Know Your Audience

16 Monday Mar 2015

Posted by in Agents, Scouts

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

,

As this is ‘application season’ if you’re seeking a position with an NFL team or a football agency, I thought I’d give a couple more thoughts on how to best position yourself for the internship of a lifetime.

This weekend I was speaking to an NFL scout who’s been a longtime friend. I had asked him to speak to a young man I know who’s seeking to work as a scouting assistant this summer or next fall (I work with several young people of this status), and in the course of our conversation, this young man’s name came up.

Unsolicited, my friend told me the young man would probably not fit in with his organization. The student’s mistake had been that, in his zeal to sound intelligent and organized, he had come across as too refined and ‘executive-level’ for the tastes of my friend. Maybe because of the way he had spoken, the scout saw him as a person who would not be as willing to do the ‘dirty work’ of scouts, such as entering phone numbers into a database, calling agents to get contact information, picking up interviewees from the airport as well as returning them to the airport, and all the kinds of player engagement duties and basic information-gathering that are less than glamorous.

This is unfortunate, because I know he read the young man wrong. He may be refined, but he’s in no way too good for such duties. In fact, I think he’d relish them, but it doesn’t matter now. He hadn’t come across as enough of a ‘regular guy’ for my scouting friend. And because of that, he’d sealed his fate.

On the other hand, his style of communication would work perfectly for an agency. There, the people interviewing him might have a legal background or at least the kind of high-level professional manner that would expect a certain polish. And as it turns out, this young man did, in fact, land a place with a high-level firm that handles top athletes across several sports. He’ll be with them this summer.

I guess the moral of the story is to know your audience. By a wide margin, scouting assistants and interns are hired by scouts themselves who are a bit more down-to-earth. They are used to hanging around the locker room, talking to ‘little people,’ and maybe even have coaching backgrounds. They’re used to getting sweaty and dirty and they talk like it. On the other hand, appealing to an agency might take a smoother approach. They’ll want to see that you can handle life around a boardroom, a courtroom, or the like.

This is just something to keep in mind as you position yourself for career enhancement this summer. Best of luck in your search.

It’s Time

13 Friday Mar 2015

Posted by in Scouts

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Ever thought about being an NFL scout? Ever wanted to intern for a major football agency? If the answer to either question is ‘yes,’ consider brushing up your resume. Fast.

There’s a lot going on in the football world these days between free agency, pro days and the various combines the NFL will be holding in the next two weeks. However, behind the scenes, where we ‘live,’ there’s plenty of maneuvering for what happens after the draft, namely, making a few hires.

I’ve been working with a couple college students on their applications with NFL teams over the past month, trying to find a good fit for a scouting internship. Now is the time to really start bearing down on this process. NFL teams gather resumes in March, start sifting through them and cutting to a few finalists in April, then choose a few lucky winners in May, when the draft is over and things slow down. The application process is tricky, of course, but you don’t want to wait if that’s something you’re entertaining. And of course, it doesn’t hurt if you know someone in the game.

The same is true of agencies or sports marketing firms. If you’re looking to help out at a big firm this summer, now is the time to start looking for options. Look locally first, but if you don’t find many agencies, you may have to throw out caution and just go for it, applying with whoever will take you. The bigger the firm, the less your responsibilities, usually, but the better your chances of early success in the business if you decide to pursue it.

Today, I learned that one of my top interns landed a summer internship with a firm that could be representing the top pick in the draft next month. I couldn’t be happier for him or more excited that he’s getting this opportunity, but it wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t started the process very early, applying this winter and interviewing over spring break.

It’s always tempting to put things off, but don’t make that mistake. Get rolling on making your dreams come true so that someone else who acted sooner doesn’t make them come true for them. And if you need help or have questions, and you’re serious about the business, let me know at nstratton@insidetheleague.com.

Quick Fix

12 Thursday Mar 2015

Posted by in ITL

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

What if combine prep could be distilled into a pill or a potion?

More specifically, what if you could take a tenth off your 40 time, just by drinking a couple ounces of a liquid or a handful of capsules?

I asked this question to Amanda Carlson-Phillips, the vice president of nutrition and research at EXOS, which today announced that it is launching EXOS Performance Nutrition, a new line of high-quality nutritional supplements. EXOS has long been a leader in the combine prep field and the company’s founder, Mark Verstegen, is one of the 2-3 men who can claim to be the ‘inventors’ of combine prep.

