Darren Rovell has a very interesting piece on his blog that describes the development of Jack Marucci’s bat company, which has its products used by some of Major League Baseball’s best hitters.  Marucci’s clientele includes Pujols, Howard, Ibanez, and Teixeira…hitters who come to mind when you think of “power swing”.  I agree that it is interesting that Marucci has not paid any players to use his bats or endorse his product.  There is no stronger endorsement than a person using a product out of pure choice, with no monetary consideration involved in the equation.  It is also very rare that a professional would do this, and actually pay for the product (or have his team pay for it), instead of getting free product at a minimum (and possibly being paid to use the product, if it is a prominent player).

Not everyone has a product that players may willingly purchase, however.  With that statement in mind, I thought that this was a particularly telling part of Rovell’s piece:

As for whether big hits by players using his bats help out sales?

“We see it,” Marucci said. “Someone watches Jason Werth hit a home run last night. They see our logo in the paper or during the replay -– HD has helped us a ton -– and they find us.”

So while Marucci does not pay for this beneficial publicity, the quoted passage says a lot about endorsements, in general.  Players and fans have no idea whether Jayson Werth is paid to use the Marucci bat when he steps up to the plate, but they are paying attention to the equipment that successful players are using.  This should be of use to companies deciding whether it is worth it to supply free equipment to players and their agencies of record, in exchange for the use of such equipment in the hope that someone will notice it and possibly make a related purchase, or at least spread word about the company.  For the higher-end players, free equipment may not be enough, and actual payments to the player may be justified by the increase of exposure, especially in an era where practically everyone has an HD TV.

One of the biggest weekends of the year in Gainesville, FL.  While Tennessee looked pretty weak against UCLA, the Gators should never take them for granted.  HHR looks at arguments for both teams.  Happy Rosh Hashanah to all my Jewish people!  Leigh Steinberg will be on the new Jewish Sports Hall of Fame of Northern California Wall of Fame.  How about my client, Pete Parise?  He has appeared in all 5 of the AAA Memphis Redbirds postseason games, racking up 4 saves in the process without giving up a single run.  I’m just a little excited about that.  Here are some stories I missed over the past week:

Baseball

• Another great piece by Doug Glanville.  He is turning out to be an excellent writer [Keeping It Real].

Football

• Tank Black tells his story for the first time [Tanked!].
• A football agent’s life, month by month [The agent cycle].
• Jake Delhomme isn’t losing his endorsement deals anytime soon [He can throw; can he pitch?].
• Put a client on a practice squad before sending him to the Browns? Harsh [Sources: Agents steering players away from Browns].
• The Patriots were the driving force behind the 5-year maximum length of rookie contracts drafted #17-32 overall [Patriots’ role in altered CBA ‘clarified’].

Entertainment

• He’s playing an agent on a show girls love [Interview with Robert Buckley, The New Ladies' Man on 'One Tree Hill'].

Sports Business

• From the geek at the sports network to the cool guy at the business network [Darren Rovell: CNBC’s Multi-Beat, Multi-Platform Game-Changer].

Sports Agents

• Bill Duffy gets on the Honorable Mention list [The top 25 Bay Area sports power players].

Baseball

• Interestingly structured contracts [Diamondbacks To Pay Bernard Gilkey Until 2017].
• Upper Deck can’t use team logos…going to be tricky to get around that [Topps Gets Exclusive Deal With Baseball, Landing a Blow to Upper Deck].
• 22nd rounder gets $990,000 signing bonus [Coffey Gets Unprecedented Deal].

Football

• Darren Rovell is not a fan of how Vick has treated the media post-jail time [Michael Vick’s Next Mistake: His Media Plan].
• Jerome Stanley is pissed [Agent points to Mangini for WR's injury].
• What problem would IMG have with the contract? [CAA and IMG squabble keeping Eli Manning from signing Giants contract].

