An immersive experience in the world of sports that will take students through the four stages of the professional athlete's career. Utilizing lectures, guest speakers and hypothetical walkthroughs, students will learn how the best sports agents manage each of these four stages. This course will provide each student with the skills necessary to guide an athlete through the difficult decisions that can make or lose the athlete millions of dollars, and affect their public image and career. Walking through the four stages of an athlete's career, we will provide a broad scope of the landscape of amateur and professional sports so that you can avoid the pitfalls and traps that so many have fallen into in the past; not to mention, bringing you updates throughout the course regarding the rapidly changing sports world that we live in today. Analyzing the best practices in the management of the superstar athletes with whom Professor Carfagna and his expert guests have worked, we will show you how to manage the career of any professional athlete who might seek your guidance at any stage of his or her professional career.
Lesson Introduction - Recruiting Clients
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Do curso por Case Western Reserve University
Representando o atleta profissional
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Module 2: Recruiting and Managing Clients
An introduction on how to approach recruiting clients, how to build an agency, and how to manage clients once they have signed a representation agreement; an analysis of the effect of professional sports on youth sports, and vice versa.
The optional videos look at the fiduciary duties an agent owes his client.
Conheça os instrutores
Peter A. CarfagnaDistinguished Practitioner in Residence
School of Law
Richard J. Volante, Esq.Adjunct Instructor, Representing the Professional Athlete
Case Western Reserve University School of Law
[MUSIC]
Welcome to representing the professional athlete.
We're going to start this next run of the course by talking about all the issues
that you raised during the last run of the course.
That we want to make sure we cover in greater detail and
with greater specificity this time around.
Welcome back to those of you who have taken the course before, and
a fresh hello and welcome to those of you first time visiting our refreshed course.
Ricky, we need to start.
I'm going to introduce my research assistant, my teaching assistant,
Ricky Volante, who's helped me put this course together.
One of the most frequently asked questions,
that we're going to cover in greater detail, is how do you recruit a client?
What approach do you take, what's the pitch?
What's the team of services that you're going to offer to that first client?
How do you get that first client?
You're in the business now since we last visited.
How's it going?
How do you present your organization so
you're representing a professional athlete?
>> Right, so I mean, first and foremost when you're sitting down with these
players, you're trying to create some sort of connection.
Obviously that'll vary from client to client, but that's the key part.
You're not just looking at them as a commodity.
You're not looking at them as a product.
You're trying to build a partnership.
You're trying to build a friendship to some extent.
And you're just trying to make that connection so
they understand that you're not just another person
who's there trying to make money off of their playing abilities.
You're showing them that over the long term once you bring me on as your agent.
I'm going to be able to put these resources around you.
We're going to be able to take care of the off the field aspects,
off the field endeavors.
Allow you to focus on the field and become as prominent of an athlete and
a figure within celebrity as you possibly can on and off the field.
>> So in this course, we're going to teach you how to represent a professional
athlete from amateurism to professional, the pre-professional to the professional.
You're going to learn the representation agreement,
what services are we going to offer through that representation agreement.
Each and every module we'll show you how to go about, not virtually, but
actually representing a professional athlete.
But how do you get your foot in the door?
How do you get that first athlete?
You have to show a center of excellence within your agency
is my experience all those years at IMG.
You have to show that first client.
Okay, it's different for a Tom Condon, who's top of the heap, it's different for
Scott Boras, an MLB, or Casey Close, with whom I used to work.
But how do you get that first client in the door?
That's really where you are, you've got a number in the door.
So, what expertise are you demonstrating?
You have a legal background, you have a marketing background,
you have the personalization, you are my most important client.
All those things that the big agencies are saying too.
>> Exactly, I mean being on our own essentially, the core five company itself.
We are going up against the IMG, we are going up against CAA,
we are going up against Relativity who can come in and
say were going to have a 30 man stuff it's going to be able to help you.
Now, you have to find a way to differentiate yourself and say, well,
despite all the facts that they have on their side, you really should go with us.
Now, one of the most important pitches there is that, what you just said,
you're going to get that attention that you otherwise wouldn't get at IMG.
You're just a name on a roster to them.
You're not my one or one of a handful of clients
that I'm going to spend every waking hour focusing on.
So that's first and
foremost when you're going up against the big dogs of the world.
[LAUGH] Second is that, again, you have to find a way to create some
sort of personal connection and show that I'm not just saying this.
I care about your life.