Perhaps to humor me, she didn’t laugh out loud when I posed the question to her. Indeed, she seemed to give it real consideration. She stopped short of saying significant athletic improvement could ever be as simple as ingesting a substance, but she did say that . . . well . . . she gave me a qualified ‘maybe.’

“How we see nutrition, when you’re training, or you’re working out and doing your position and skill work, you’re breaking down your body intentionally so it can come back stronger,” she said. “The body doesn’t magically fix itself, so if you can provide your body with something to heal that breakdown, that will help athletes recover faster.”

So maybe there’s something on the horizon that, though it would still require training and the right nutrition, could super-charge combine prep. Maybe there’s a pill that you could combine with max effort that could give you a supreme boost. Of course, there are caveats.

“If you don’t recover and don’t have the right nutrition, you’re leaving something on the table and not maximizing what you do,” Carlson-Phillips said. “They’re wearing the right cleats, the right gear that’s going to make them the best, but they’re fueling themselves from the outside but not from the inside out.”

So it’s not going to be as easy as swallowing something, snapping your fingers, and voila! You’re explosive. But still, it bodes for more interesting twists and turns in a business that is always changing. Something to look forward to, I guess.

WSW: Broadcast Bungle

11 Wednesday Mar 2015

Posted by in ITL, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

,

Well, it’s draft season, and everyone’s hearing from the various gurus and experts out there, so I figure it’s a good time to tell a War Story on me.

This is from my days as one of two partners in the precursor to ITL. It was called Lone Star Football. When I first moved to Houston in 1998, I met a dude who wanted to start a Mel Kiper Jr.-style draft magazine, and after meeting me, he knew I had a passion for the game that mirrored his, so he asked me to help him out. It wound up lasting four years before it folded. Troy handled the offense and I handled the defense. One of these days, I’ll tell more stories from my humble beginnings with Lone Star in this space. When I do, take some No-Doze.

At any rate, we didn’t have any money, so our main strategy for selling our draft magazine (yes, it was a print publication just as the Internet was taking off, which was among our inept business decisions) was doing radio shows. I’d poke around on search engines (pre-Google) for whatever stations I could find with a sports talk format, and we’d volunteer to do their shows. We never got paid, so we’d always hope they had a toll-free line, so at least we didn’t have to come out of pocket to give away free programming.

Anyway, one year we landed a couple segments on a station in Green Bay. The problem was that they wanted to do it mid-day (which is probably where they stashed the draft guys that weren’t ready for prime time). We liked to do them together because we had a pretty strict dividing line between offense and defense, and if we had to ‘solo’ a show, we could wind up looking stupid if a caller asked about the wrong player. This is why I was really, really nervous while waiting for call time for this show, because my partner had to work. That meant I was stuck. I had to roll without Troy and hope for the best.

Well, the show wasn’t going very well (I think the host had wrangled with me over my opinion on a player, which kinda pissed me off) when we got a question on a cornerback from a small Midwestern school. I immediately panicked. As we only had two people trying to watch hundreds of players, our focus was almost solely on the big schools. Obviously the wise thing to do would be to cop to my ignorance, admit I didn’t know him, and throw myself on the mercy of the caller.

But hey, screw wisdom. I decided to sell out. Go for it. Burn my ships. Throw caution to the wind. I said something along the lines of ‘great ball skills, plus tackler, needs to prove he can play on a bigger stage.’ You know, the usual blather you get about small-school players, and it might have worked. Problem is, the caller had said ‘quarterback.’

No easy way to wiggle out of that one. Obviously, this didn’t endear me much with the host, who was already not a fan. I don’t remember how we wound up the segment, but that pretty much took all the steam out of it.

Ever since then, when I do radio and I get stumped, I will admit it. I will own it. It’s awkward, but it’s a way better place to be than I was that woeful day on Green Bay radio.

 

Don’t do this

09 Monday Mar 2015

Posted by in Scouts

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

I want to start this post out by saying that we probably have more information on draft prospects, and the draft process, than we’ve ever had. Most of it is based on good analysis. The has played a big role in this. Everyone with a Twitter account or a WordPress page can critique draft prospects, and with practice, can get pretty good at it.

I guess, at this point, I should tell you I strongly recommend you don’t pursue this avenue if you’re thinking of a career in football.

