Tag Archives: NFL agent

When Colleges, Football and Compliance Collide

14 Wednesday Dec 2016

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Careful: Eggheads At Play

06 Tuesday Dec 2016

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Monday evening, I tweeted something from a conversation I had with a new agent that afternoon. It dealt with two obvious (and easily controvertible) lies a player told to make himself look like a far greater prospect than he is. I debated over whether I should even waste a tweet on it, especially late at night. Finally, I pulled the trigger.

In the space of about 45 minutes, that tweet had generated 14 likes and 2 retweets. This told me two things: my followers are entirely too busy on Twitter late at night, and people in the business are disgusted with the false info, entitlement, smug attitudes and misplaced confidence displayed by too many draft hopefuls.

In the course of reviewing some of the responses, I tripped over a recent tweet by a person who’s pretty revered in the sports and entertainment law industry. Basically, the substance of his tweet was how draft prospects should have a layered, segmented structure of financial, tax and accounting advisors to handle their NFL careers. There was no ‘unless you’re just hoping to one day make the 90’ qualification. Just a summary statement about sports ethics and how things ought to be.

If you ask me, this is one of the reasons these young men have such a disastrously outsized view of their NFL prospects and the life they’ll lead.

There’s a cottage industry out there of people who love to pontificate about the business, but have no real-world experience with it. Most of the time, these are the people sitting in ivory towers and dismissing agents as fire-breathing dragons while touting players as snow-white angels. As with most things in life, these one-dimensional characterizations are useless, but because there is such a dearth of legitimate insight into the football business, they fill a void. It’s sad, really. Few can challenge them, so they go about saying whatever until people start buying it.

If you’re a young man who’ll (a) be drafted in the top 100 next April, you’re (b) going to be described often as a first-rounder throughout the spring. And if you’re not so mentioned, you can forget the idea that you need to build a team of professionals to handle your every business move going forward. Keep in mind that for every 100 players that are wanted by all 32 teams, there are 900 more who need to forget about money and focus on one thing only: making a damn 53.

To make that 53, find an agent who believes in you, will work hard for you, and will get you into an all-star game attended by scouts. Also, you don’t have to train at a gym with all the bells and whistles and jerseys on the wall, but you better go somewhere and bust your hump for 60 days. I mean, last-half-hour-of-Rocky style work, with someone who knows what they’re doing. And if that’s your school, who cares? Work.

I’ve had it up to here with people who say they know, but don’t know. They make the jobs a lot harder for people in the business — my friends, my clients, and the people I have real respect for. But more importantly, they encourage many young men to create an alternate universe on a foundation of impossible expectations. And that’s not a bit fair to anyone in the game.

An Early-Exit Process Primer

02 Friday Dec 2016

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This week, there was a firestorm over something I wrote (and Darren Heitner tweeted)   regarding Michigan’s Jabrill Peppers, as well as my tweet Monday confirming that Texas’ D’Onta Foreman would enter the ’17 draft. The tone of the tweets coming back was, ‘oh no, these players have spoken to agents, now they’re gonna lose their eligibility!!’

I thought this warranted a blog post. There’s a huge disconnect between what fans understand about the agent process and what’s actually true. There’s an even bigger disconnect (Grand Canyon-esque) about what fans understand about the early-entry process and what’s true.

I’ve preached ad nauseam about the agent selection process and it’s perceived ‘illegality’ (here’s a tweet and here’s a two-minute podcast on the subject), so today let’s talk about players leaving early for the draft.

Here’s how the average fan perceives of the process for early entry.

  1. Promising player arrives at university focused on graduating in four years and pursuing degree of his choice. Also plays football on weekends.
  2. Conniving agent lures star player into thinking about money, convinces him to desert his teammates and enter NFL draft before every ounce of his eligibility is exhausted.
  3. Player declares early; coaches, administrators and teammates scream and shed tears of rejection and betrayal.

