What: 2010 St. Thomas University School of Law Spring Symposium

Where: St. Thomas University School of Law (map)

When: Saturday, March 13, 2010 (8:30 a.m. – 5:15 p.m.)

Cost: Click here to pre-register.
Pre-Registration/On-Site
STU Law Students             $15 / $20
STU Students                     $15 / $20
Law Students (Non STU)   $20 / $30
General Admission             $20 / $30
Attorneys for CLE              $30 / $40

Spring Symposium Time Line Breakdown:

8:15 am – 8:45 am CHECK IN, REGISTRATION, BREAKFAST

8:45 am – 8:55 am PANEL I (Moot Court) / OPENING STATEMENTS

General introductions made by ESLS and Board Moderators

9:00 am – 10:00 am PANEL II (A) / NCAA Athletics: More than a Deal

Panelist: Anthony Hernandez (UM Athletics), Jamie Israel (UM Compliance), Monique Garcia (FIU Compliance)

A discussion of college sports including sponsorships, compliance, and other forgotten issues facing players, coaches, and attorneys

9: 00 am – 10:00 am PANEL II (B) /Homegrown and Stable?:  A Look at Web Based Content

Panelist: Sira Veciana-Muncio (Sony Pictures Entertainment), Dainira Falk (Discovery Communications), Ernesto Luciano (Yahoo! Latin America)

The internet has become a facet of everyday life but how sustainable is the content created for the Web?  What will the future hold regarding the shelf life of content and for deals structured around that content?

10:15 am – 11:15 am PANEL III (A) / Community Development through Sports

Panelist: Derek Jackson (The Marlins), Nancy Olson (Florida Marlins Community Foundation), Latoya Williams (Orange Bowl Committee)

Community development through sports includes working with the community, local school districts, and business organizations to provide a service which can cut across cultural divides. A look at the positive effects local sports teams can have in terms of creating jobs, bringing revenue, and promoting local vendors through partnerships.

10:15 am – 11:15 am PANEL III (B) / Hollywood or Hollywood, FL: Film Making Florida

Panelist: Melissa Exposito (Exposito Law), Ruth Paul (Screen Actors Guild), Fred Moyse (International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employes)

Feature films and television have used South Florida as a backdrop for years.  What does the market look like currently?  What can be done locally to grow the industry? Discussion includes viewpoints from local attorneys, government, union officials, and production companies

11:30 am – 12:30 pm PANEL IV (A) Sports and Social Networking

Panelist: Johnny Williams (ProMotion Sports & Entertainment, LLC), Leslie Bauknight Nixon (Super Bowl Host Committee), Darren Heitner (Dynasty Athlete Representation)

Social networking’s explosive growth can be felt in all sectors of sports. A discussion of the legal influence or implications of Facebook, Twitter, My Space and other social networking tools on the four major professional leagues.

11:30 am – 12:30 pm PANEL IV (B) All the World’s a Stage: a Look at Theaters

Panelist: Louis Tertocha (Adrienne Arsht Center), Steven Eisenberg (Lipscomb, Brady & Bobadilla), Jeff John (Revolution Live)

Examining the issues dealing with venues; union issues, performance rights, insurance issues and the viability of managing theaters here in South Florida

12:30 pm – 1:30 pm LUNCH

1:45 pm – 2:15 pm KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Marc Stollman (S2BN Entertainment)

2:30 pm – 3:30 pm PANEL V (A): The Future of the Sports Business

Panelist: Jason Weiss (Arnstein & Lehr LLP), Jaime Vining (Lott & Friedland)

Possible Panelist: Kim Kolback (Kimberly Kolback, Esq.)

A discussion on the developing trends in contract negotiations, licensing, and IP rights tied to sports.

2:30 pm – 3:30 pm PANEL V (B): 360 and Beyond: The Future of Negotiations in Music

Panelist: Richard Wolfe (Ehrenstein Charbonneau Calderin), Marc Stollman (S2BN Entertainment), David Bercuson (David Bercuson, P.A.)