Evaluating talent is a lot of fun, and with a little studying of the process, you can learn all the buzzwords and figure out the things that make a player attractive to NFL teams. In fact, you can quickly do this well enough to impress your friends and maybe even sound like Todd McShay or Mike Mayock in no time. However, at the end of the day, this is (IMO) the wrong way to go, simply because the market is flooded with such people. It’s just far too difficult to distinguish yourself and gain real recognition for your efforts. Why?

Well, one reason is that simply making observations about players and ranking them is not that hard to do. After all, very rarely do we see analysis of a draft guru’s work 3-5 years later, when we can fairly analyze it. There’s so much info on the Web that you don’t really have to have original thoughts about things. You can gather up enough data to craft it in virtually any way you want. And after all, there’s really not a lot of variation among draft evaluators out there.

I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for someone to rank Marcus Mariota, Jameis Winston or Leonard Williams as a fourth- or fifth-rounder, even among those who have legitimate doubts about such players. Even scouts have difficulty expressing such reservations in the war room. There’s tremendous pressure to ‘go along;’ that’s one thing I’ve learned over years of talking to scouts about the process.

Of course, none of what I say precludes you from having opinions, conducting evaluations, and weighing your rankings against the experts. About two months ago, I posted info on a player who at the time was seeking representation, and soon after I got an unsolicited text from an agent who’s a former subscriber. “Although I am no longer a paying client I still read your tweeter fees,” the text began, then launched into a lengthy, blow-by-blow critique of the player, generously sprinkled with buzzwords and comparing him to previous draft prospects. My only reaction was to offer him thanks for his text, though I’m still not sure of his point in giving me a lengthy breakdown of his draft prospects. I guess there’s a little bit of Mel Kiper Jr. in all of us.

The Downside

05 Thursday Mar 2015

Posted by in ITL, Scouts

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

,

In this space, I spend a lot of time encouraging you to ‘go for it’ in the football world, to roll the dice and pursue your passions. I haven’t retreated from that position one iota, but I wanted to give you a couple downsides to such a path.

This post is maybe only half-serious, but I guess the idea is that life changes as you make football not just your passion, but your profession.

You’ll never watch SportsCenter again: In the 90s, there’s nothing I wanted to be more than Craig Kilborn or Chris Berman. Today, I can’t remember the last time I watched more than 10 minutes of SportsCenter when I wasn’t on a hotel treadmill. There are a couple reasons for this. No. 1, in the rare instances I actually watch the show, they’re trying to sell me something or be too cutesy. No. 2, in the age of the Internet, I already have all the information I need. No. 3, shows like SportsCenter have little to no application to the football business. They’re more fan-driven. I understand this, obviously, but your tastes change once you’re in the business.

You can’t talk football with anyone: I live in Greater Houston, so once someone finds out I’m in the business, the first thing they ask me is something about the Texans. Hey, they’re just trying to be friendly and congenial, and once again, I get that. The thing is, my tiny corner of the business is so all-consuming that I don’t get to really be a fan as much anymore. I can’t remember the last time I watched all four quarters of a college game, and the only NFL games I watch are Saints games (I’m not a Texans fan, which is another problem). Even when I go places like the combine or all-star games or whatever, it’s rare when I meet a client and we talk about on-field, traditional football stuff. We wind up talking about our families, our common non-football interests, or about real ‘inside football’ stuff. Again, your tastes change.

You’ll never enjoy football movies again: About this time last year, the movie ‘Draft Day’ came out. My wife, who knows I hate sports movies, nonetheless declared that we were going to go see it. Well, I humored her and agreed to go, but for one reason or another we never made it while it was in theaters. I breathed a sigh of relief, and so far, I’ve ducked renting the DVD, as well. Most people don’t believe me when I tell them I haven’t seen ‘Jerry Maguire,’ either. They think it should be the one movie that I’ve seen, if any. Once you’ve seen the inside of this business, it ruins sports movies for you because they have to make so many concessions to drama, entertainment, selling tickets, whatever.

I know these issues seem pretty small in the greater scheme of things, and heck, maybe they apply only to me. Still, you should probably get used to thinking in different terms as you move into this world in a more official capacity.

WSW: A Foot in the Door

04 Wednesday Mar 2015

Posted by in Scouts

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Today, I came across this story from about a month ago. It deals with Nolan Teasley, a young pro scout for the Seahawks, and his climb to an internship, then to employment, with the NFC champions.