Admittedly, that’s a oversimplification, but the whole situation is rather complex. Here’s a much more realistic take on it.

  1. Player is recognized as talented early in his football playing days and begins to dream of NFL stardom. Coaches, teammates and family members encourage and empower this dream as it takes shape over a decade.
  2. Often, player realizes NFL playing career could lift himself and his family out of poverty or negative financial situation, and again, family encourages this. Often, family members ask how long until he’s in the league.
  3. At times, player will father a child out of wedlock. This heightens the financial pressure.
  4. Coaches, media, opposing teams, his own performance, etc., confirm player’s impression that he’s an elite talent and ready for the NFL. Player also realizes the mortality of his playing career.
  5. Often, his coaching structure and/or key players around him graduate and he realizes his chances of repeating his success are lessened going forward.
  6. Usually, the player has discussed his mindset entering his third year out of high school with coaches and family, and teams support and understand his thought process (often, I have scouts tell them that schools encourage them to evaluate certain juniors that have made it known they’re leaving).

Somewhere during this process, agents enter the picture. But this isn’t an evil thing, and not even necessarily a bad thing. At any rate, hopefully, the young man has a responsible and loving support system around him that can help in the vetting process, and hopefully he plays for a progressive school that educates him and doesn’t try to shutter him from the outside world. Also, hopefully the parents are educated and attentive enough to be helpful (which is one reason we started our Two-Minute Drill series). By all accounts, Peppers and Foreman have that.

At no point does simply talking to agents invalidate a player’s eligibility. It’s important to understand this.

It’s also important to look at these young men not as strictly Saturday’s warriors. We all want to live our dreams, and everyone at their schools — especially their coaches and teammates — understands that.

Paradigm Shift

25 Friday Nov 2016

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About a week ago, I was having a conversation with a longtime friend who’s an up-and-coming contract advisor. Conversation turned to the new default 1.5-percent agent fee, and I asked if any prospects or their advisors were playing hardball so far, demanding that he drop his fee from three percent.

“Not so far,” he said. “Everyone’s paying three percent.”

That has since been echoed by other agents I’ve spoken to. I hope that continues. NFL agents, already billing at the lowest percentage of all the major sports, don’t need to get further whittled down by players who know they have all the leverage.

However, as I always tell my clients, having November discussions is easy. It’s the December discussions where agents and their prospective clients talk terms. Players are seeking the best training and pre-draft packages they can get, while agents are counting dollars and trying to decide where to spend them.

Of course, nothing happens in a vacuum in the football world, and the practical reduction in agent fees means fewer contract advisors will take the plunge and pay for a prospect’s training fees. They’ll be even less likely to send a late-round prospect to Florida, California, or some other sunny clime, as has traditionally happened. Naturally, this isn’t going to stop players from thinking that the right training will transform them from late-rounders into solid prospects, and in some cases, they may even be right. Therefore, I see the combine prep business moving in a different direction this January and February.

The challenge for agents isn’t paying for training, per se. It’s paying $6,000-$7,000 for training, food and supplements, plus another $5,000-$6,000 just for accommodations. Often, the player’s lodging costs more than his training. With more and more good trainers providing solid regimens, the mission is to find a combine prep facility near enough that a prospect can sleep in his own bed. The biggest job will be finding those facilities, evaluating the different facets of each program (when does it start? what kind of facility? who conducts training?) and, of course, weighing the costs of each.

With this new paradigm, we’re assembling a marketplace where agents and players can do their Black Friday shopping (and beyond) for combine prep. It’s our 2017 ITL Combine Prep Grid, a place where everyone in the business can sort out all the options in one place. Though we’ve only got four entries so far, they’re all solid, there are plenty of outside-the-box options, and there are many, many more on the way. We’re just getting started.

There are still a handful of titans in the combine prep business, and they won’t stop being titans. But now there’s a chance for a number of smaller training houses to work with players and make a little money while cutting costs (and risks) significantly for contract advisors. If I’m right about this new trend, it could be a rare win-win-win for trainers, agents and prospects.