I care about your family.
I care about your background.
Here's how we're going to take advantage of all that and make you as
endorsable of a person and as rich of a person as we possibly can,
as well as successful of a person, whatever your trade is.
So you need to create that connection and
really show that you mean what you're saying.
And then finally, you need to show that you have a team of your own.
If you don't have a team but
Tom Condon's coming to the door who has Tom Junior and the rest of his staff
saying we're going to be able to offer you all of this plus the budget of CAA.
You need to be able to show us you have a comparable team in terms of expertise.
Where that the only difference then is budget, but you can make up for
that in terms of the time you're dedicating to that client.
>> All right, and we're going to take you through,
each of you students who are going to be with us, through each of these modules.
The selection of an agency.
Why does Clint Frazier,
we'll hear from one of the great high school players of all time.
Why did he pick the agency he picked?
How is that agency helping to brand him?
What product endorsement opportunities right away did they bring to him,
even from his pre-professional days?
You'll hear from him.
We'll talk about the scaling of the agency that has happened with the atomization
of the old IMGU.
We'll hear from Jeff Schwartz on the basketball side,
probably the number one basketball agent, and his agency, Excel.
We're hear going to from, on the income protection side,
experts in those areas throughout each of these modules.
So we're going to take you from that first client,
the client selection agency process, and then back and forth.
We'll hear from Andy Simms on the NFL side.
Get to the point where you can be selective with the boutique NFL agency.
So all of this will be rolled out for you throughout each of the four
stages of the professional athlete's career including post retirement.
So now we're back to the building the career, the player's career and
brand image.
Let's say we are at that first stage, he has that first contract,
he has the product endorsement.
We're talking about the publicity rights,
celebrating those name image likeness rights.
So what would you say?
Let's go to soccer, football, which we're going to look at in great detail.
That's going to be one of the big differentiators of this offering of
this course.
What would you say, let's go to one of our later modules.
When you get to the top of the heap.
You're managing a Ronaldo's career.
You're managing a Beckham.
We looked at this last time.
How do you differentiate?
How do you deal with the league rights on a jersey sponsorship, for example,
as opposed to the individual rights for a superstar like a Ronaldo?
>> Right, so taking bits and pieces of what our guests will be telling, so
kind of teasing that out a little bit here >> First and foremost,
you need to find out what the athlete believes in.
You want to have them endorsing products that they believe in, or otherwise it,
just, it feels empty, it doesn't feel true to the brand.
I know that Jeff is going to talk about that, in particular,
as it relates to Blake Griffin, with his endeavors with GameFly, and Kia.
So you want to make sure that you know what the athlete believes in.
You want to make sure again it goes back to that relationship with them.
That you understand what they're trying to accomplished off the field.
Now once you have that answered, then what you do is you go out and you basically say
you look at their social media reach, you look at their general public perception.
You look at their image, in terms of their looks and whatnot.
And figure out which companies that are out there trying to activate and
engage their products through this medium.
>> And we'll look across each and every one of the major sports, soccer football.
We'll have a number of modules on that, but we're going to look at how
do you have a financial planner who's going to be expert.
And we'll hear from, I think, the best person in the business,
John Palguta has been kind enough to lend his expertise.
How do you build that bunker mentality?
How do you have income protection policies in place?
Now we're ascending into that second, that peak income producing years.
That's going to be one of our major modules.
How do you protect that which is guaranteed,
that which might not be guaranteed?
Let's just talk a little bit about financial planning.
How important on the team of people that are going to surround this now
becoming peak professional athlete,
how important is it to have that expert financial planner?
>> You cannot measure how important it is at the end of the day.
As the agent, you have to understand your strengths and weaknesses at the onset.
And if you do not have a particular background in finances,
you need to bring someone in to supplement that.
Because at the end of the day,
you're not just focused on the short term with your clients.
You want to ensure that when they're done, that they're able to retire if they so
choose, or be set up to go into a second career.
So and that is where the financial planner comes in.
They help you lay out short term, long term investment opportunities.
Whether or not you want to get into tangible in assets or intangible assets.
Whether you want to invest in companies and
things like that which John will walk us through in his interviews.
So again, that's, at the end of the day, your first and last
goal is making sure that the long term interests of your client is taken care of.
And, if you do not have that financial background,
you should have someone in place that can do so.
>> Thank you for that.
We'll hear from Jim Convertino, probably, the leading worldwide expert for
celebrity insurance, and risk management brokerage.