Basketball

• Last year, 18 of the 60 NBA draftees spent time in the NBA D-League [Rookie Transition].

Lottery picks are not stupid, and neither are their parents, AAU coaches, handlers, and whoever else might be involved in the agent selection process.  In most circumstances, agents for lottery picks do not make a dime off of the initial contract.  The first time they will make commission on a team deal will be in the second contract, which will be very lucrative for those rookies who outperform the competition.  If the contractual agent is not also acting as the marketing agent for the player, that means that the agent will be working pro bono for quite some time.  To make matters worse, other agents will be hawking at your lottery pick client nonstop.  If the client leaves you, you may lose quite a lot of money and time over this kid who was supposed to be “The One” to bring your agency to the top.

Recruiting money is never paid back, but often times, lottery picks will basically pay back the costs of workouts and travel expenses that the agent incurred in the pre-draft process.  You can call that a commission on the first contract, if you’d like.  Rovell is correct, most agents who represent lottery picks actually lose money…their hope is that long-term, these athletes end up paying for themselves and much more.

Sports Business

• Think you have what it takes to run Darren Rovell’s blog over at CNBC? [Write My Blog Contest--Your Chance To Blog Right Here!]
• Divorced athletes and their child support options [Negotiating The Professional Athlete’s Child Support Obligations].
• Something makes me think endorsers are just going to love this new column…[Endorsement "Fraud" Central].
• Peyton Manning, Derek Jeter, and Dell Computers? [CAA hired to upgrade Dell].

NFL

• They want $100 million collectively for the use of their likeness [More than 2,000 former players sue NFLPA].

NBA

• After all the Redick speculation, he remains a part of the Magic [Magic pick up option on guard Redick].
• No matter where you go overseas, the people sweat Kobe [Dwyane Wade’s jersey drops in popularity in Europe].

MLB

• Michael Brantley was recently acquired by the Cleveland Indians in the C.C. Sabathia trade.  His agent, Josh Kusnnick spoke about the trade and life as an agent in a recent radio interview [Smoke Signals].

• Derrick Rose is going to Chicago.  The city of Chicago is already preparing for tomorow.  No link necessary.
• Darren Rovell thinks that he has influence in the nickname department.  If so, then I think he should tell O.J. Mayo to heavily consider using the name, “The Mayo Clinic” [You Pick The Nickname For O.J. Mayo].  It is so damn goofy, that it may just work.  I am not sure that Nike will approve; however, after the company officially inked the one time Trojan to a 4-year deal.
• Is Joe Alexander more marketable than Mr. Mayo?  He has the advantage of growing up in the Far East and being fluent in Mandarin.  He may be one of the few players in this draft actually hoping to get picked by the Milwaukee Bucks.
• On second thought, maybe Joe is not as marketable in Milwaukee if this trade between the Bucks and Nets is true…
• Check out how Jerryd Bayless prepared for the big day.  He bought a black range rover with black rims and packed a light load for NY.  In the video, he is sporting a nice JB shirt with a Nike swoosh.  Is that a sign that he will be aligning himself with the Nike brand?
• Lots of questions surrounding Trent Plaisted [Plaisted finishes workout routine with Jazz; now awaits Thursday's draft].
• The Pacers now have the 11th and 17th pick in the first round…if the speculation is true [Raptors call O'Neal trade "speculation"].

Nike may have a basic monopoly in the shoe industry, but it is a stronghold that the company has no intentions of giving up.  Thus, I believe that Nike will continue to shell out big money to those at the top of their game.  I also do not beleive that the power has dramatically shifted from the players and agents to the shoe company owners.  As Julie Creswell of the New York Times recently noted, Nothing Sells Like Celebrity.

“The reality is people want a piece of something they can’t be,” says Eli Portnoy, a branding strategist. “They live vicariously through the products and services that those celebrities are tied to. Years from now, our descendants may look at us and say, ‘God, these were the most gullible people who ever lived.’”

