Larry Johnson is not the only athlete who needs a lesson on social media best practices.  There are many others who have the potential of being in his shoes, or worse, in the future.  It is very easy to write a 140 character (or less) message and click send, immediately blasting those words to the world.  That is why it is so important for athletes and their agents to be very careful in implementing a solid social media policy.  Speaking of agents…

Agents also have to be careful about what they tweet.  Their words do not only reflect on their own image, but affect their clients as well.  If an agent is posting controversial tweets, it could affect the way that others perceive him and his clients.  Agents are known to frequently tweet about their clients (as a side note, we are putting together a master list of sports agents on Twitter.  Follow that list by clicking here.), but rarely do you see an agent talking bad about another person’s clients.  Especially when the player is a direct competitor of your client.  It just seems like a bad practice.

A few days ago, though, Allan Walsh (@walsha) did just that.  The hockey agent for Octagon who represents Montreal Canadians goalie, Jaroslav Halak, tweeted:

“Interesting stat of the night….Price is 10W, 32L in last 42 starts. Hmm.”

Walsh was referring to starting goaltender, Carey Price.  The tweet has been deleted from Walsh’s account since the it was covered by various media outlets.  It is not that Walsh is right or wrong about his statement, and he is definitely entitled to his opinion, but perhaps it is better that he keep that opinion to his close friends and not share it with the world on Twitter.  It got Walsh a lot of publicity, but that is not our goal as agents; it is doing the best for our clients.  Does the tweet help out Halak at all?

Walsh responded to the criticism he received from the tweet with the following statement:

“It was a tongue in cheek comment not meant to be taken seriously, forgot it was Montreal and everyone loses a sense of humor.”

I tweet about athletes who are not my clients, and sometimes I may even make jokes about them.  But I have never written a bad tweet about a direct competitor of one of my clients.  For instance, I would not tweet about how poorly another reliever was doing on the AAA Memphis Redbirds squad while Pete Parise was the closer.  That type of discussion is better reserved for talks behind closed doors with management.  The point will still be heard by the other side of the table, without the additional public embarrassment for all parties.

• Aaron Curry, LB, Seattle Seahawks (4th overall pick) – Octagon
• Andre Smith, T, Cincinnati Bengals (6th overall pick) – GMG Sports (Alvin Keels)
• Eugene Monroe, T, Jacksonville Jaguars (8th overall pick) – 320 Sports
• B.J. Raji, DL, Green Bay Packers (9th overall pick) – Athletes First
• Michael Crabtree, WR, San Francisco 49ers (10th overall pick) – Maximum Sports (Eugene Parker)
• Aaron Maybin, DE, Buffalo Bills (11th overall pick) – BEST (Blue Equity)

Creative Artists Agency (CAA), the company with the most amount of first-round selections (9), has all of its clients in camp with Malcolm Jenkins putting pen to paper on a 5-year, $19 million deal.  While the rest of the agencies listed are hoping to get exorbitant contracts for their clients, to use the figures in their recruitment packages for the 2010 class of draft-eligible players, CAA can boast that not only did the company have the highest number of first-round picks, but got them all signed before other big companies like Athletes First and Octagon, small companies with 1 first-round pick like 320 Sports, and signed their boys for good money.  You better believe that Todd France of FAAM will be using the same strategy on the recruitment trail over the next year.

Which method will win out?  The agents who have their clients holdout/threaten to sit out a year well into training camp, or those who get their boys signed for good money and get their boys into camp before the middle of August?

Let’s look at CAA’s basketball division, first.  Before hiring Henry Thomas, CAA already boasted three strong basketball agents: Leon Rose, Andre Buck, and Steven Heumann.  Heumann mostly deals with the high profile overseas players and those born outside of the U.S. who now play in the NBA (think Omri Casspi).  Andre Buck is up-and-coming, and serves as the primary agent for guys like Jason Thompson, Aaron Brooks, and Renaldo Balkman.  Then there is Leon Rose, who has LeBron James, O.J. Mayo, Jonny Flynn, Allen Iverson, Richard Hamilton…the list goes on.  The key thing that I notice with Henry Thomas’s arrival is that LBJ and D-Wade are now under the same roof.  The two most marketable basketball players (you can throw Dwight Howard in at #3 in my book) are at CAA.  Interestingly, though, LBJ has his own marketing company, so CAA, the sports marketing juggernaut, does not reap rewards from that account.  D-Wade will bring in some nice profits, though.  He recently switched from repping Converse to the Jordan Brand (both owned by Nike).