I'll tell you back at my IMG days how important that was for
the peak professional athlete to make sure the back room protected against the career
ending injury that looms especially large in a contact sport.
You always have to protect against that catastrophic injury.
You need all sorts of personal policies in place, that Jim's going to speak to.
As you put your team together with your core five group,
you're going to pick and chose.
But I think it's fair to say, and we were very careful about this at IMG, still are.
You don't say, you must take Convertino,
you must take Palguta even though I would recommend that.
You want to give your client a fair list of the top two,
three that you've had experience with.
You want to let the client make the choice because otherwise you can run into
conflicts of interest, allegations.
Like we've seen in certain cases of, you're sending the business this way,
and, hey, maybe, there's a, sort of, a kickback relationship.
So, I think you have to be really careful, and we'll take you through that.
John and Jim, are very careful about making sure each client is special.
Treated only as that client, and conflict of interest is a thing of the past.
>> Yeah, I would say a best practice there would be to have a shortlist,
whether it's three, four companies or whatnot.
And essentially when you present that list to your client,
you say, here are some of the best.
All of them are going to do a great job.
If it were up to me, I would highly recommend John Palguta.
I would highly recommend Jim Convertino.
So that way it's not an endorsement,
it's a recommendation as the agent to the client.
>> So now we've taken the first client for
your agency, grown the agency, the agency selection process.
Now we're going through the peak professional years.
We're also going to take you through a number of modules
on what happens when the cheering stops.
We'll look at the concussion litigation, expertise there from Chris Nowinski,
the founder of the Concussion Legacy Foundation.
And then we're going to talk about extension of those publicity rights into
the post-retirement years.
We're going to look at endorsement agreements that continue to monetize for
those after the cheering stops.
And we're also going to look at in particular case studies that show in
retirement perhaps you can continue to manage that brand in a way.
We talk about Michael Jordan at some length,
will have perhaps the best model of those who post-retirement have done, perhaps,
even better than they did while playing.
So now we're into the post retirement phase, we protected on the financial side,
we protected on the insurance side.
Let's just talk about social media is it to stay connected,
I've had the privilege of interviewing Shaquille O'Neal.
That's very important for him.
He's monetized, he's probably one of the best examples post retirement
of monetizing through broadcasting and Icy Hot and everything else you can think of.
So the branding and
the social media connection with your fans after you retire.
Let's talk about that a little bit.
>> Absolutely.
And those top peak athletes such as Shaquille O'Neal or
LeBron James or Cristiano Ronaldo, who can reach nine figures,
can reach 100 million plus people in a click of a button.
Now as the agent helping them in their post-retirement years, you can go to
a company and say, look you're looking to engage and activate with fans worldwide.
This person has 100,180 million followers.
They are going to reach him.
Those people are going to pay attention to what that athlete or
now retired athlete is saying.
So on the social media side it's crucial in terms of maintaining revenue streams.
It's also crucial in terms of just building your image in general.
You can wipe it out much quicker than you can build it up.
So it's something that you need to be cognizant of in terms of
educating that player on how to handle that.
There may be no better example than how LeBron has handled himself
on social media and the way that he's able to engage with young fans.
And I would be willing to bet that that engagement will continue long after
[LAUGH] his days on the court are over.
>> Not to mention his many charitable endeavors.
We'll talk about that a little bit as a sidecar to that which you can do
in your community, even at the early stages of a professional athlete's career.
And certainly transcending through Jeter and his Turn 2 Foundation and
things of that nature of the mega at sort of national and international levels.
But we want to finish, we'll have some modules for you in golf and tennis.
I still work very actively in those area, particularly golf.
The longest career trajectory,
the different sorts of management styles because hopefully your peak years
are going to be in your early thirties and beyond.
We'll have David Lightener join us there on the tennis side.
We'll have Gavin Forbes I think, number one tennis agent
representative in the world right now will join us for those modules.
We finish with modules on soccer football.
We'll look at from the ownership side and
the representation side in the soccer football world.
We hope you'll enjoy, this is a quick breeze through our different modules.
We're so happy to have you back, if you're back for the second time.
And if you're here for
the first time we want to welcome you to representing the professional athlete.
It's going to be a great run.
By the time you finish you're going to be able to represent that first professional
athlete from the beginning, middle and end of his or her career.
And we're proud to be a part of your career trajectory.
And welcome to the course.
[SOUND]
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