I don’t know Teasley, but the story is pretty illustrative of what it took for him to make it, and I thought it might be instructional for people reading this who are considering a career in scouting. There are a few themes here that are pretty consistent among people who are able to make it into the biz.

Think regionally: I think that living in an NFL city increases your chances of success by at least half. I remember when I got my one shot at an NFL internship in the mid-90s, I was not living in the city of the team where I had applied (New Orleans). Though I got an interview, I think it hurt me that I wasn’t seen as a guy that was nearby, which would give team officials plenty of chances to get to know me and perhaps put me to work. If you’re already in an NFL city, you have a huge advantage because it makes it so much easier to be persistent about applying, trying to meet people, make contacts, etc.

Common roots: This is related to the above point, but this story says that Teasley flooded all NFL teams with letters before finally getting traction with a scout who shared his alma mater (we have a list of scouts and alma maters here). The NFL is a relationship business, and nothing underscores the point more than the that. Just this week, I had a similar experience. I’m trying to get one of my interns a job with an NFL team, and one of my contacts mentioned that the person handling applications went to the same college as my guy. I think that gives him a big advantage. We’ll see.

Don’t wait: If you really want to go for this career, get started early. I’d say you have five years from the time you graduate college to get an NFL opportunity, or at the very least start looking for one. That’s just a guess, but I bet it’s pretty accurate. You want to be young enough to be seen as malleable by team officials. You also need to be seen as cheap to employ, because entry-level scouts don’t make much money.

A supportive wife or fiance: In 1999, I had recently met my future spouse, and simultaneously had started the service that would one day lead to ITL. I’ll never forget driving to work one day, wondering if my passion for my business could coexist with my passion for my (future) wife. If I had decided to end my engagement based on my expected profession, it would have been the biggest mistake I ever made. However, if I had not introduced that business passion to Polly, that probably would have been my second-biggest mistake ever. I know countless people who made progress toward success in football, but had to turn back due to family considerations.

Getting big

03 Tuesday Mar 2015

Posted by in ITL

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Yesterday, I was having lunch with a longtime friend who’s also a client. He happens to be involved in private equity, and we got together specifically because he wants to help ITL take the next step. Inevitably, talk turned casually to my friend’s company becoming an investor. Shortly afterward, it became more serious, and we’ve scheduled a meeting later this week to discuss it more formally.

This kind of talk scares the crap out of me. On the one hand, I know investment is the only way I can make ITL achieve what I think it can achieve. On the other hand, do I want to give up control of the thing that I’ve spent a decade building? There has been plenty of blood, sweat and tears to get to this point. Am I ready to potentially give that all up if we don’t hit certain financial markers in the coming years?

There’s a major combine prep trainer in the business who probably asked himself the same question earlier this decade. When I say ‘major,’ I’m talking big, very big. In fact, this trainer was one of the pioneers of the business. I don’t know all the details of how it happened, but this trainer took in investors who wanted to make his service a franchise, the McDonald’s of combine prep. I’m sure they wanted to inhabit several markets, with combine prep the anchor and the multiple jerseys on the wall and various accolades from Hall of Famers as their draw. Well, ultimately, when things didn’t go the way the investors had planned, this trainer lost his brand and had to start over. There’s a happy ending for him — he’s launched another brand, and the contacts and body of work he’s built have helped him get right back on top — but there’s never any guarantee the story ends that way.

So the reason I discuss all of this is that probably once a week in the late spring and summer, I’m approached by agents who’ve had some success, but on a small scale. How do I partner up with a big firm, or get purchased by a corporation, they ask? I always ask them two things.

No. 1, if you were in an investor’s shoes, would you buy your agency? And No. 2, if things don’t go the way you hope, are you ready to walk away from the practice you bought, potentially even having to sign a non-compete that forces you out of the business?

These are the things I grapple with. There is no guaranteed happy ending. As you enter the business and start to take measured steps to the top, consider all sides and all outcomes. I can tell you that while I’m excited about the possibilities as I approach this week’s meeting, I’m also going to be praying plenty about where all this goes.

The Changing Mind of an NFL player

02 Monday Mar 2015

Posted by in Agents

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

You’ve heard me say in this space before that players hold all the cards in the agent-client relationship. That’s one reason why this is such a crazy business, and why things are so volatile for contract advisors. I came across a real-life illustration of this last week.