In yesterday’s post, I alluded to Jason Belzer’s Sports Agency Power Rankings.  The list was created a year ago, and I think that he would agree with me that the pecking order should be changed.  I believe that the top 4 are now CAA, WMG, Octagon, and BEST.  WMG, Octagon, and BEST are not all that far from one another, but all 3 are a giant step below CAA, in my opinion.

A key question is: How does one compete?  One thing is sure, you are not going to beat CAA by playing its game.  The company does not have unlimited resources, but something close to it.  They have more connections to producers, directors, potential sponsors, etc, so you can’t out-promise Creative Artists Agency on providing more avenues outside of the field/court.  What you can beat CAA at (possibly) is personal care.  CAA is the largest sports agency in terms of quality of clients and track-record of agents, but they are not interested in players who are going to be taken Day 2 of the NFL Draft, beyond the 10th round of the MLB Rule 4 Draft, or un-drafted basketball players (for the most part).  In fact, even if you are a 2nd round NFL draft pick, do you want to be splitting time with Matt Stafford?  If you are a 4th round pick, will you get the same attention as Derek Jeter?  LeBron Jame and Dwayne Wade might get a few more phone calls then a 2nd round NBA draft pick.

A lot of athletes crave attention.  They also want someone that they can relate to.  Personal relationships mean a lot in this business.  Just because CAA is growing by the day and seems like it is a company that is beyond competition, does not mean that it is immune to losing some big potential clients to a boutique firm that knows what it is doing and can connect with the athletes.  Don’t fight CAA at its strengths, find out what your own strengths are and use those to impress future clients.

All of that being said, CAA sure got a lot stronger with its latest acquisition.

First Round

1. Clippers - Blake Griffin PF/C – Agency: Excel Sports Management
2. Grizzlies – Hasheem Thabeet C – Agency: BDA Sports
3. Thunder – James Harden SG – Agency: Landmark Sports Agency
4. Kings - Tyreke Evans PG/SG – Agency: Wasserman Media Group
5. Timberwolves – Ricky Rubio PG – Agency: BEST
6. Timberwolves - Jonny Flynn PG – Agency: CAA
7. Warriors - Stephen Curry PG/SG – Agency: Octagon
8. Knicks - Jordan Hill PF – Agency: BDA Sports
9. Raptors - Demar DeRozan SG/SF – Agency: Goodwin Sports Management
10. Bucks - Brandon Jennings PG – Agency: BDA Sports
11. Nets - Terrence Williams SG/SF – Agency: Goodwin Sports Management
12. Bobcats – Gerald Henderson SG – Agency: Wasserman Media Group
13. Pacers – Tyler Hansbrough PF – Agency: Excel Sports Management
14. Suns - Earl Clark SF/PF – Agency: BEST
15. Pistons - Austin Daye SF/PF – Agency: BDA Sports
16. Bulls - James Johnson SF/PF – Agency: Wasserman Media Group
17. 76ers - Jrue Holiday PG/SG – Agency: BEST
18. Timberwolves – Ty Lawson PG – Agency: Peake Management Group
19. Hawks - Jeff Teague PG/SG – Agency: BDA Sports
20. Jazz - Eric Maynor PG – Agency: ASM Sports
21. Hornets - Darren Collison PG – Agency: BDA Sports
22. Trailblazers – Victor Claver PF – Agency: Wasserman Media Group
23. Kings – Omri Casspi SF/PF – Agency: CAA
24. Mavericks – B.J. Mullens C – Agency: ASM Sports
25. Thunder – Rodrigue Beaubois PG – Agency: Comsport
26. Bulls – Taj Gibson PF – Agency: Priority Sports
27. Grizzlies – DeMarre Carroll SF/PF – Agency: Priority Sports
28. Timberwolves – Wayne Ellington SG – Agency: Wasserman Media Group
29. Knicks – Toney Douglas PG/SG – Agency: FAME
30. Cavaliers - Christian Eyenga SG/SF – Agency: ASM Sports