Declining album sales and a changing industry has given rise to the “360 Deal” which encompass taking a financial stake from the artist on all revenue points.  Is this the future?  What are other ways to survive the downturn in music profits?

3:45 pm – 4:15 pm CLOSING PANEL: Looking for a Client who is Looking for You

Panelist: Stephen Carlisle (Stephen M. Carlisle, P.L.), Darren Heitner (Dynasty Athlete Representation), Leslie Bauknight Nixon (Super Bowl Host Committee)

When seeking talent what are some pitfalls for an attorney to avoid?  What should they look for?  What are some of the murky ethical areas when courting potential clients?

4:15 – 5:15 pm RECEPTION

An interesting part of the Woods discussion centered on whether he was instructed by his advisors to take the course of action that he followed or if he was advised to act differently, but did what he thought was best.  I believe that his advisors most likely told him accept responsibility and apologize at an early stage (which would be the appropriate thing to do), but that he ignored is because he believed that he was truly invincible.  What we saw last week, which was hardly a press conference, was Woods’ realization that he could not escape the media and slightly gave in to the public’s desire to hear him speak.

As advisors, all we can do is suggest the way we believe our clients should act.  At the end of the day, we are employed by the athletes (the principals); if they don’t want to listen, they do not have to.  But if they are not going to listen to us, then why pay us in the first place?  That’s what Gilbert Arenas figured.  The guy negotiated his own 6-year, $111 million contract.  Would an agent have done any better?  Maybe not.  But would an agent possibly helped Arenas after Arenas was found storing guns in his locker and drawing a weapon on his teammate?  Quite possibly.  Arenas acted very stupidly thereafter, but eventually came to his senses, hired an attorney from Washington D.C. and accepted full responsibility and apologized.

That’s the key: Accept responsibility and apologize as soon as possible (unless you are being charged with killing somebody – Stallworth).  The problem comes when an athlete is employing all of these different “advisors” who are pulling the athlete in different directions.  Another thing I think is important is that even though social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter allow instantaneous communication between an athlete and the entire world, the 4th Estate (traditional media) cannot be forgotten.  Tiger Woods basically gave the media the middle finger throughout his career, so why would they do him any favors at this point.  Make the media your best friend, or else they will look for any opportunity to pin you and your clients.

Since speaking on the panel, I have read one article that makes me shake my head sideways and one that makes me shake my head up and down.  The sideways: Elijah Fields Got Paid, Kicked Off Pitt Football Team. The up and down: Anything Worth Doing.

The post about Fields shows the potential harm that sites like Twitter can cause for athletes.  One act of stupidity can kill a career.  The other post is about the damage control used by Jeremy Jeffress’s agent after he received a 100-day suspension for substance abuse.  While Joshua Kusnick and I have had our differences in the past, this particular post on his blog is brilliant.  Here are some parts of his piece:

The first step in repairing a damaged image is to apologize but only if its sincere. The second step in this process was finding a place for this player to get help for his problem.

And that’s the game plan when something goes awry. 1.Get everyone calm. 2.Contact the media and apologize 3. Get help. 4. Apologize more. 5. Live up to all the promises you have made. It doesn’t take dangerous gypsy magic to rehabilitate an image, just genuine contrition and the desire to right your life.

No one is perfect.  Apologize, be sincere, mean it, and act on it.  For the most part, the public will not forget, but they will forgive.

What: 2010 Scholarly Conference on College Sport

Where: William and Ida Friday Center for Continuing Education (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

When: April 21^st (Wednesday) – April 23^rd (Friday)

Blurb:

It is the 3rd annual conference for faculty, athletic administrators, students, sport practitioners, and the public interested in research, theory, and critical thinking about college sport and related issues.  It will provide an open forum for independent, organized and focused interdisciplinary research regarding college sport.

Panels:

One and Done: What is the Effect of the NBA’s Age Limit Rule on the College Game?

