Luber: Hey everyone – welcome to JD CareersOutThere – where we get you career advice from fellow
lawyers and non-practicing lawyers – to help you find success and happiness in your
career.
I’m ML – and today we’re exploring what it’s like to be a Sports Agent.
We’re talking to Brian Samuels, who’s a sports agent and a partner at Evolution
Management & Marketing in Los Angeles.
Brian shares a unique perspective with us because he
left the practice of law to become an agent after completing a federal clerkship and working
as a business litigator and employment litigator at two corporate law firms.
Here’s a little look at our discussion where he starts telling us what it’s really like
to be a Sports Agent.
Brian Samuels: Well, it’s not quite all Jerry Maguire.
There is a lot of management more so than anything else.
So essentially, the day-to-day involves a lot of managing clients – and that is everything
from servicing deals that already exist to finding new deals to having conversations
with your athlete clients to find out what’s going on with them, what new opportunities
might exist for them, and then essentially going out and finding those opportunities.
Luber: And so, what type of deals are you doing?
Are the deals with, like taking a player and doing a deal with a team and a league or is
it more taking a player and doing a Nike commercial?
Brian Samuels: More the latter, although our business is getting more involved in the former.
So we specialize in the off-the-field, off-the-court marketing opportunities on behalf of our clients
but as this grows, and I’m more than happy to discuss further, but as this grows, this
business grows, we’ve been presented with opportunities that are going to allow us to
begin negotiating on-the-court, on-the-field contracts for clients that we’re in the
process of recruiting.
Luber: OK.
Got it.
So then
a lot of times you’ll have someone, let’s say an NBA player, who’s already got their
whole deal in place for playing in the NBA but then you step in and you’re doing the
sponsorship deals and the branding and all the marketing, that kind of thing?
Brian Samuels: Exactly.
So we have that deal now with a current NBA player who was just drafted this past June
and we are working with him solely for off-the-court representation.
So our job is to go out and try to procure endorsement deals, appearances, anything that
could generate additional revenue for the player outside the player contract.
Luber: So then are you interacting with the agents who actually do the on-the-court, on-the-field
deals and getting them to refer business to you with their clients?
Is that how it works?
Brian Samuels: Basically, and this is like any other business.
It’s very much a relationship game.
With respect to clients that we have where we are dealing solely on the marketing side
and they are the traditional stick and ball sports: baseball, basketball, football, I
want to say maybe just a little more than the majority of the time we’re dealing with
the player agent.
There are many instances where we deal directly with the athletes and there’s not an exact
science to it.
While a lot of these athletes are under contract with their contract agent for on-the-field
and off-the-field or on-the-court and off-the-court, the nature of the business is such that, we’re
oftentimes talking to players first and then they may refer us to their contract agent
or we may just deal directly with their contract agent with whom we have a good relationship.
Luber: So it’s really every deal is unique and its own animal.
Brian Samuels: Absolutely, 100% accurate.
Every single deal is different, from the negotiating of the deal to the papering of the deal to
the servicing of the deal to whether they’re getting paid on time, every single deal is
different.
Luber: So I want to get into the nitty-gritty of some of the stuff that you actually do
when you’re doing your job……….You guys can watch our full interview with Brian
at JDCareersOutThere.com.
He tells us more about what it’s like to be a Sports Agent, what type of person makes
the best fit for this path, and he also shares great tips on how to break in and how to succeed
in this field.
You can also get to the site using JDCOT.com as a shortcut.
If you’re already at the site, you can scroll down to the full version – be sure to become
a member so you can watch the full interview and get access to lots more exclusive content
filled with great advice.
Thanks again for watching everyone – I’m Marc Luber and look forward to seeing you
again soon.
Take care.