The names of the marketing representatives designated on the MRNs will be released by NFL PLAYERS to interested third parties.  It is suggested that all players with exclusive marketing representatives fill out the MRN form and send a completed original to the Player Services department at NFL PLAYERS (NFL PLAYERS, Attn: Dexter Santos, Player Services, 1133 20th St, NW, Washington, DC 20036).  NFL PLAYERS suggests that completed MRN forms be sent by certified mail or overnight delivery.

The MRN form is embedded below.

NFLPLAYERS MRN

NFL PLAYERS Requesting Marketing Representation Notices (MRNs) from Sports Agent Blog - Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Negotiations, NCAA Rules

At the end of May, the NFL cancelled its yearly rookie symposium, which is open to all players selected in that year’s NFL Draft.  Historically, topics discussed at the symposium have included financial planning, indoctrination into the NFL, and how to be a professional on and off the field.  But then the NFL Players Association decided to pick up the slack and announced a replacement for the scrapped rookie symposium – “The Business of Football: Rookie Edition.”  Originally, it was supposed to be held in Washington D.C.  It was moved to IMG Academies in Bradenton, Florida, and will go from June 27 – June 30.

Today (5 p.m. EST) is the final day for 2011 drafted players to register for the event.  It includes an all-expense paid trip to Bradenton, Florida, free workouts and expert coaching at IMG Academies, networking opportunities with Joe Gibbs, Herm Edwards, Plaxico Burress, and Luther Ellis, and the following agenda:

Monday, June 27th

• 10:00am to 4:00pm – Arrivals
• 6:00pm to 7:30pm – Dinner
• 8:00pm to 8:30pm – De Smith Intro
• 8:30pm to 9:00pm – Expectations presented by Player Advisors
• 9:00pm to 10:00pm – General Session
• 10:30pm – Snacks
• 11:00pm – Curfew

Tuesday, June 28th

• 8:00am to 9:30am – Breakfast
• 10:00am to 12:00pm – 2 Groups: Performance Evaluations & Total Athlete and Game-On Program
• 12:00pm to 2:00pm – Lunch
• 2:00pm to 4:00pm – Groups Switch: Performance Evaluations & Total Athlete and Game-On Program
• 4:00pm to 6:00pm – Player workout available
• 6:00pm to 7:30pm – Dinner
• 8:00pm to 9:00pm – General Session
• 9:00pm to 10:00pm – Advisor Topics TBD
• 10:30pm – Snacks
• 11:00pm – Curfew

Wednesday, June 29th

• 8:00am to 9:30am – Breakfast
• 10:00am to 12:00pm Community Outreach TBD
• 12:00pm to 2:00pm Lunch
• 2:00pm to 4:00pm General Session
• 4:00pm to 6:00pm Player Workouts
• 6:00pm to 7:30pm Dinner
• 8:00pm to 9:00pm General Session
• 9:00pm to 10:00pm Advocate Topics TBD
• 10:30pm Snacks
• 11:00pm Curfew

Thursday, June 30th

• Breakfast and departures

If you are an athlete who was drafted or are an agent who had a client drafted and still wish to RSVP for the event, contact Jason Belser, Senior Director of Player Services and Development at jason.belser@nflplayers.com.

The Business of Football: Rookie Edition Agenda from Sports Agent Blog - Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Negotiations, NCAA Rules

Baseball

• This happened earlier this year. Went from Bobby Barad to Melvin Roman [Jaime Garcia Changed Agents].

Sports Business

• Where is it going to come from, how do you decide which athletes are paid, is it just in revenue-producing sports, etc.? [The Problems With Paying College Athletes]

Baseball

• Players who are hitting triple provide quite a bit of value [Properly Valuing Hit Types].

Golf

• The new breed of super agents includes Chubby Chandler [Golf's biggest players: Who are the super agents running the game?].

Football

• July 1 certainly seems like a key date [Is the UFL the real winner of the NFL lockout?]
• John Phillips calls Rosenhaus a “toybox” and “an ATM Machine” [Drew Rosenhaus- Dissecting the Self Proclaimed "Shark"]
• I wrote about Florida’s attempt to protect itself from this on our sister site, ChangeLegal.com [NFL players prefer pursuing workers’ compensation claims in California].
• Take a look at those legal fees! [Yet another reason to bench the lawyers]

Shabbat Shalom: Friday Wrap-Up (6/17/2011) from Sports Agent Blog - Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Negotiations, NCAA Rules

If you combine the weight of Aaron Kampman (Jacksonville Jaguars), Russell Allen (Jacksonville Jaguars), Craig Terrill (Seattle Seahawks), and Jordy Nelson (Green Bay Packers), you have something that weighs approximately 1,000 pounds.  Yet the enormous size of those four NFL players does not compare to the size of their hearts.  Each one of them have been instrumental in helping poverty-stricken children in El Salvador have the ability to go to school and receive health care, nutritional supplements, and regular meals.

