Baseball

• Mind the gap [David Ortiz expects arbitration hearing, not settlement, with Red Sox].
• Baseball agency and marketing agency join forces [Legacy Sport Group and The Agency Sports Management Merge to Form The Legacy Agency].
• Still a possibility that Arn Tellem leaves the agent biz [Sorting through potential Dodgers bidders].
• Boras wins with his patient approach [Tigers offer 'lifeboat' to Prince Fielder].

Sports Law

• “The agent epidemic isn’t abating and no university with premier players is immune” [Refereeing sports agents].

Sports Business

• Let’s see if some of our content gets rolled into the USA TODAY network [USA TODAY Sports Media Group Acquires Big Lead Sports Digital Property and Fantasy Sports Ventures].
• Read of the week regarding IMG Worldwide and Teddy Forstmann [Machiavelli and Mogul].

Shabbat Shalom: Friday Wrap-Up (1/27/2012) from Sports Agent Blog - Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Negotiations, NCAA Rules

Wasserman Media Group’s Athlete Management division has been best known for the leadership of Arn Tellem, who represents some of the highest profile athletes in professional basketball and baseball.  Tellem’s name has recently been in the news regarding whether or not the Texas Rangers will sign his Japanese starting pitcher client Yu Darvish by this afternoon’s deadline, but recently, someone else has stolen the show at Wasserman.  That person is a brand new part of the Athlete Management team and is about to make a huge splash in the sports agent industry.

Wasserman Media Group has long resisted entering the world of representing professional football players.  In order to change course, the company needed a really good incentive.  That incentive just happens to be former Stanford quarterback and likely future #1 overall pick Andrew Luck.

Within the past few days, Wasserman Media Group hired Andrew Luck’s his uncle and NFLPA-certified advisor Will Wilson, who will represent Luck leading up to the 2012 NFL Draft.  Wasserman has also named Wilson the company’s Executive Vice President of Football.  Wilson formerly served as Executive Vice President of International Business & Special Events of Major League Soccer (MLS) and Soccer United Marketing (SUM) for the past four years.

Wasserman Media Group will not only represent Luck with regards to his professional contract with the team that selects him, but the company will also help Luck find opportunities off the field of play, including marketing endorsements, media relations, social media counsel, and charitable and community development.

On Twitter, I openly wondered whether the signing of Andrew Luck and the establishing of a football division may hamper Casey Wasserman’s interest in being strongly involved in a future Los Angeles NFL team.  Apparently, Wasserman does not believe that hiring Wilson and representing Luck will conflict with his efforts to bring a team to Los Angeles.

Wasserman Media Group Signs Andrew Luck; Hires Luck’s Uncle from Sports Agent Blog - Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Negotiations, NCAA Rules

Baseball

• If he wins the bidding war, he could take Arn Tellem out of the agent biz [Hedge-fund executive Steven Cohen is bidding for the Dodgers].
• Scott Boras is making his pitch for 39-year-old Jason Varitek [Red Sox can often be late risers in roster moves].

Football

• Peter Schaffer’s new firm [JR Announces Official Deal with Authentic Athletix].
• Leigh Steinberg reportedly owes a lot of money to various entities [Real-Life ‘Jerry Maguire’ Facing Jail Over Debts?].
• Maybe Steinberg doesn’t think the general public should be concerned with his issue, but it is certainly a noteworthy subject for this site’s readers [Legendary Agent Leigh Steinberg Responds To Unpaid Debt Charges].
• Hard to believe that Jason Babin only has $5.5 million guaranteed on his 5-year contract [Making a list: best and worst of 2011 contracts].
• More than a dozen lawsuits have been filed since July 2011 [For N.F.L., Concussion Suits May Be Test for Sport Itself].

Basketball

• Arn Tellem and Dan Fegan listed in the “supporting cast” [What Really Happened In The Chris Paul Fiasco].

Shabbat Shalom: Friday Wrap-Up (12/30/2011) from Sports Agent Blog - Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Negotiations, NCAA Rules

Baseball

• But the MLB seems to be doing a better job catching it as of late [Fraud still rampant among Dominican baseball prospects].