• Gary Williams – University of Maryland Men’s Basketball Head Coach
• Shane Lyons – Associate Commissioner for Compliance at the Atlantic Coast Conference
• Michael McCann – Associate Professor at the University of Vermont Law School
• Doug Gottlieb – College Basketball Analyst and Radio Host at ESPN

Ethics of Elimination: Will Broad-Based Athletic Departments Survive?

• Amy Perko – Executive Director of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics
• David Akinniyi – North Carolina State University Varsity Football Player, Former Football Player at Northeastern University
• Dr. John Cheslock – Associate Professor at Penn State University
• Mike Moyer – Executive Director of the National Wrestling Coaches Association
• Jeff Bourne – Director of Athletics at James Madison University

Thou Shalt Not Tweet: Athletes’ Social Networking Legal Rights vs. Institutional Control

• Lester Munson – Legal Analyst at ESPN, Investigative sportswriter and speaker
• Steve Kirschner – Associate Athletic Director at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Kathleen Hessert – Founder and President of Sports Media Challenge
• Marvin Austin – University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Varsity Football Player

Keynote Speakers:

• David Williams is the Vice Chancellor for University Affairs and Athletics at Vanderbilt University, a position that is analogous to an athletics director at many universities. Mr. Williams has helped the school navigate away from the traditional model of a separate athletics department to one that functions within the framework of the university. Mr. Williams also serves as Vanderbilt’s General Counsel.

• Michael Oriard is the Distinguished Professor of American Literature and Culture and associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Oregon State University. An offensive captain and a second-team All-American at the University of Notre Dame, he played four years with the Kansas City Chiefs before leaving the NFL to finish a doctorate in American literature. His books include Bowled Over: Big-Time College Football from the Sixties to the BCS Era and Brand NFL: Making and Selling America’s Favorite Sport.

• Anson Dorrance is the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Women’s Soccer head coach. He has one of the most successful coaching records in the history of athletics with an all-time record of 673-33-21. His UNC teams have won 21 national championships, including 20 NCAA crowns and one AIAW title, 19 regular-season ACC titles, and 19 ACC Tournament championships. He was elected to the National Soccer Hall of Fame in 2008.

• Craig Thompson is the Commissioner of the Mountain West Conference having served in the role since 1998. Under his leadership, the Mountain West became the first major collegiate athletic conference to launch sports channel, the MountainWest Sports Network. He is an integral part of the national landscape in intercollegiate athletics, and he is currently on the NCAA Football Board of Directors and a member of the BCS administration.

To register for the conference, please visit http://csriconference.org/registration.html. The early registration period for the conference ends next Friday, February 26^th, and more information about the mission and purpose of the College Sport Research Institute can be found at www.unc.edu/csri.

Once again, I have to believe that the UFC is ahead of the curve on this front. Fighters, in addition to working for the UFC, are their own brand and websites such as Twitter can help the fighter to directly grow their own personal iamge and receive more exposure. There are different, creative ways for a fighter to use Twitter and other social networking sites to actually make money for themselves. A fighter can tweet about their sponsor or hold sponsored contests through their Twitter account as an incentive for people to follow them and to pay attention, leading to increased value for the fans, the fighter, and the sponsoring company. UFC hall of famer and former champion, Chuck Liddell has even taken the next step and has developed MMAJacked.com a site specifically designed to connect Mixed Martial Arts fighters to their fans on a more personal level. Dana White frequently participates in “Twitter Tag,” an idea that was developed for Shaquille O’Neal by Digital Royalty that allows fans to find you in a public place such as a mall, or restaurant based on your tweets, usually for a prize, or in Dana White’s case, tickets to a UFC event. Georges St. Pierre’s Twitter account isn’t personally run by him, but his handlers had the idea to have fans e-mail Georges during his training by clicking a link that required you to sign up for his fan site before sending the e-mail, which ultimately attracted thousands of new fans.