Recently, in conjunction with Compassion International, Kampman, Allen, and Terrill traveled to El Salvador to visit the children that they have sponsored.  Nelson was unable to make the trip due to his injury, but the other players visited his sponsored child (named Rudy) in his stead.

“Rudy didn’t care about the T-shirts and sports paraphernalia we brought him – which was surprising for someone who has probably never received his own, brand-new shirt,” said Allen. ”The entire time we spent with him, he gripped the photo of Jordy and asked repeatedly, ‘you really know my sponsor.’”

While some NFL players are mouthing off to journalists about how much they love the down-time from the NFL Lockout, there are many players who are taking the time off to actually do some good for others.  Kampman, Allen, Terrill, and Nelson should be rewarded with our admiration for their noble efforts to help others far away who are in need.

Four NFL Players Help Children In El Salvador from Sports Agent Blog - Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Negotiations, NCAA Rules

A month after Getlin’s article, The Daily published an article titled, In The Pocket: Some NFL players turn to high-risk loans to make ends meet.  Lenders, former athletes, and even yours truly were interviewed for the piece, which really dug deep into the borrowing practices of NFL players during the 2011 offseason.

So what interest rates are unconscionable, and what rates are reasonable?  I asked my good friend Leon McKenzie of Sure Sports Lending in Fort Lauderdale, Florida his thoughts.  He stated,

There are a lot of viable solutions out there.  Unfortunately, conventional credit markets don’t readily make themselves available to professional athletes due to the athlete’s short-term revenue streams and public perception of athletes as wasteful.  Sure Sports Lending has spent the last three years educating and creating underwriting guidelines in a network of regional and community banks.  We underwrite everything in-house and fund these loans directly through these banks with unsecured loans beginning at 6%.

McKenzie’s experience in the lending of money to athletes, which derives from his years in banking as a senior credit analyst, spans over five years and includes loans to players in the NFL, NBA, MLB & even the EPL (English Premiere League).

Just as there are unscrupulous sports agents, there are unethical lenders, but there are also many lenders who are not pumping money to players under obscene terms.  As far as one financial adviser suggesting that close to 50% of NFL players will secure lending if the NFL lockout goes on past Labor Day, McKenzie says,

It certainly could happen.  The average NFl career lasts 3.5 years and the average rookie is 22 years old, so we are talking about a lot of players between 22-25 years old.  Most players are a lot closer to the minimum salary, just above $250k, than those with Payton Manning numbers.    It is difficult for a 24 year old to go 8 months without a paycheck.  Now we’re asking what happens if it goes another 12 months?…a lot of players will be looking.

And in response to a financial adviser saying that lenders are getting fees of $100,000-$150,000 from players, McKenzie responds,

We service some unconventional loans in-house through our private investors, but we place most of our loans with one of our 37 affiliated banks around the country.  In doing so, we typically charge right around 3% of the total proceeds of the loan.

Based on the recent number of articles regarding NFL player loans and the amount of traction it has received in the sports and lending industries, McKenzie believes that more high-priced lenders, like Big League Funding, will try to enter the niche lending space.  Most will do it with leery investors seeking large spoils at the expense of these athletes without a firm understanding of lending against a player’s contracted salary. But most of these lenders attract a player looking for funds and then go out to investors, as opposed to having money readily available like Pro Player Funding.

McKenzie encourages players, managers, advisors and other industry professionals to only use their existing banking relationships or established businesses such as Sure Sports Lending that deal exclusively with sports lending.  Sure Sports Lending can still place your loan with Pro Player Funding or Big League Funding or any of the other private lenders, if they truly offer the best terms for the player’s needs.  But McKenzie says that his company can also provide financing through its affiliated banks at rates up to 75% less than those private lenders.

Players should be skeptical of any lending that requires the loan to be to a business with the player as a guarantor.  That practice is an effort to charge the player terms that would otherwise be usurious.  Before players accept any loans, they should always consult with their attorneys or financial professionals.

NFL Players Must Halt Borrowing Money At Unconscionable Rates from Sports Agent Blog - Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Negotiations, NCAA Rules

Every year, all players selected in the NFL Draft are invited to the Pro Football Hall of Fame to partake in a rookie symposium.  Topics discussed at the symposium include financial planning, indoctrination into the NFL, and how to be a professional on and off the field.  This year’s rookie symposium was scheduled for June 26, 2011.  It has been called off more than a month in advance of its scheduled date.  That cannot be a good sign with regards to the Lockout ending any time soon.  More important at this point in the Lockout, though, is that drafted players gain access to their teams’ playbooks.  Most drafted players are continuing to workout privately, but are not yet learning their teams’ plays.  This could turn out to be a huge negative impact of the prolonged Lockout.