Notes:

• Leading up to the draft, I really liked that Goodwin Sports Management was doing to get its clients connected on social networks.  My man Nate Jones, a law student at UCLA, has been doing a great job helping out Aaron Goodwin and Co. on publicizing GSM client Twitter accounts and setting up Rookie Chronicles.
• BDA Sports seems to have dodged any potential negative recruiting ramifications from the company’s involvement with the O.J. Mayo scandal.  Three BDA clients were taken in the top ten picks of the draft.  Four BDA clients went in the top fifteen.  Six in the top twenty-one!  Where WMG made the headlines last year, BDA definitely took over the 2009 draft.
• Speaking of WMG, the company had three players taken in the top sixteen picks.  And BEST had three guys selected in the top seventeen picks.  WMG still dominated with five total draft picks in the first round.
• The first Israeli player drafted was taken by the Kings.  The fairly new GM of the Kings is a friend, Jason Levien.  I am happy for him because I think Omri Casspi was a steal at the slot picked, and Levien is supporting the Jews!
• One of my favorite players in the draft, Toney Douglas, was taken by a team who I think will really benefit from drafting him.  Knicks fans should be happy with that pick.

In second was Octagon, followed by Priority Sports.  Both agencies had a good spread.  After those three came CAA, who was extremely top heavy, as I have noted in prior posts.  Not a single one of CAA’s 11 clients drafted were picked later than the third round.

Neil also breaks down the agencies into 3 categories: Major, Mid-Major, and Boutique.  Goalline Sports, National Sports, and PlayersRep led the Mid-Majors with 5 clients of each agency selected.  The Boutique agency with the most success was Metro Sports, who had a 5th rounder and two 6th rounders.

Octagon (unsure of primary agent) – Sam Young, Wes Matthews, Brandon Costner, Jack McClinton

Have anything to add or information about a change? Email me.

• CAA clients Matthew Stafford, Jason Smith, Darrius Heyward-Bey, Knowshon Moreno, Brian Orakpo, Malcolm Jenkins, Brian Cushing, Josh Freeman, and Jeremy Maclin were selected in the first round.  CAA’s nine first round selections beat their 2008 record of six clients picked up in the first-round.  Most impressive about the nine CAA draft picks this year is that they were all taken between picks 1-19.  Talk about some big commissions!  It must have been interesting to be a member of the CAA crew when it had four of its clients picked in a row (12-15, starting with Moreno and ending with Cushing).
• It looks like Andre Smith might have received a nice boost by switching agents.  For the past few months, Andre was the talk of the town, for all the wrong reasons.  Days before the draft, he switched from GMG Sports to Priority Sports and made his way back into being a top ten pick (going to the Bengals at #6).  Maybe the Bengals had their eyes on him all along.  We will never know, but this will definitely help Priority land clients in the future and will undoubtedly be used against Alvin Keels and GMG Sports.
• Before the draft, I mentioned that CAA had a remote possibility of having 11 of its clients selected in the first round; 9 is nothing to complain about.  I also said that Octagon, BEST, Athletes First, and FAAM had the best chance at being runner-up.  It looks like that honor will go to Athletes First.  The company had 5 clients taken in the first-round: Mark Sanchez, B.J. Raji, Clay Matthews, Donald Brown, and Eric Wood.  Interestingly, Matthews, Brown, and Wood were all taken in a row as well (26-28).
• Third place in first-round selections is a tie between Octagon and FAAM (both had 3 selections).  FAAM was helped by the early selection of Kenny Britt by the Titans at #30.  Six WRs were taken in the first round this year after none were taken in the 1st last year.  Octagon’s Cutty, Pettigrew, and Hood make up the company’s 3 clients selected in the 1st.
• BEST, Maxximum Sports, and BC Sports followed up the pack by having two clients each taken in the 1st.  BEST was happy that Percy did not slip to the 2nd after the failed drug test, BC Sports had both of its clients go back to back (and they both went to the same school – Ole Miss), and Maxximum Sports had both of its guys go top 10 (Tyson Jackson and Michael Crabtree).
• Last, Al Davis loves speed.  Go find next year’s track star and call Oakland’s front office on Monday