The UFC is now more accessible than any other sports organization on a personal level. Everyone from the ring girls, to the announcers, to the fighters, to ownership all have highly personal Twitter accounts that are more than just company fluff and that actually give you insight into their lives and opinions which helps us, as fans, relate to them. As social media technology grows I am confident that the UFC will always be at the forefront and it will be interesting to see different business plans develop around these websites.

Please continue to post your comments and follow me on Twitter @zachlipari.

Since Jason Belmonte entered into his first PBA Tour match last year, he has been the hottest name in bowling.  Well known for his unorthodox two-handed throw, Jason Belmonte, has captured the attention of young and old, on a worldwide scale.  He has the look, and more importantly the skill, to be an icon in his sport, and has quickly become the new face of bowling.

We were thrilled when we first attained Belmo (Belmonte’s nickname) as a client at Dynasty.  He had just won his first title and was well on his way to being named the 2009 Rookie of the Year (a title he earned).  One thing that he was lacking was a strong presence on the web.  He had a basic website that needed heavy optimization and definitely could have benefited from embracing at least one social networking service.  We decided on Facebook, and as of this post, his Fan Page is about to break 3,000 strong.  We also decided to team up with Tim Evans, owner of Athlete Web Design, to build a new, interactive, and media-rich website, which I am happy to announce is officially live as of today.

Click here to visit the new JasonBelmonte.com

While the new site is up and open to the public, there are many features that have not yet been rolled out.  We are most excited about the “Where is Belmo” feature, which is currently in development.  Anyway, go ahead and check it out.  Leave Belmo some love in the comments section, and be sure to ReTweet his posts.

On Monday, I talked with Michael Fertik, CEO of ReputationDefender and the genius behind a brand new creation: NameGrab.  Michael is an entrepreneur, so we clicked right away.  He started creating businesses straight out of law school, and has been very successful in his previous pursuits (when you get an endorsement from Dr. Phil, you’ve officially “made it”).  He founded ReputationDefender in 2006, but only recently started marketing it after putting countless time and energy into its development.  Today, there is roughly ninety people in his company with customers in spanning forty countries.  His existing products allow a person to monitor his/her reputation on deep web contente that is not even visible through Google searches, remove unwanted contact information from websites, and publish information that one wants to come up through Google searches.

But what is NameGrab all about?  Interestingly, it puts into motion an idea that I had been discussing with a colleague of mine a couple of weeks ago.  As Monasterio stated in his excellent post,

The main point is to acquire these online properties, even if you don’t use them at first. It’s far better to have nothing on a Web page than to have cyber-squatters fill the page with advertisements.

The problem is that athletes and their agents do not want to spent the 10-30 minutes it takes to sign up for the hundreds of websites.  And new social networking sites sprout up from the ground every day.  How do you know which one will be the next Twitter?  The safest bet is to at least reserve a piece of property on each one of them.  The only property you can own is a user name.

Fertik, through NameGrab, has automated that system.  For $100, he promises that an athlete or agent will be able to reserve three user names.  Those user names will be confirmed by NameGrab and then the athlete/agent will have the opportunity to claim the email addresses associated with those names, if he/she so chooses.  NameGrab has plans to include the purchasing of domain names with those user names and also may feature deals for sports agents who have more than three clients that they want to reserve names for.

It seems like a really cheap option that could save athletes and their agents a lot of drama and money in the future.  Cybersquatting is becoming a big issue.  Even college freshmen and first year medical students are finding their names taken by the time they want to register for many social networking sites.

I am currently giving NameGrab a test with the user names DarrenHeitner, Kyle McPherson (a baseball client of mine), and sportsagent.  I will report back on my findings.

You’ve landed a talented athlete as a new client. A professional contract is fast-approaching. When the contract is signed, will the athlete’s online presence be ready?

In sports, the athlete’s name is the brand. So it should come as no surprise the bad guys on the internet, known as cyber-squatters, may try to take advantage of your athlete’s name and brand.