Player education programs were also scheduled for NFL players at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University.  Those financial programs were scheduled for March and were also unfortunate casualties of the NFL Lockout.  In the past, sessions also took place at the Kellogg School of Management (Northwestern University) and Stanford Graduate School of Business.  These programs have been a part of the NFL Business Management and Entrepreneurial Program, which is part of the NFL and the NFLPA’s efforts to prepare players for their post-playing careers.  Roughly 100 NFL players enroll in this program per year.

We covered the Wharton program two years ago on Sports Agent Blog.  Here is some of what players missed out on in 2011:

The Wharton program focuses on a broad range of business topics, including financial analysis, entrepreneurship, real estate development, stock market investing, negotiation skills, risk management, and community reinvestment.  Attendees work on directed as well as individual real estate, entrepreneurial and personal finance projects during the month between the program’s two sessions.

Players must apply to the program; applications are judged on criteria including previous education, leadership in the community, business experience, and interest in owning or managing a business.  In addition, the cost of the program is covered.  In fact, the under the current CBA, players can be reimbursed up to $15,000 a year for education at accredited institutions.

Players have the opportunity to explore a multitude of topics and opportunities that they can look to when their days on the field are over.  Drew Brees, who previously attended the program at the Wharton School, was among the players that showed up at Stanford this year.  Despite being in the middle of a 6-year, $60 million contract with the Saints, the star quarterback has shown a dedication to preparing for life after football.  Like Brees, Jaguars offensive linemen Maurice Williams is returning to the program; after attending the Stanford program in 2007, the veteran has enrolled in this year’s program at Wharton.  But the list of attendees doesn’t just include veterans; young guns like Brady Quinn will also take part in the educational opportunity.

These programs do not make the headlines in any discussion regarding the NFL Lockout, but tend to have the potential to play a huge role in the development of NFL players off the field.  As mentioned in our story from two years, ago, the average NFL career lasts three-and-a-half seasons (depending on who you talk to).  Players need to be thinking about life after football.  The programs set up by the NFL and the NFLPA give the players the tools to start planning for the future.  Those tools were stripped away from players due to this year’s Lockout.

No NFL Rookie Symposium, Player Education Programs from Sports Agent Blog - Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Negotiations, NCAA Rules

Football

• The New England Patriots follow draft prospects on Twitter as part of the scouting process [Quick-hit thoughts around NFL & Pats].
• Particular focus on item 7. Will the players stay unified during the lockout? [Ruling in favor of NFL, lockout extension set up key June decision]
• The Houston Texans have more players on Twitter than any other team [Twitter sense for NFL players].

Baseball

• The Rays have 12 of the first 89 picks in the 2011 Draft and 10 of the first 60 [Rays readying to make most of Draft bounty].
• Agents have a vested interest to fight implementation of a slotting system [Sides dig in for battle over slotting in draft].
• Boras says that Eric Hosmer will have his own market [Boras shoots down idea of Royals locking up Hosmer].

Basketball

• Eric Goodwin makes sure to mention his previous work with LeBron and Dwight [Kevin Durant's Marketability On The Rise].

Sports Business

• PAFI stands for the Professional Athlete Franchise Initiative [Sports agents team with PAFI to prepare clients for career transition].

Shabbat Shalom: Friday Wrap-Up (5/20/2011) from Sports Agent Blog - Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Negotiations, NCAA Rules

A few weeks ago, Jason Schwartz of The Daily (News Corp’s new iPad magazine) contacted me because he was working on a story about how NFL players are weathering the Lockout financially and wanted to hear about my thoughts with regards to the loans being taken out by these players.  He ended up getting quite a group of industry leaders to contribute to his piece (IN THE POCKET: Some NFL players turn to high-risk loans to make ends meet)

Here is my contribution:

Another reason players are borrowing now — before even missing a major payday — is that they may be afraid credit will dry up if the lockout continues into the NFL season, said Darren Heitner, an agent and the author of sportsagentblog.com. After all, if interest rates are this high now, what will they be like when players start to miss game checks and lenders know they are even less likely to be repaid?

Other quotes in the article come from Deion Sanders, Rick Smith of Priority Sports, Leon McKenzie of Sure Sports Lending, Jason Yorker of AGR Sports Funding, three-time Pro Bowl tight end Chad Lewis, and Ted Reid of Morgan Stanley.