Dissecting Darius: Thoughts on the Intersection of Entertainment and NFL Representation

08 Tuesday Nov 2016

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About a year ago, I was having a conversation with Jay Courie, an NFL agent and partner at one of the bigger law firms in the Southeast, McAngus, Goudelock & Courie. Along the way, he mentioned that he needed someone to partner with, someone who had youth and energy but also someone who had enjoyed success and knew the agent business. I get this kind of request at times.

So I thought about it, and when I bumped into him at the Senior Bowl, I told him I had just the guy. When I finally got Jay together with Kyle Strongin of 1 Degree Management, Jay had already met him and knew him. I could see in his eye that my choice had reaffirmed what Jay was already thinking.

That’s why it wasn’t a big surprise to me when I heard Monday that Jay had brought Kyle in as Vice President of MGC Sports, with country music star Darius Rucker a part of the deal, as well. While I’m not, in any way, taking credit for putting this merger together, I can definitely say I know both Jay and Kyle well, they’ve both been ITL clients for a long time, and I knew Jay was leaning toward a merger of some sorts. The only mild surprise was that Kyle, whom I’ve tried to recommend to inquiring agencies for some time now, was willing to move. He’d always told me in the past that he was happily independent.

While adding a big star to a sports agency is decidedly not a new idea, here are a few thoughts on this move.

  • In 2016, the Kardashian century, celebrity matters. Having a big name on your team is an edge in recruiting, especially in a business that is as poorly understood as football representation, and especially when the people you’re recruiting are young men with big egos.
  • Courie has made significant inroads at Clemson, and has major ties with the school. But if I know him at all, I know he likes to win. I don’t think he’s happy getting the second-line kids at Clemson. He wants the DeShaun Watsons of the world.
  • On the other hand, Rucker, a black country star, is a perfect fit for MGC Sports, which consistently recruits white offensive linemen as well as the speedy black skills position players that have taken Clemson to the next level.
  • Outside of Clemson, MGC really hasn’t been relevant. In fact, I wonder if Jay even consistently recruits non-Tigers. But that’s where Kyle, who finished a close second to super-power CAA on Laremy Tunsil last year, comes in. Jay is an accomplished lawyer, likable and professional, but Kyle, who spent time with the 49ers scouting department as well as in the Ole Miss and University of Tennessee recruiting offices, gives the firm a credible NFL background. Kyle has significant relationships in scouting, and having those insights gives you a tremendous edge when you’re trying to sort out the stars from the overhyped pretenders. Meanwhile, Jay has a legal practice to run, and now he doesn’t have to split his time as mercilessly.
  • The next 60 days will be very telling for MGC. Clemson has a number of top players that will be part of the ’17 draft, and the firm has now gone from a solid contender that operates beneath the radar to a firm that others will be recruiting against. The Carolinas are very contentious, with several solid firms, big and small, battling for talent.
  • In an industry where the NFLPA makes things harder virtually every day, sorting out costs and distilling a profit won’t be easy. But if MGC can land a Watson, a Williams or another comparable talent, it might be the jolt needed to propel it into ‘big agency’ status.

In the end, this is just one more indication that the sports agency business is becoming an arms race, with margins and business decisions perhaps running second to the chase for bigger and flashier names. Increasingly, to stay relevant, bigger firms are going to have to decide if they’re ready to partner up with big personalities, and in so doing, figure out how to make it all work on the profit/loss sheet.

 

NFL Supply and Demand

26 Wednesday Oct 2016

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When it comes to the NFL draft, most coverage focuses on the potential superstars slated for selection in the first couple rounds. But taking a broader view of things, which positions seem to be most in demand? Which players, by position, are NFL teams most focused on?