In December of 2013, a first-year-certified agent contacted me to tell me it looked like he had his first client, and he was in an all-star game, to boot. I shared his excitement and congratulated him, but as we went forward with the conversation, it became clear my friend had only received a commitment, and not a signed Standard Representation Agreement (SRA). That’s something else entirely. His would-be client was getting ready to go to an all-star game, a place that would be crawling with agents. Early in the week, agents would be able to access my list of players without representation and cherry-pick the best prospects. I explained all of this to him, and urged him to get a signed SRA as soon as possible.

Well, just as I had feared, disaster struck. The young man went to his game, got recruited by an experienced agent (a good guy who’s also an ITL client) and signed with him. Along the way, he gave his ‘first agent’ some cockamamie story about getting pressured by game organizers to give an agent’s name, and because he hadn’t technically signed an SRA with the first guy, he felt he had to pick representation at the game.

At any rate, I got behind on my agent termination lists this fall and got caught up last week. In the process of doing so, I noticed that the player had already switched from his first agent. That’s not altogether unusual; once a player makes an NFL team, he’s often taken under the wing of a veteran, and one of the first things the vet does is introduce him to his agent. However, it was quite unusual to see that, the following month, he changed again, to a third agent. That made three formal agent agreements (plus a ‘commitment’ to the first agent) in the space of 12 months. That’s pretty wild.

I can’t say this is usual — in fact, it’s quite unusual — but there’s certainly nothing barring him from changing representation every month of his NFL career. Of course, his first agent is still getting paid on the deal the young man signed when he entered the league, but as long as there are agents out there willing to ‘work’ for him without getting paid until his next deal, he can keep firing and signing, firing and signing.

That’s one of the unusual aspects of the NFL, but one you need to understand if you’re weighing becoming a contract advisor.

Young and old agents

27 Friday Feb 2015

Posted by in Agents

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Here’s an observation from my time at the combine last week that may be funny to no one but me. There’s a quick way to distinguish young (i.e., inexperienced) agents from seasoned, experienced ones: what they talk about when they bump into me at a hotel, in a hallway, outside the agent seminar, or whatever.

If an agent is seasoned, at some point, he’ll ask me (or I’ll ask him) how long I’m in Indianapolis (or Mobile, or St. Petersburg, or whatever). If the agent is less seasoned, he’ll pretty much slip into ‘sell’ mode at some point. Let me explain.

More seasoned agents have good clients. They know that some will be drafted and some not, and where they’ll generally fall on draft day. They know the expenses of things, they know best- and worse-case scenarios ahead, and pretty much know the landscape. For that reason, when I bump into them, there’s really not much to say after we cover family, weather, details of their flight in, etc.

I mean, almost all my clients are my friends, and that includes hundreds of agents, many of them some of the bigger contract advisors in the business. We have genuine regard for each other, but it’s almost passe’ to talk about player issues. So we make small talk, which inevitably leads us down the path to an awkward silence, at which point, one of us asks, ‘so how long are you here?’

It’s like pulling the ripcord on a conversation. It’s like reaching for the oxygen mask in a fire. You know it buys you an extra couple seconds while you wait for the elevator, or a client arrives in the lobby, or whatever. It’s not that you don’t want to talk. It’s just that time is limited and you’re not going to go into any kind of in-depth conversation, so rather than launch down a path that could lead to a five-minute dialogue, you try to keep it light. So you ask the inevitable question, unless you’re a new agent.

If you’re a new agent, pretty much any time is a good time to give a point-by-point rendering of your clients’ strong suits. Hey, I understand. It’s exciting to talk about clients, especially when you’re in your first year, and their possibilities. Still, the thing is, I’m not the guy that needs to hear this. I’m neutral in all of this. I’m like a ref. I’m Switzerland. I’m rooting for all my clients, but I have no power over getting them drafted, or signed as UDFAs, or whatever. So I mostly smile and nod when they start in about their players’ 40 times, or how they got jobbed by their coaches, or what a great kid they are, or whatever. I mean, I share their enthusiasm. It’s just that it can lead to long, awkward visits to ‘smile and nod’ land.

I totally (TOTALLY) don’t mean to sound dismissive when I write this. That passion that young agents have is what keeps them going during the challenging times in this business, and those times are many. I want them to be upbeat, and they deserve to be. That’s why I’m always happy to hear them recount their clients’ strengths. It’s just funny to see the metamorphosis as they mature in the business.