An example: In California, a single cyber-squatter was recently convicted of registering the domain names of nearly 800 basketball players. Domain names are Web browser addresses, like SteveNash.com and ChrisBosh.com. The affected players ranged from NBA pros to top high school and college players. Because of this one squatter, hundred’s of athletes were unable to take the first step into online branding. This was just one squatter — there are thousands of squatters on the NET trying to make money from athletes’ brands.

As an agent, you need to start managing your client’s online brand early —before fame and success attract the cyber-squatters. It’s critical for agents to help athletes create a comprehensive online branding strategy.

Here are 5 simple tips to help agents prepare and protect a player’s online brand:

1. Register a Dot-Com Domain Name

Domain names are Web addresses, so they are the focus of your online branding plan. Having a domain name with your player’s first and/or last name in it, like RogerFederer.COM, is the Grand Slam of Internet branding. The domain is also part of the player’s main email address.

But, web domains are a scarce resource, and are registered on a first-come-first-serve basis —  so even RogerFederer.COM doesn’t own Federer.COM

Once you start searching for an available domain name, you’ll be surprised how hard it is to find an available domain name. If your client has an uncommon name, you may be lucky and still be able to acquire CLIENTNAME.COM. Other good domains to register are nicknames. Shorter domain names are usually better, dashes and digits in a domain name are not as easily remembered by site visitors.

The Dot-Com domain is the most memorable and upscale—it’s far better than the other top-level domains (.NET, .ORG, .INFO, .BIZ, .US, etc.).

To register a domain, visit a Domain Registrar like Godaddy.com (http://GoDaddy.com). If the client’s name is available, you can register it for about $8 a year – you’ll need to renew every year or you lose the name. There are also many websites, such as Afternic.com and Sedo.com, that help you buy and acquire domains that are already registered — though auction prices can be exorbitant.

As long as you’re able to get the athlete’s main domain, it’s not worth going overboard speculating on a bunch of domains when an athlete is just starting out. However, keep in mind that the squatters will try to take advantage of typos in web addresses, so you may consider acquiring common misspellings of your client’s name (for Tennis, think Nadall.com, Nedal.com).

Later in this article I have some tips for what to do if you can’t get the name you want.

2. Create Social Networking Accounts

When fans want to find out about an athlete, they’ll go to the social networking sites; MySpace and Facebook are the biggest. With MySpace, you’ve always been able to get a page like http://Myspace.com/CLIENTNAME, so, you’ll want to grab that. Facebook now has that feature, too. And you’ll want to start and take ownership of a Facebook Fan Club for your client.

What content do you put on all these social media sites? It doesn’t matter—you can leave them blank to start with. The main point is that you control the real estate for your brand.

If you or your client does create some content on a social media page, keep the site very professional. Don’t let the athlete use these accounts for gossiping with friends, uploading photos or video of last Saturday night’s party, or other unprofessional uses. Future sponsors and advertisers will be watching, so you need to keep the client’s content squeaky clean and  presentable. Once something is on the Internet, it’s nearly impossible to take it down.

But remember: The main point is to acquire these online properties, even if you don’t use them at first. It’s far better to have nothing on a Web pages than to have cyber-squatters fill the page with advertisements.

3. Create a Twitter Account

Twitter, an online Short Message Service (SMS) site, is extremely popular and growing so quickly that it gets a checklist item all to itself. When fame first strikes, Twitter is where the trendsetters will talk about your client. Beware: Twitter squatters are already grabbing up all the famous Twitter account names.

Signing up for a Twitter account is free, so sign-up for an account name that matches the client’s real name. You may want to update the Twitter status occasionally with things like recent victories and upcoming games. But again, the key is to own the Twitter account for later use and to prevent someone else from controlling the Twitter account.

4. Setup Email and Instant Messaging

Fans, sponsors, advertisers and other vendors will want to communicate with an athlete. When your client owns a COM domain, you can automatically receive all email sent to any address at @CLIENTNAME.COM.