We’ll break it into three groups, based on the percentage of players that sign with agents and how many actually make it into NFL camps (as draftees, UDFAs or tryout players). For more details — total number of players drafted, signed as UDFAs, made it to tryout camps, percentages of each, all by positions — click here.

Most in demand: If you’re an offensive lineman, your chances of wearing an NFL helmet, at least for a day, are pretty good. Centers were the second-most in-demand position, as 71.7 percent of them made it to camp as a draftee, undrafted free agent or camp tryout. When it comes to tackles, 63.6 percent made it to camp, while 64.9 percent of tight ends made it. Defensive ends (62.4 percent) were also popular. Who was most popular? Quarterbacks, which made it to camps at a 72.2 percent rate.

Somewhere in the middle: For positions like running back (52 percent), fullback (52 percent), wide receiver (52 percent), guard (58 percent), kicker (55), cornerback (54), defensive tackle (58) and inside linebacker (50), your odds are somewhere around 50-50.

Least in demand: Though safeties are far more valuable than they used to in the days of the slot receiver and the hybrid LB/S, they’re still least in demand. Free safeties made it to camp at a rate of 45.3, while strong safeties at 44.3. Punters were similar bottom-feeders, as only 44.4 percent of those that signed with agents actually made it to camp.

 

 

A Few Thoughts About ’60 Minutes’ and NFL Financial Losses

24 Monday Oct 2016

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If you operate in football business circles, there’s an excellent chance you saw the ’60 Minutes’ report about several NFL players taken in by a bad investment in an Alabama casino. It was orchestrated by a financial advisor, Jeff Rubin, who was then based in Florida (he’s in Denver now). Here are a few thoughts.

  • This story has been on hold for at least two years. I have no doubt the NFL (and especially the NFLPA) have been battling CBS, which obviously has a big broadcast contract with the league, to withhold it altogether. I have no doubt that this tweet from Bleacher Report’s Jason Cole is true.
  • This report is the tip of the iceberg. The two ‘watchdogs’ interviewed in the report, Rand Getlin and Chase Carlson, are both friends of mine, and both were interviewed at length about far more than just the Rubin incident.
  • Here’s an excellent, comprehensive report Chase put together. It pretty much recounts all the financial advisors registered with the NFLPA who stole NFL players blind.
  • After reading Chase’s report, you might wonder why there are so many such incidents, but so few reports. You might also wonder why Rand (formerly with NFL Network, and a veteran of excellent work at Yahoo! Sports) and Chase aren’t affiliated with major media entities. My theory: it’s sexy to talk about this stuff for a while, but at the end of the day, the man on the street just shrugs his shoulders and says, ‘that’s their problem. If these millionaires can’t keep track of their money, screw ’em.’
  • I guess that’s OK, but at the end of the day, shouldn’t the NFLPA care? I mean, they’re charging thousands of dollars to register financial advisors. Even though the PA is careful to protect itself from litigation exposure by admitting that it has no idea if these guys are legitimate or not, the fact is that agents can only recommend advisors from this program. To me, that’s a de facto endorsement from the NFLPA, whether it’s technically true or not.
  • Dozens of the registered members of the NFLPA program are ITL clients, but I would say the lion’s share of our financial advisor clients that really work with NFL players are not in the program. I was texting with a member of the latter group last night, and I think this pretty much sums up his (and his group’s) thoughts: “The NFLPA feels as though any advisor that can afford a $1500 annual fee must be good.”
  • Here’s a simple fix that I think would work, and if I were the PA, I’d get out of the registration business and simply post this on the site. If you are an NFL player and you are approached by a financial advisor, step 1 is to plug his name into FINRA BrokerCheck. Step 2 is to check out his record there, and if he’s got a few issues, ask questions. If he’s clean, press on with confidence (mostly) that he’s a straight shooter. And if his name doesn’t show up there, presume that he’s not an official, registered, honest, educated financial advisor and consider avoiding this person.