Shabbat Shalom: Friday Wrap-Up (10/7/2011) from Sports Agent Blog - Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Negotiations, NCAA Rules

I am on my way up to Gainesville, Florida to return to my alma mater (undergrad and law school) and watch the Gators take on the Alabama Crimson Tide.  I can’t wait to see a lot of friends and watch some good football under the lights at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium (8 p.m. kickoff).  I will return on Sunday and then it’s off to the new office on Monday.  The new law firm is called Wolfe Law Miami.  It will be myself and Richard Wolfe, a very experienced entertainment law attorney.  Our office space is in Brickell (right next to downtown Miami, Florida) in the penthouse of a beautiful building.  Here are some stories I missed over the past week:

Basketball

• David Falk: “I would bet a lot of money that if we miss one or two games, we’re going to miss the whole season.” [Sports agent Falk says entire NBA season is in jeopardy]
• The ultra-punitive measures alternative [NBA owners budge on hard cap demand].
• Tyreke Evans is being counseled by Arn Tellem and “Team Tyreke” [Don’t Curb Your Enthusiasm].

Shabbat Shalom: Friday Wrap-Up (9/30/11) from Sports Agent Blog - Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Negotiations, NCAA Rules

Back in April 2011, HoopsHype reported that Rudy Fernandez sent a termination letter to Andy Miller of ASM Sports and Spanish agency U1st Agency.  At the time, it was only known that Fernandez was signing with Spanish agent David Carro of Hoops Fair Play.  Soon thereafter, Fernandez also signed with Arn Tellem of Wasserman Media Group, which provided him with a strong international agent and a prominent agent within the United States.

Fernandez, a 6’6 shooting guard/small forward, is currently signed to the Dallas Mavericks, but is playing with Real Madrid while the NBA and NBPA try to come to an agreement on a new collective bargaining agreement.  Raul Barrigon recently got a hold of Fernandez and asked him quite a few questions about his role with Real Madrid and the Mavericks, but the following Q&A caught my attention:

Why did you change agents?

Rudy Fernandez: I was not in contact very often with Andy Miller. My agents in Spain handled my day-to-day stuff. I was very happy with Gerard Darnes, Jordi Vila, Nuria Martinez. They were very important for me during my career. But I felt I needed something else… Then there was the issue with the fines, which I didn’t like… Also some other things happened that I didn’t like. Also in order to change my image I needed this. Now I’m with Arn Tellem, Jose Ortiz and David Carro. Pau [Gasol] and Marc [Gasol] said very good things about Tellem and I’m happy about this change.

Rudy Fernandez Happy About His Change To Arn Tellem from Sports Agent Blog - Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Negotiations, NCAA Rules

Sports Agents

• Bill Duffy of BDA Sports will be honored [BESLA Announces 2011 Conference Theme: "INCEPTION: Mastering Entertainment and Sports Paradigms in a Digital Universe"].

Social Media

• Now you know why JR is tweeting with the #YearoftheFan hashtag [How Sports Agent JR Rickert is making this the Year of the Fan].

Skateboarding

• “Skateboarding is really insular. They don’t like their own, much less outsiders coming in.” [AN INTERVIEW WITH CIRCE WALLACE, AGENT]

Basketball

• Arn Tellem visited Lithuania and provided labor updates to his client [European title in hand, Marc Gasol ready to return to Memphis].
• Prominent agent: “The union hasn’t been listening to its players.” [Battle lines drawn for NBA, players, agents].
• Falk isn’t part of the group of agents who want the NBPA to decertify [David Falk implies there'll be a full season or no season at all].

Shabbat Shalom: Friday Wrap-Up (9/23/2011) from Sports Agent Blog - Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Negotiations, NCAA Rules

NBA owners and the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) are certainly not sitting idle.  However, I still do not feel a strong sense of urgency from either side of the bargaining table.  That could soon change, as many prominent basketball agents are making it known that they wish to decertify the NBPA.

Arn Tellem (Wasserman Media Group), Bill Duffy (BDA Sports), Mark Bartlestein (Priority Sports), Dan Fegan (Lagardère Unlimited) and Jeff Schwartz (Excel Sports) have collectively had their names printed by many media outlets over the past week.  These gentlemen have decided that they are in favor of decertification of the players’ union, which would allow their clients to file antitrust lawsuits against the NBA.  As long as the NBPA exists as a certified union of NBA players, the players forfeit their right to sue for any antitrust claims.

Journalists have been quick to point out that the five aforementioned agents collectively represent roughly thirty percent of the active players who comprise the NBPA, which happens to be the percentage of players needed to sign a petition in favor of decertification prior to all players in the union voting on the matter.  Thereafter, a simple majority would effectively decertify the NBPA.

