his services, and usually these scouts are either new to the business, quite young, or both. In fact, the combine scout role has become the intermediary step between scouting assistant and full-fledged road scout. Therefore, lots of the people putting these grades together are cutting their teeth in the business. In fact, a tremendous amount of their jobs is not a lot different from your garden variety draft fan — combing through hundreds of college rosters to find players that fit certain parameters, calling coaches and asking for recommendations, and even Googling to find top players in out-of-the-way conferences.

Next week will also serve as a kickoff for agents to start looking for these lists. Though they’re proprietary, and very hard to find, and far from perfect, these are seen as the best tool for kicking off recruiting. In fact, to some degree, NFS/BLESTO week kicks off recruiting for most agencies. Getting a copy of the list is almost seen as a measure of status for agents (especially young ones). When you’ve gotten your hands on one of the lists, it means you’ve arrived as an agent. You’ve got juice. You’re wired. You have connections.

The one caveat to the lists is that only seniors are evaluated. It’s one way the NFL has built detente with several schools that would rather not have their players’ heads filled with pro football dreams. As we’ve seen, especially the last few years, the truly elite players rarely make it to their senior seasons. One day soon, the combines will have to address this, or someone else will fill that market space. It’s just one more possible niche you can fill if you’re trying to figure out how to crack the league.

Anyway, as you maybe take a post-draft break from the gridiron and enjoy burgers and dogs by the pool this weekend, understand that NFL scouts are digging in and getting ready for what’s in store in about 11 months.

Your 4th and 1

20 Friday May 2016

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Thursday, we talked about how in football, as in life, sometimes it’s hard to understand   the difficulty of sifting through an abundance of talent in the draft process, in the hiring process and elsewhere. I found one more parallel between football and life this week as my partners and I tried to identify the best candidates to fill a post at a Texas school district.

At one point this week, as we discussed a candidate, the founder of our firm, Bob Ledbetter, asked if this person had the temerity to make a call on third and 22 with the wind in his face? Would this candidate really have the guts and gravitas to face down tough situations without blinking?

It made me think about the times I’ve faced such situations, and when I’ve seen others face them. It also made me wonder if I’ve faced fourth-and-one decisions in my life and didn’t even realize it.

For example, several draft-eligible players and their parents faced a fourth-and-one over draft weekend when they went undrafted and unsigned. For all practical purposes, they failed to convert. Many of them, however, and maybe most of them, think they failed on a third and two. They still see the NFL as an eminently makable goal if they can just land in the CFL, the AFL, or even some European league. They don’t realize that if they failed to land an undrafted free agent deal, the CFL and AFL are uphill battles at best and, realistically, long shots.

Of course, we all face our own 4th-and-1 situations. At 47, I failed to convert on my original goal of working in an NFL front office when I was offered the chance, at 27, to work as a business office intern with my Saints. I’d be leaving a job as a sports writer in Beckley, W.Va., for an unpaid job in New Orleans. Ultimately, I was afraid to make that kind of leap of faith, and I hoped it was just an incomplete pass on 2nd and 10. Nope. It was much more than that.

The story has a happy ending for me. I was offered another chance to convert on a similar goal at 33 when I launched ITL. It would give me the opportunity to stay relevant in the game I loved and, maybe someday, even raise my family with the money I earned. At the time, I thought it was maybe a second-and-five situation in my goal of working for an NFL team; I’d go in, prove my worth, sharpen my eye as a scout, and wait for teams to line up, offering scouting jobs. In truth, it was my fourth and one for having a viable job in football. By God’s grace, I converted that one. Seven years later, with Inside the League underperforming, I was probably facing a fourth and one when I returned from the Hula Bowl, unemployed and down on the long-term prospects of ITL. If my wife hadn’t essentially dared me to retool ITL and make it into the service I originally had intended, I know I would have charged into the middle of the defense and stopped short.

A lot of people from all walks of the football business read this blog. Some of them are third-year agents who never got anyone signed and face having to take the test over again. Some are college students pursuing a degree in sport management and hoping to win a toehold in the business somewhere. Some are professionals weighing a change in course to pursue a job that captures their passion. Others are players in indoor leagues all over the world.

No matter who you are or where, I encourage you to take a long look at where you are and where you stand in accomplishing your goals. Even if you didn’t get the yards you need for one goal, it may be first and 10 for you elsewhere.