 

Check Out the Two-Minute Drill

20 Thursday Oct 2016

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About two weeks ago, we started a new series that I’d appreciate if you’d check out. It’s called the ITL Two-Minute Drill.

I started it because there just aren’t enough resources out there for the parents of draft prospects, and I wanted to make the process a little more transparent. That’s especially true of players rated as late-rounders or undrafted free agents. Players rated in the top 3-4 rounds are going to get good counsel on the process because the top agents mob them, but for the lower-rated prospects, it’s dodgy. They need guidance, so we’re trying to provide it.

Right now, we’re 14 shows in, and my plan is to continue it for at least two more weeks, with four shows per week. The idea is to have a decent library of topics for parents as the regular season wraps up. My experience is that as the calendar turns to November, parents and their sons start to get serious about agent selection, often wishing they had started preparing months ago. Our series, hopefully, allows them to play catch-up (See? Two-Minute Drill. Get it?).

Hopefully, if you’re reading this, you already have a good idea of ITL and what we do. But if not, we’ve got a Two-Minute Drill on it. But we also unpack a lot of other topics.

For example, if you don’t know the first thing about the scouting process, we’ve got episodes explaining National and BLESTO, as well as five things to know about an NFL scout. We examine how scouts canvas the country, and why some parts of the country get overlooked due to geography. We sort out the process whereby a player goes from ‘just another guy’ to certified draft prospect. We even talk about how scouts look at character, and how it can affect a player’s draft status.

Are agents a puzzle to you? Do you even know when you can talk to them without risking your son’s eligibility? We’ve got episodes on new agents (and why you shouldn’t fear them), why your son might be getting overlooked, and why (even if you don’t like agents) your son needs a plan to get to the league. Here’s an episode on how to research agents without actually talking to any. And by the way, don’t ‘play agent’ yourself (here’s why).

We also address a couple topics that don’t fit neatly into any categories. Is your son considering entering the draft early? Here are a few things to consider.

Today, we explain the undrafted free agent process and why it’s not something to fear (and in some cases even preferable to getting drafted).

Even if you’re a student, an agent or a scout who regularly reads our blog, and you feel this info doesn’t apply to you, maybe you know someone who could use it. We don’t take sides and we don’t make anyone look bad — we’re simply trying to make the process less confusing. Please refer us. What do you (or they) have to lose?

An Agent Against the Tide

10 Monday Oct 2016

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About a month ago, you might have seen it reported that there would be 103 new contract advisors in the 2016 NFLPA agent class. Well, normally, that would be true. But this year, there will be 102.

You won’t find the name of one of the 103 people that passed on the NFLPA’s list of certified player representatives updated on Friday. That’s because this young man, who’s worked with agencies the last few years and has an intimate knowledge of the business, just didn’t see any point to it.

We exchanged a few emails last week, and here’s one he wrote. I asked for his permission to use it, because I thought it was really illustrative of the way many people in the business feel these days.

“Yeah I decided not to register. I’m worried about the future of the business due to the 1.5% default commission. It was extremely difficult to break-even on rookies with the 3% commission as is. Even though there were concerns about the maximum fee dropping to 2% when I registered, I’m not sure I would have even signed up for the test in January had I been aware of the 1.5% default fee. 

“Unfortunately, not everything worked out like I thought it would have, so I decided it wasn’t in my best interests to get certified. Football already had the lowest agent commission fee for any sport, and cutting it in half is insulting to the agents who have invested so much of their time and money into this business. Agents get a bad reputation, but most of them ones I have come across work their asses off for their clients every single day. I am happy that the certification fee is staying in my own pocket.
“Even though I’m not in the business, I hope for the best for the future of NFL agents.”

I don’t have a lot to add to this. I think I’ve made my feelings pretty obvious at this point. I just don’t think the Players Association fully understands the value of good counsel and advice, and the people who provide it, given the direction the union has gone with its new SRA.