This discussion reminds me of an article written by NBA.com columnist David Aldridge on July 4, 2011, where he said,

Players are much more unified this time around than in ’99, in no small part because [Billy] Hunter has neutered the influence of powerful player agents like Arn Tellem, Mark Bartlestein and Bill Duffy, with an executive committee comprised mainly of middle-class players like Roger Mason, Jr. and Keyon Dooling.)

I wrote a reply, respectfully disagreeing with Aldridge’s assessment.

It is naive to think that the “middle-class players” will control negotiations on the players end, especially when a big problem with the current system is the large dollars that mid-level players are receiving.  The heavy hitting agents will be involved, whether or not they represent any players on the Executive Committee.

At this point in time, it seems as though the major agents are actively involved and will not be ceding control any time soon.  Whether this is a good thing for the NBA, in general, remains to be seen.

Agents In Control Of Collective Bargaining Negotiations For NBA Players from Sports Agent Blog - Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Negotiations, NCAA Rules

It has been a very eventful past couple of weeks for me.  Quite a bit of stuff is still pending; some I wish to keep confidential and other information I feel free to share.  I have accepted a new legal job, which will start in about a week and a half.  I have had an amazing year working at Koch Parafinczuk & Wolf, PA (KPW) in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where I have grown tremendously as a litigator.  I am forever thankful for the opportunity that they gave me.  However, I have been offered a position to work directly with a prominent Entertainment/Intellectual Property attorney who has left his firm to start up a new venture from scratch.  It will be the two of us plus a couple of secretaries, and we will be largely focusing on Entertainment/Sports/Intellectual Property matters.  I will certainly provide more information over the next couple of weeks.  In the meantime, I am wrapping up some work at KPW and handling a lot of other matters that need to be taken care of.  Everyone is talking about this article that was written in The Atlantic this week.  I hope to get a chance to finally read it this weekend.  Here are some stories I missed over the past week:

Basketball

• Thoughts on Adam Silver attending the U.S. open with Casey Wasserman? [NBA players storm Vegas for all-pro 'lockout league,' union meeting].
• Arn Tellem, Bill Duffy, Mark Bartelstein, Jeff Schwartz, and Dan Fegan want the NBPA to decertify [Sources: Agents want union to decertify].
• How the NBA’s lawsuit may preclude decertification of the NBPA [GameTime: Labor Roundtable].

Shabbat Shalom: Friday Wrap-Up (9/16/2011) from Sports Agent Blog - Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Negotiations, NCAA Rules

Some of the hottest baseball players who are eligible for free agency after the 2011 MLB season include Prince Fielder, Jose Reyes, and Albert Pujols (go here for a list of all 2012 MLB free agents).  However, one of the most sought after baseball players may be someone who is currently in MLB affiliated ball.  His name is Yu Darvish and he is from Japan.  He and his agents (Arn Tellem of Wasserman Media Group and Don Nomura) could soon be selling him to the highest bidder, as long as Darvish’s current team (the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters of Japan) posts him, which would allow him to be picked up by an MLB team.  Darvish would be exempt from the posting system if he had 9 or more years of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) service (which he does not).

The MLB posting system is an instrument that regulates the movement of players from the NPB to the MLB.  It effectively provides NPB teams a windfall for losing their best players to the United States.  Instead of NPB players having their choice of what MLB team to go to, MLB teams submit bids to merely win the right to negotiate with the NPB players for 30 days.  This negotiation in the 30 day window is where agents like Arn Tellem and Don Nomura really assist the player.  If a posted NPB player signs a contract with the MLB team in that 30 day window, the player’s former NPB team receives the money from the original bid, which earned the MLB team the limited exclusive right to negotiate with the player and his agents.  The Mariners made a bid of $13.125 million for Ichiro Suzuki and the Red Sox made a bid of $51.1 million for Daisuke Matsuzaka.

Darvish has an interesting background.  His mother is Japanese while his father is Iranian.  His parents met at a small liberal arts school in St. Petersburg, Florida.  Kazuhiro Sasaki of the Seattle Mariners and Takashi Saito of the Milwaukee Brewers went to Darvish’s high school.  Hideki Okajima of the Boston Red Sox and Yoshinori Tateyama of the Texas Rangers played for Darvish’s current professional team in Japan.  And Darvish just happens to be rocking the following numbers this year in the NPB: 1.56 ERA, 10.2 K/9, 1.4 BB/9, and 0.20 HR/9.  He also will only be 25-years-old if/when he is posted.

Arn Tellem/Don Nomura Planning For Yu Darvish’s Posting from Sports Agent Blog - Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Negotiations, NCAA Rules