Basketball

• A 26-year-old former Priority Sports and Entertainment basketball operations intern making big moves in the D-League [Joey Meyer, Mad Ants 'part ways'].
• That’s a familiar last name… [Nets hire Penn grad Matt Tellem as “Capologist”].

Football

• Signed with Madison, Wisconsin-based Mark Eisenberg [College roundup: Spartans' Zweifel signs agent].
• Legal dispute between Peter Schaffer and C. Lamont Smith over finances [Agents to NFL stars mired in legal battle].
• He dropped Andrew Bondarowicz and hired David Canter [CFL all-star Mitchell takes his talents to Miami].
• This weeks’ must read [Leigh Steinberg: Setting The Record Straight On Bankruptcy, Addiction And Career].
• Very sad that agents are becoming more and more like banks [As rookie money dries up, agents continue to cut great deals for players].
• Lamonte represents Cleveland Browns President Mike Holmgren, GM Tom Heckert, Executive Vice President Bryan Wiedmeier, head coach Pat Shurmur, and quarterbacks coach Mark Whipple [Bob LaMonte, Our 2011 Cleveland Browns MVP].

Shabbat Shalom: Friday Wrap-Up (1/13/2012) from Sports Agent Blog - Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Negotiations, NCAA Rules

Last weekend in Memphis, Tennessee was a great success.  We put together a tremendous Professional Sports Counseling Panel at the University of Memphis and received fantastic feedback from athletes, parents, agents, and administrators with regards to Memphis’ first Agent Day.  I have to really thank my partner Jason Belzer; he is the reason that Collegiate Sports Advisors is going to be a successful venture.  Lots of big deals being brokered in the NBA and MLB.  Any readers spend some time in Dallas during the Baseball Winter Meetings?  Here are some stories I missed over the past week:

Football

• A few good questions for athletes and their parents to ask agents [Inside the player-agent interviews].

Shabbat Shalom: Friday Wrap-Up (12/9/11) from Sports Agent Blog - Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Negotiations, NCAA Rules

Thomas Mayo

NFLDraftScout.com currently ranks Mayo as the 39th best wide receiver in a 2012 NFL Draft class of over 300 wideouts.  It does not matter if you play Division I or II football, if you finish your career with over 4,000 receiving yards, you are something special.  Mayo became the 16th player in Division II history to do just that.

Mayo recently signed with Priority Sports & Entertainment to represent him leading up to the 2012 NFL Draft.  The hope is that Mayo will impress scouts at his workouts with his 6’2, 200lb frame.  They already know that the kid can catch a football.

Thomas Mayo Signs With Priority Sports For Representation from Sports Agent Blog - Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Negotiations, NCAA Rules

Rennie Curran is an outside linebacker from the University of Georgia who was selected by the Tennessee Titans with the #97 overall pick in the 2010 NFL Draft.  At the time, Curran was represented by Priority Sports & Entertainment.  Sometime between the 2010 NFL Draft and now, Curran left Priority and signed with SportsTrust Advisors.  According to Ryan Morgan, President of Morgan Advisory Group (MAG), Curran has once again changed agents and is now a MAG client.

Zeke Sandhu, Sr. Vice President of MAG, will do his best to try to find a new team for Curran.  The former top 100 pick is currently a free agent.  MAG has already been in touch with NFL teams and Sandhu got Curran a workout a few days ago that went supposedly went well.

On To The Next One: Rennie Curran from Sports Agent Blog - Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Negotiations, NCAA Rules

At 8 p.m. EST on Tuesday, October 11, 2011, ESPN will premier The Dotted Line, a documentary about sports agents directed by Morgan Spurlock. ESPN provided a DVD screener of the documentary, which I had a chance to review over the weekend.

The documentary begins with Drew Rosenhaus, the most recognizable sports agent in the world, defending one of his clients.  But Rosenhaus is certainly not the focus of the show.  Instead, ESPN provides commentary from a plethora of current and former agents, NCAA personnel, and went through the recruiting process of a young, upcoming agent named Eugene Lee.  Other than a clip of former NFLPA Contract Advisor Josh Luchs taking the cameras with him to UCLA’s practice facility to show just how easy it is for agents to gain access to college athletes, I found the portions devoted to Lee and his company ETL Associates to be the best parts of the show.