But, as part of a comprehensive branding plan, create free accounts at Gmail, Yahoo Mail, and HotMail: CLIENTNAME@gmail.com, CLIENTNAME@yahoo.com, and CLIENTNAME@msn.com. Setup the accounts so that they invisibly forward email to a single address.

Additionally, try to get brandable accounts for AOL Instant Messenger and MSN Messenger.

5. Setup Voicemail

For a business phone number, you can set up a free GoogleVoice (http://voice.google.com) account, which comes with a free phone number in almost any area code. Configure GoogleVoice to automatically forward voice-mail to your email accounts as an audio/text attachment. Or you can forward all GoogleVoice calls to your cell phone (the forwarding will be invisible to the caller).

If your client needs to speak with the press by phone, he or she can easily make phone calls through the GoogleVoice account using their existing cell phone. Have the client use the GoogleVoice as a business phone number for all sports-related activities to prevent the athlete’s personal phone information from becoming mixed with the athlete’s career info. Keeping an athlete’s professional life and personal life separate will also help protect the athlete’s privacy.

Troubleshooting Your Brand

What do you do if you can’t get all of the above items? Well, if your athlete’s name is very common like Joe Smith, then he’s a little late to the Internet party. But you can still try for domains like “JoeSmithHockey.com”.

What if fame has already struck and the athlete’s brand is already cyber-squatted? There are laws to protect an athlete’s name and brand. Contact an intellectual property attorney who specializes in trademarks. If the athlete’s name is fairly unique, having a lawyer send a letter to the various social media sites can often get them transferred to the player. Gaining control of a squatted domain is a little more complicated, but an attorney can definitely help to acquire it. Solving cyber-squatting problems through the legal system will cost you a lot more time and effort than doing it right the first time.

Be Ready for Fame…

Most importantly, it’s critical to be a few steps ahead of the cyber-squatters. With the first whiff of fame, squatters will notice an up-and-coming player and grab up all the prime Internet real estate related to that player. You can reduce future legal costs by keeping up with online trends and by beating the squatters to the prime Internet real estate. Your client’s future sponsors will appreciate a clean online-brand that isn’t full of Internet spam.

Remember: Your job as an agent is to help plan for the athlete’s entire career. It’s never too early to get a player’s brand ready. By spending a little effort up front, you can make future success that much sweeter.

What: Panel: The Impact of Social Networking on the Sports World, Presented by the New York State Bar Association’s Entertainment, Arts and Sports Law Section

When: Tuesday, November 17, 2009 (8:30 a.m. – 10:30 a.m.)

Where: Herrick, Feinstein, LLP, 2 Park Ave., New York, NY (14th floor amphitheater) / map

Moderator: Matthew D. Pace, Herrick, Feinstein LLP

Panelists:

• Lawrence Epstein, EVP and General Counsel, Ultimate Fighting Championship
• Jeffrey Gewirtz, SVP & General Counsel, NETS Basketball/Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment
• Steven Herz, Founder and President, If Management
• Elizabeth Matthews, EVP & Deputy General Counsel of MTV Networks

Discussion: How social networking is impacting the business of sports today from the perspective of copyright owners, distribution partners and athletes.

• How are Leagues, Teams and Athletes using social networking to promote themselves and their products?
• What are the risks associated with use of social networking platforms?
• Who controls the ownership of content — the League, the Team or the individual?
• Is this strictly promotional or is there a business model to monetize this?
• Does this impact the League news policies? Does this impact on the exclusivity of television agreements?
• Does this fall within a news exception or other fair use category? How would that affect copyright owners?
• How does the DMCA operate in this area, and how does it affect copyright owners? Is there law comparable to the DMCA in international markets?
• Can the fan in the stands capture photos or video and distribute them electronically to those outside the stadium?
• Does this, or real-time scores and blogs pose a threat to the content owners’ rights?
• Relevant cases – Mark Cuban’s position against bloggers, Olympics blogging policy, Viacom v. YouTube and Google, New York Rangers vs. NHL

Cost: Students can attend for free.  New York State Bar members pay $25.  Nonmembers have to front $35.  Click here for more information and to register.