Matthew Stafford, Jason Smith, and Brian Orakpo are guarantees to go in the first round.  Other CAA clients who have a strong/solid chance of being selected in the first round include Malcolm Jenkins, Brian Cushing, Jeremy Maclin, Knowshon Moreno, Darrius Heyward-Bey, Eben Britton, Josh Freeman, and James Laurinaitis.

Obviously it would be entirely ridiculous if 11 CAA clients were drafted in the first round, but look at the names listed above.  Could it not happen?  Even if CAA matches the number it put up last year (6) or does slightly better, the company will have a lot to be happy about.  It is rare to see any agency consistently capture a large amount of the top prospects in consecutive years.  And then there’s CAA.

CAA’s main competition last year was Eugene Parker of Maximum Sports, with 5 clients taken in the first round.  Eugene will have a sure first rounder again this year with Michael Crabtree.  Tyson Jackson is almost a certainty to be picked in the first round as well, but after those two, it looks like Maximum Sports won’t have anyone selected for a while.

Who will take Maximum Sports’s position from last year?  There really is no agency that has a chance to come even close to the number that CAA puts up.  Those in the distance, vying for 2nd place in number of first round selections, will include Octagon, BEST, Athletes First, and FAAM.

Draft Express has done a great job of compiling information thus far, and will continue to provide valuable nuggets of knowledge leading up to the 2009 NBA Draft.  I have extracted the confirmed underclassmen and senior agent signings from the web site:

• Andy Miller (ASM Sports) – B.J. Mullens, Daniel Hackett
• Brad Ames (Priority) – Ben Woodside (good write-up on Woodside here)
• Brian Elfus (Elfus & Siegel Management) – Connor Atchley
• Chris Emens (Octagon) – Lee Cummard
• Dan Fegan (BEST) – Earl Clark
• Dan Tobin (WMG) – K.C. Rivers, Aaron Jackson, James Johnson
• David Bauman (DB Hoops Management) – Josh Heytvelt
• Keith Glass – Luke Nevill, A.J. Abrams
• Lance Young (Octagon) – Lester Hudson
• Leon Rose (CAA) – Nando De Colo
• Mark Bartelstein (Priority) – Jeremy Pargo, Micah Downs
• Michael Siegel (Elfus & Siegel Management) – Ahmad Nivins

Right off the bat, it looks like WMG is racking it up again.  Interesting to note that it is Dan Tobin making big moves with the underclassmen instead of Arn Tellem or B.J. Armstrong.  Priority has some nice names, as does Octagon.

Josh Feinberg: Can you speak on your career path and experience leading to Octagon?

Jim DeLorenzo: My experience has been heavy on the digital media side and not as much on the sports side.  I was pretty fortunate that I was able to eventually combine the two (digital media and sports) because I actually am a huge sports fan.  My background started with law (as an attorney) almost a decade ago, representing the original Napster.  From the law firm and handling those types of digital media property issues, I moved over to AOL where I was handling a lot of mobile and instant messaging transactions.  I then ended up becoming head of business development and took care of the marketing issues for a start up (company) called Qloud, which was backed by Steve Case and his company Revolution.  I focused primarily on online music applications that lived inside the various social networks.

We launched initially on Facebook and then quickly moved to MySpace, High Five, Friendster, and all the others.  In less than a year, we ramped up about 7 millions users or so.  I had a successful exit with Qloud and at the time of that exit, I was looking around and trying to decide if I was going to continue with the acquiring company or move somewhere else.  At that moment, a position popped up at Octagon, which was looking for somebody to stand up their Digital Division.