I’m not going to judge as to whether guys like Yorker are in the right or wrong with regards to offering loans fully equipped with 30% interest rates.  What I will say is that it is sad that it has gotten to the point where such loans are necessary.  Are athletes looking for lower interest rate loans and just not finding them?  NFL owners will recognize that players are above their heads in debt and will use it to their advantage to break the ranks within the NFLPA the longer that this Lockout persists.

NFL Lockout Fallout: Players Taking High-Risk Loans from Sports Agent Blog - Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Negotiations, NCAA Rules

What:

When: Monday, May 2, 2011 (6:00 p.m. – 8 p.m.)

Where: New York University School of Law - Lipton Hall, D’Agostino Hall (108 West Third Street, New York, NY)

Bruce S. Meyer, Esq., of Weil, Gotshal & Manges discusses with Prof. Samuel Estreicher recent developments in Brady v. National Football League – the background of the litigation, which centers on the players’ contention that the NFL amateur draft, salary cap, and restrictions upon free agents violate Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act, and the recent preliminary injunction in favor of the players to halt the March lockout initiated by the NFL.

Mr. Meyer’s firm is lead counsel to the NFL players in Brady, and he is part of the team that is handling the case.  Prof. Estreicher is Dwight D. Opperman Professor of Law and director of the Center for Labor and Employment Law at NYU School of Law.

2.0 hours of New York CLE credits are available for attending. Click here to register for the event.

The Intersection Of Sports, Labor Law & Antitrust Law from Sports Agent Blog - Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Negotiations, NCAA Rules

The dry and dirty: The motion for a preliminary injunction on the NFL Lockout was granted.

If you want a nice history lesson, start reading from the beginning of the opinion.  Otherwise, skip to page 13 and pay close attention to the following blurb:

A lockout occurs when an employer lays off or ‘locks out’ its unionized employees during a labor dispute to bring economic pressure in support of the employer’s bargaining position. See American Ship Bldg. Co. v.N.L.RB., 380 U.S. 300, 301-302 (1965) (permitting management lockouts as a collective bargaining negotiating tool, as a counterpart to a union’s right to strike).

From here on, you know what Judge Nelson is going to say.  Since the players were technically not unionized when the NFL decided to lock out the players, it was technically not a justifiable lockout.  Read on and you will understand that Judge Nelson did not believe the decertification of the NFLPA as a union to be any sort of sham.

To justify an injunction on the lockout, the Plaintiffs had to show irreparable harm had it stayed in place.  This is the type of harm which cannot be tied to a particular dollar amount.  The other three elements needed to be proven were: fair chance at success on the merits, the irreparable harm outweighs the harm an injunction would cause the NFL, and that the injunction was in the public interest.  Shout out to agents Frank Bauer, Tom Condon, Neil Cornrich, Tony Agnone, William Vann McElroy, Donald Yee, and Neil Schwartz for providing persuasive declarations to the Judge.  Even more persuasive were the cited cases with authority where the Court “recognized that the threat of harm shown by Plaintiffs here, including lost playing time, constitutes irreparable harm.”

The Norris-LaGuardia Act of 1935: The NFL wanted to use this Act to preclude injunctive relief, but failed in its effort.  It failed because Judge Nelson found that the Plaintiffs were no longer represented by a Union, which is something the NFL continues to dispute, stating that decertification was a sham and that the NFLPA is still practically the same unit as it was prior to its purported transition to a trade association.  Judge Nelson also did not buy the NFL’s argument that the question of whether decertification was a sham or not was a decision to be made exclusively by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to decide, and/or that she should hold off on granting an injunction until after the NLRB ruled on the NFL’s unfair labor practice charge (regarding the supposed sham decertification).’

Skip to the end of page 24 and Judge Nelson starts to attack some of the NFL’s arguments, finding different interpretations of the holdings in cases cites by the NFL in an effort to defend its position.

Page 32 in bold: The Minimal, If Any, Benefit That Might Be Derived From Seeking The NLRB’s Expertise Here Is Clearly Outweighed By The Delay Involved, Particularly Where The Players Are Incurring Ongoing Irreparable Harm.  And there is the money shot.  Even though the NLRB has expertise with regards to decertification, Judge Nelson did not believe that staying the action and referring it to the NLRB was worth the substantial delay and continuance of irreparable harm.  Further, Judge Nelson did not think that an expert was necessary to analyze the decertification.

Here is another money shot on page 35: But there is no legal support for any requirement that a disclaimer be permanent. Employees have the right not only to organize as a union but also to refrain from such representation and, as relevant here, to “de-unionize.” 29 U.S.C. § 157

NFL Players Show Irreparable Harm; Preliminary Injunction On Lockout Is Granted from Sports Agent Blog - Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Negotiations, NCAA Rules