My colleague Douglas Sanders with The Sports Link introduced me to the new service, which strives to make it easier for athletes to connect with their fans by providing “text only once, but update fans everywhere” convenience.  If an athlete sends a text message to MogoTXT, MogoTXT can automatically forward that message to the athlete’s fans on MogoTXT, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and all other websites.

Terrell Owens, Shane Battier, Chris “Beanie” Wells, Santonio Holmes, Jordan Farmar, and even Mr. Holdout, Michael Crabtree, are on board, along with many more athletes and rising journalists.  Some entities use the service more than others.  T.O. is updating the world on his life almost every second of the day…Beanie Wells, not so much.

In addition to providing ease and convenience to athletes, MogoTXT is able to aggregate the fans of an athlete that are located on several different websites into a single large audience to enable the athlete to achieve critical mass much faster for purposes of fan relations, marketing, advertising, etc.  The theory is that the service will empower athletes and their agents to strike better endorsement deals by enhancing athletes’ reach and providing marketing data.

MogoTXT can also facilitate revenue generation for athletes and their selected charities by working with athletes and their agents to feature desirable ads and clickable links to additional content and ads at the bottom of the athletes’ text messages before these messages are displayed on MogoTXT and also distributed to fans on all of the major social networks.

And for the Yao Mings and Kobe Bryants with huge international appeal, MogoTXT can also translate the messages into foreign languages on a near real-time basis.

Best of all, the service is free for its clients and their fans.

The agent-related article of last week that generated a lot of buzz in the sports agent community was a very long piece written by ESPN.com’s Andy Katz.  While I was not able to put aside the time to give it a thorough read until several days after it was written, I am glad that I kept that tab hanging around and finally read it.  So if you have not yet read the piece, Agents and coaches battle for prospects, go ahead and give it a try.

Adding a player as a friend on Facebook is an interesting tactic for an agent to employ.  As Cameron Schuh, the Associate Director for Public and Media Relations for the NCAA, once told me, there are no restrictions between agents and student-athletes in the NCAA rules/bylaws as far as communicating through social networking … AS LONG AS no oral and/or written agreement has been made.  Katz basically echos that statement in his piece.

Additionally, SPARTA and other laws are not particularly well-suited for online communication.  So it seems as though an agent is not violating any particular rule by communicating with a student-athlete over a site like Facebook.  And if an athlete is so bothered by agents contacting him on a social networking site, that athlete always has the option of not adding the agent as one of his contacts, or not having a profile on that site at all.

Coaches do hate it when agents have contact with their players, even if the agents are taking actions that are 100% legal.  I will not mention any names, but I have already had an experience with a college coach leaving me a 3 minute phone message, screaming expletives at me and basically telling me that he would make sure I never sign another college basketball player again in the future.  Was he out of line?  Of course.  Especially because he did not know that his player actually contacted me and asked that he be the one to break the news to his coach that he would be leaving early to play ball professionally.  It was not my fault when the player did not tell the coach until a couple of days before leaving school.

That’s why I am not surprised at all when Katz writes that Wake Forest coach Dino Gaudio said to him, “Anybody that I find who goes behind my back to get my kids, I’ll do everything in my power to see that they’re not involved in the process.”

But is it any better if an agent goes through a coach instead of going directly to the player?  Coaches might refer a particular agent to their players even if that agent is not necessarily the right fit for the particular player.  Then we have to worry about shady coach/agent relationships…is the coach getting a cut of the action?

And yes, AAU coaches have taken the spot of college coaches as the emphasis for agents in building relationships for all the reasons mentioned by Katz.  But many college coaches still have very tight relationships with various agents.

The moral of the story is that basketball is pretty dirty.  There are a lot of different actors looking to benefit from an athlete’s talent.  There is a lot of money in the game of basketball, so the fact that there is so much shadiness behind the scenes should not surprise anybody.