“As consumers, we see over 3,156 images a day. We’re just not conscious of them,” says Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst of the consumer research firm NPD Group. “Our subconscious records maybe 150, and only 30 or so reach our conscious behavior. If I have a celebrity as part of that message, I just accelerated the potential for my product to reach the conscious of the consumer.”

As someone who actively looks for endorsement opportunities for his clients, I am not worried at the fact that none of the top names in this year’s NBA Draft have yet to bind themselves to wearing a particular type of shoe for the next few years.  Consumers will continue to flock to products that are endorsed by the top players in their respective sports, and the companies that make their revenue off of sports will remain aligned with the theory that nothing sells like celebrity.

I first heard about WallMonkeys when Darren Rovell featured it as 2007’s winter season holiday gift of the year. I had seen FatHead commercials over and over again and had long wondered who the hell purchased the things. Personally, I do not want to post up a life-size image of Troy Aikman or Mike Piazza in my dining room. But maybe there is a market for giant sized posters. Jason Weisenthal, President of WallMonkeys.com definitely thinks so.

Perhaps you do not want Troy Aikman staring at you when you wake up, but maybe you want a life-size picture of your son or daughter. I thought it would be cool to see what Jason could do with Dynasty Athlete Representation’s logo, so I sent it his way and the image at the top of this post is the end result. The image is printed on Photo-Tex, which Jason claims to be the best material available to stick on your wall. I have not yet taken the backing off to make it automatically stick to a surface, but I can tell that it works like a charm. My only beef with the finished product is that the colors are a little bit off of what I submitted. But for the starting price of $54.99, one really can’t complain. You can get a nice background logo to place in your office at a cheap price.

The beauty of WallMonkeys is that your options are not only limited to sports figures or company logos. As long as you have a JPEG file, Jason will accept your money and ship your product in 3-5 business days. Not sure what to blow up and smack on your wall? The company provides a top 10 idea list. They also provide an easy instruction form for applying your finished product…if a cartoon monkey can do it, then so can you.

Overall, I am pleased with what I received in the mail. It is definitely not a product that is necessary for any person, but is a nice addition to a room if you have a few extra bucks to spend.

If you are interested in having your product reviewed on this website, please contact us for further information.

Falk: …I wanted to meet a college player who I really enjoyed watching this year. So I asked a friend of mine, who is a very powerful man in the game, to introduce me to him. And he said, “I’d like to help but I can’t.” And when I asked why. He said, “You are three years and $500,000 short.”

For the past week, everyone has wanted to know who that very powerful man is. Falk talked to Henry Abbott of ESPN about his statement, but did not reveal any real useful information…other than the fact that he has a fascination with Crocodile Dundee. One thing we know is that the very powerful man is not William Wesley, although he is definitely a very powerful man in the world of basketball. The very powerful man cited could be William Wesley. In fact, a lot of people are putting their money on the fact that Worldwide Wes is the contact. However, Falk makes sure to point out that Wes was not the person who paid the player. Sorry for the previous confusion. But back to Crocodile Dundee. Abbott’s gets five stars on his reporting for getting this quote out of Falk:

Have you seen Crocodile Dundee 2? There’s a part where an African-American guy comes up to Paul Hogan and pulls a switchblade on him. Hogan is from the outback, and asks, what’s that? And the guy says that’s a knife. Hogan says that’s not a knife. THIS is a knife, and then he pulls out this huge machete.

Sometimes I think that I’d like to be like Crocodile Dundee. You want to cheat? Let’s really cheat. You want to pay someone $500,000? Let’s pay them $5 million and see what happens. You want to do that?

But … can you get that money back? Of course not. You lose before you even start. If you pay people $500,000 to get to represent them at the draft — the minute you have to pay them is the minute you can no longer advise them as an impartial agent.

Honestly, I see Falk’s point. Using a Crocodile Dundee reference to make it is an interesting tactic. Somewhere Michael Jordan is really confused.