I hope I’m wrong. In the meantime, we’ll wait to see how many agents chose not to pay their dues for the 2016-17 league year. Those results will be available in a few weeks.

Crunching Numbers: An Interview with its Authors (Pt. 2)

29 Thursday Sep 2016

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On Wednesday, we discussed the book Crunching Numbers: An Inside look at the Salary Cap and Negotiating Player Contracts, written by Jason Fitzgerald of Over The Cap and football biz veteran Vijay Natarajan. I’m pretty excited about this book because I think it makes a difficult topic, one that’s central to the modern NFL, a lot easier to understand.
I had several questions for Jason and Vijay and I covered some of them yesterday. Here are a few more questions and answers regarding their book, as well as the cap and its perception across the nation.
The average fan hears about the salary cap all the time, but do you feel most have a reasonable understanding of the cap and how it works?
“We think the average fan has a basic understanding that there is a limited amount of money that can be used on the roster and that there are ways to manipulate the cap to make it happen. But when it comes to understanding the future consequences of the actions being made, we think there is much less understanding. For example, you may see a team (beat) reporter (discuss) moves made by a team to comply with the cap that adds millions of dollars to the following year. Fans listen to this and their initial thought is their favorite team is doing great finding ways to manipulate the system with no understanding that the team is actually putting themselves in a bad situation the following year. Then the team goes out, has a stinker of a season, and is now millions over the cap. There are also many misconceptions about contract values, guarantees, and true earnings on a contract.”
How about the general media? Do they ‘get’ how the cap works, in your estimation?
“The print media has gotten much better with their understanding of the salary cap in recent years. It helps that they can often lean on agents or even team front office executives to help clarify some things. We think the increase of bloggers who focus on contract-related items, and the social media-fueled, hard-core football audience that they have to write for, has made them learn more and more about this side of the NFL. There is still a similar lack of understanding when it comes to long-term consequences, both good and bad, on contract decisions, reasons behind certain contracts, free agent possibilities, and certain rules concerning the cap. We think when it comes to your radio/TV personalities the cap knowledge is lacking. Granted, that side of the NFL is going to have limited appeal for everyday discussion, but if you are going to criticize a team on air for a salary cap charge or contract value for a player, you should at least have a fundamental understanding for why the team did it.”
Do you think the average fan wants to understand how the cap works?
“Guess it depends on what you consider average. If the average fan is the person who starts paying attention in September, and whose interest level is dependent on their fantasy football roster or team record, and only has an offseason interest in the team at the start of free agency and on the first day of the draft, we doubt they would have (deep) interest in the cap. If the average fan is the person interacting all year on forums and blogs, actively follows reporters on social media, and engages with other fans either online or offline for a majority of the year, then we would expect them to be interested in learning about the cap. Crunching Numbers gives you another avenue to become invested in your team and speak more intelligently about the NFL.”
How long did it take each of you to ‘understand’ the cap?
“In terms of understanding the basics in a way where we could go and sit down with someone who has worked in the NFL for years and have an intelligent conversation, we would say a couple of years. The reality is, we are still in a learning (phase) and you gain more knowledge all the time.”
In general, do you think most teams manage the cap well, or are there teams that put themselves in jeopardy consistently due to simple mistakes?
“Being a fan of the NFL, for a long time, and having seen various approaches to salary cap management, we would say that the majority of teams have gotten much better at managing the salary cap than they were 10 to 15 years ago.  The decision-making process has changed a lot since then for most teams, and it’s led to more efficiency, even though the dollars in contracts are getting bigger and bigger. Still, there are more than a handful of teams that, year after year, are having to find ways just to comply with the cap because of some really bad decisions. Check out Chapter 17, Salary Cap Philosophies, for different strategies executed.”
If you’re part of that hard-core fan base that lives and breathes the NFL, I really encourage you to give Crunching Numbers a look. I know Vijay and Jason are passionate football people but also regular guys, and that’s why they can convey such a complicated topic in a plain-talk kind of way.