So again, being a huge sports fan and obviously being involved in the digital media space, it seemed like a good opportunity to combine the two.  Now at Octagon, running the Digital Division, I have two main responsibilities, one of which is to find new digital marketing channels for our athletes online.  Another is to develop our own stand alone digital properties, the first of which is Twackle.com.

Josh Feinberg: Following your undergraduate work, I take it, that it was not your intention to work in the Sports Industry?

Jim DeLorenzo: I wouldn’t say I didn’t have any intention of working in sports, but it wasn’t something I was actively trying to pursue.  It wasn’t as if I was pursuing internships (in the sports industry).  Again, I’m a gigantic sports fan, so I always thought it would be something that would be fun but it wasn’t something I was going to actively pursue.

I went straight from undergrad to law school, then law school down to a firm here in D.C.  So I was not necessarily following a career path that would typically lead you to a sports related company.

Josh Feinberg: When did you join Octagon?

Jim DeLorenzo: About a year ago.

Josh Feinberg: For those not familiar with Octagon, can you give a brief overview of the company?

Jim DeLorenzo: Octagon is a global company.  Octagon Athletes and Personalities is based here in McLain, Virginia.  We have about 800 athletes worldwide representing pretty much every major sport.  Some of our bigger clients include Michael Phelps and Chris Paul.

Josh Feinberg: Now can you go into what you do within the Digital sector and how that is incorporated into Octagon Athletes and Personalities?

Jim DeLorenzo: Well I think what you are seeing, more and more is that people are consuming their sports content online.  Every athlete, every league, and every team are looking for ways to connect with their fans online and are shifting to different online platforms.  For Octagon, one of my responsibilities is to help the agents find the right opportunities for their athletes in a digital medium.  An example would be, if you go to NBA.com, they have videos running of Chris Paul.  They have behind the scene videos chronicling what it is like to be a young, NBA super-star.  Having NBA.com as a platform, to push those videos has a lot of benefits for Chris (Paul).  That is one of the things I am doing out of the digital sector.

Basically, I am trying to find digital marketing opportunities for our athletes online and helping to provide both the athletes and the agents more of a consistent digital strategy.

Josh Feinberg: Looking at the social media platforms, specifically Twitter… We have seen an explosion of athletes and personalities jumping on-board.  What is your reaction to the Twitter craze?

Jim DeLorenzo: Again, that gets back to the whole concept of athletes, teams, leagues, and different brands trying to find new ways to connect with their fans online.  For a long time for an athlete or a team, that meant writing a blog.  To write a blog, that really does not fit into an athlete’s daily schedule because they are busy being a professional athlete, which is all-consuming.  When you have somebody that is a professional blogger, they are sitting there banging out a couple posts per day on a team or player.  Than you have the player who is spending the vast majority of their time focusing on being a professional athlete, which is what they should be doing.  So they are always going to be at a disadvantage to the professional bloggers, in terms of the amount of content they can produce and how much time they can spend trying to make that content compelling.

Now you have Twitter come along, all of a sudden, you have a channel that athletes can use that fits into their life very easily.  They can use their mobile device to send a short, 140 character messages.  It doesn’t require them to sit in front of a computer.  They could be on their way to practice or on their way back from a game.  Or in the case of Charlie Villanueva the other night, have the ability to throw out a Twitter post in the middle of a game, during halftime.  It fits to more into the athletes’ life style and the time constraints that they have, which are very demanding.

The great thing for the fan, because of the immediacy of Twitter and the fact that Shaq could write something during half-time, or even sit at a diner and say “come meet me at the diner and I’ll give you free tickets to the Suns’ game tonight”.  The immediacy is something that you can’t replicate in a blog.  It provides a benefit to the fan that wasn’t there before; this feeling of immediacy and intimacy with the athletes and having a real connection there.  That’s one of the things that make it appealing to the fan and consumer standpoint.  I think it’s (Twitter) only going to continue to grow.  It really fits into the athlete’s life and the consumer loves it because they’re getting little nuggets of information faster and more on a real-time basis than they ever could otherwise.