The cameras followed Lee, who founded his company in 2003, through the process of recruiting players at West Virginia, University of South Florida, and Notre Dame.  He thought he would leave his meeting with the WVU player and have a signed representation agreement in hand.  Lee ended up finding out from the WVU player’s high school coach that the player would be signing with a different agent.  Lee signed the USF player and celebrated with his co-workers, only to receive a termination letter from that player six weeks later.  Lee also signed the Notre Dame player, who went undrafted, but eventually was picked up by the Chicago Bears.  The show provided great insight on the highs and lows of recruiting for the smaller, boutique firms.  Eugene Lee spent a lot of time and money on recruiting and representing fringe players, and ended up losing out on signing one, was terminated by another, but worked his tail off for the third, who got picked up by a team after Lee put in even more hard work.  The question is, how does someone like Lee actually make money?

Another segment of the show was devoted to baseball agent Peter Greenberg.  Greenberg became one of the biggest
agents in baseball by focusing on recruiting and representing Venezuelan players.  ESPN’s documentary displayed just how powerful Greenberg’s name is in baseball circles in Venezuela.  Players hope to have a chance to sign with Greenberg.  Typically, it is the other way around, with agents praying that they can sign top talent.  The fact that Greenberg negotiated a huge contract for Johan Santana certainly helped the agent establish his solid reputation.

And then there was a segment on agent scandals. Quite a bit of attention was paid to Josh Luchs, who was recently a fabulous guest speaker in the Sport Agency Management class that I teach at Indiana University.  Again, the part of the Luchs segment that stood out the most was when he drove his Mercedes right up to a UCLA locker room entrance and showed how easy it was to gain access to the players.

The documentary also included words of wisdom from Mark Bartelstein of Priority Sports & Entertainment, who talked about the immense costs associated with providing training for clients, basketball agent David Falk, who talked about how trust is earned and that it is very difficult to succeed as an agent without cheating, and others.

Be sure to tune in to ESPN at 8:00 p.m. EST on October 11, 2011, and let me know what you think of the documentary.

ESPN’s “The Dotted Line” – A Documentary About Sports Agents from Sports Agent Blog - Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Negotiations, NCAA Rules

“There’s an inaccurate perception out there that there’s this group of agents — including myself — that have decided to quote-unquote blow up the union, or destroy the union, and nothing could be further from the truth.”

“Billy [Hunter] is in this position where he’s trying in good faith to get a deal done, but you can’t negotiate by yourself.”

“I have a duty to make sure I’m exploring everything I can in terms of helping bring this thing to a positive resolution. That’s my job. I’m going to do that, but I’ve always been doing it in concert with Billy and the players’ association.”

“The way this thing reads, it’s like there’s all this plotting going on. That’s just not true. The idea has never been to blow up the union.”

Mark Bartelstein On “Blowing Up The Union” 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

Baseball

• The Pittsburgh Pirates have spent the most money (by far) on draft bonuses in the past 4 years [MLB Attempts Aren't Slowing Draft Spending].
• New job description: matchmaker [Phillies star seeks mermaid].

NCAA Rules/Regulations

• My friend Warren Zola looks at the issues surrounding Andre Drummond going to play at the University of Connecticut [UConn: NCAA Rules (Still) Don't Apply to Us].

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

Carl Landry of the New Orleans Hornets was formerly represented by Andrew “Buddy” Baker.  Baker had represented Landry for over four years, including the period leading up to Landry’s selection as the 1st pick of the 2nd round by the Seattle Sonics (now the Oklahoma City Thunder) in 2007.  Landry was immediately traded to the Houston Rockets.  At that time, Baker was with IM Sports Services (a branch of the large law firm Ice Miller).  Baker is now a part of Exclusive Sports Group (ESG), which represents basketball players, football players, and coaches.

Anyway, Carl Landry recently switched agents and signed with Mark Bartelstein of Priority Sports & Entertainment.  Brad Ames of Priority Sports has confirmed the change.  Here is the odd thing about the switch – Carl’s younger brother Marcus Landry is still represented by Buddy Baker according to ESG’s basketball clients page.  Marcus Landry is currently under contract with BCM Gravelines in France.  It is unknown as to whether Marcus has plans to eventually join Carl as Priority Sports clients.

The change of agents was first reported by Jorge Sierra of HoopsHype.

Free agent forward Carl Landry is now represented by Mark Bartelstein, HoopsHype has learned.

August 23, 2011 12:00 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@hoopshype

HoopsHype.com

On To The Next One: Carl Landry from Sports Agent Blog - Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Negotiations, NCAA Rules

Watch the entire Bartelstein interview below and leave your thoughts in our Comments section.

Mark Bartelstein Speaks About NFL Free Agent Deals from Sports Agent Blog - Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Negotiations, NCAA Rules