Josh Feinberg: What exactly is Twackle?

Jim DeLorenzo: One of the problems you have with Twitter is that there are massive amounts of data and it becomes difficult for people to manage it.  One of the things that we thought would be helpful is to have a sports focused front end on Twitter.  What we do, we find and aggregate all the messages on Twitter related to sports and put them into Twackle.com in the appropriate area using our navigation.  This allows the user to quickly find the topic they are looking for.  We surface all of these messages in the form of “feeds” which allows the user to find feeds on a topic very quickly.  Whether that’s the NFL, New York Giants or a particular player on the New York Giants, they can drill down and find the information they feel is compelling very easily.  If they’re looking at our NY Giants feed – we are pulling that information in real time, every message seen on Twitter will feed into Twackle.  There it is an aggregation and discovery tool for sports content on Twitter.  Beyond that, you have the ability to have a native Twitter integration.  You can log into Twackle using your Twitter ID and password.  With that integration, when you post a message live on Twackle, it shows on your Twitter stream.  You end up with a multi platform play as the user.  If you look, there’s actually a top ‘Twacklers’ module that shows the people that have used Twackle the most over the past week.  Some of those people are actually teams.  For example, the Charlotte Bobcats are on there.  They’ve started to use Twackle and use it as one of their platforms for distributing their Twitter messages as they live ‘tweet’ during games.

Josh Feinberg: How long since Twackle went live?

Jim DeLorenzo: We got something up there with Twackle at the beginning of this year.  In its current form, we started telling people about it back in February.  There was actually a Sports Business Journal article about it early in February.  It really hasn’t been that long, you’re looking at 4-6 weeks since we went live.  It’s pretty new and we continue to rev out new functions.  We have some pretty cool things coming down the pike that I think people are going to find very interesting.  It’s relatively young in the cycle right now.

Josh Feinberg: With Twackle’s initial launch, I would imagine it’s not perfect and it does not satisfy everyone out there.  Can users suggest information they would like to see on Twackle?

Jim DeLorenzo: People can always send us messages; we do have the ability to send comments back.  They could also send messages through the Twackle feed.  We are always open to suggestions.  User feedback is crucial for Twackle.  We recently had the people of ‘Women Talk Sports’, which is a great blog obviously focused on Women in Sports; reach out to us telling us we need more content around Women’s Sports.  They were right and we did.  We’re definitely open to any suggestions on a content side…any content areas we are not currently covering – we definitely want to hear about that, along with any suggestions.  It’s pretty easy for us to throw up items in regards to a specific topic, as long as there is content behind it. On the functionality side, same thing, we always like to hear from people.  Any comment from our users is always helpful.  It’s a huge advantage to have that connection with our users.

Josh Feinberg: Any other features the user should be aware of?

Jim DeLorenzo: One other functionality I wanted to mention was the ‘Top Links’ module.  For every one of our feeds, take the NY Jets and Kerry Rhodes who is a safety on the Jets, he has his own Twitter page.  We have 800 or so feeds that we continue to add everyday.  For every one of those feeds, we pull out the links on an on-going rolling basis for the past 24 hours, the links that were sent the most through those feeds.  If you look at the general NFL feeds, the module shows the links sent the most; either on Twackle or Twitter- and the Top Links module becomes a user generated recommendation engine.

Josh Feinberg: What is the relation with Twackle and Octagon:

Jim DeLorenzo: It’s an Octagon Digital property.  The ultimate plan is to spin it out and turn Twackle into its own independent entity.

Josh Feinberg: To close, let’s relax a bit with few quick response questions:

Josh Feinberg: Favorite Athlete (all-time)?

Jim DeLorenzo: Joe Klecko

Josh Feinberg: Favorite Team to Follow?

Jim DeLorenzo: New York Jets

Josh Feinberg: Who do you have winning tourney?

Jim DeLorenzo: Being a graduate, I have to go with Duke