Let's also talk about athletes cashing in superstar sports agent LEIGH
Steinberg certainly knows a lot about that topic and is the man who served as
the real life inspiration for Jerry Maguire.
He's currently chairman of Steinberg Sports and Entertainment and is the
author of new book The Agent My 40 Year Career of Making Deals and Changing the
Game. He's indeed made many deals securing
billions of dollars over the years for more than 300 clients including my man
Mr. Patrick Mahoney.
And we had the privilege of catching up with Lee recently and we started asking
him why we're seeing such big money contracts.
What happened is that in the midst of a cratered economy and the pandemic CBS
and Fox went ahead and negotiated contracts with the NFL that virtually
double what the last contract had paid. And that was two hundred million dollars
per team per season. So by the end of this before they open
their doors NFL teams will be getting about three hundred fifty million
dollars. So they are awash in revenue coming from
fantasy sports from brand new stadium with luxury boxes from massive TV
contracts. And previous to this offseason the
privileged positions had been left tackle that protects the quarterback the
quarterback always using quarterbacks and now making what baseball and
basketball players are making a shutdown corner and a defensive end that could
put the quarterback on its back. So those four positions but this
offseason wide receivers broke into the stratosphere.
And so we now have five privileged positions.
Yeah well LEIGH I mean you have to expand on that for me.
This has certainly been the off of the wide receiver.
I mean the vaunted Adams Cooper Cup Debo Samuel AJ Brown you name it.
You know talk to us about the front offices.
How can we justify paying the wide receiver position at that magnitude and
still be able to build a title contender.
Because what change do is say the find five or six players that are
irreplaceable on a team. And what happens is it's the same income
inequality that we see here in the rest of the economy.
So the quarterback made 40 to 50 million dollars.
Patrick my home to Sean watch and Josh down the left tackle the wide receiver
the gifted Shaq master on the offensive line and the
backups at every position are making the minimum.
And so they have to decide who is modular fungible and replaceable.
And those players are getting the minimum.
And then we're seeing six or seven players that are breaking out.
But the money is there just salary cap score and so on.
You sure are paying money. They have that.
They're making these countries obsessed with professional football.
Seventy one of the top one hundred television shows last year were NFL
football. It's not only the most popular sport
it's the most popular form of televised entertainment.
Yeah. I spend way more time watching TV on
Sundays probably more in aggregate than I spend on any given month.
And when it's not football season you were just talking about the quarterbacks
like Peyton Holmes who is one of your clients 20 20 signs of 10 year 450
million dollar deal at the time that made him the highest paid on an average
annual basis of any player. And now he's already been upstaged by
Aaron Rodgers. To Sean Watson it seems like the bar
just keeps getting set higher if that's the case and they just continually
ratchet it up. Why sign a long term deal.
Because what happens in a cap system is that eventually since all salary counts
against the cap and bonus counts and amortize way a few years into one of
those big contracts the team will come to that player and try to redo the
contract reduce the salary and extend. So
in a case like Mahoney's what you're telling the team is I want to be here.
This is my team. And but there's really not much risk
that a franchise quarterback that in a quarterback centric league is ever going
to end up under shower. So
and a player who's making 40 50 million dollars.
Even though there will be players come along and sign bigger contract she's not
exactly urban. What are your thoughts about players
serving as Brandon passengers getting sponsorships from the sports books
directly. I mean you don't see many players out
there advertising. I don't know.
Doing beer commercials or cigarette commercials you know.
What are your thoughts about them serving as brand ambassadors for sport
books. I again don't have a big problem with it
as long as it's not the players themselves
who are betting and getting involved with what gamblers.
We've known that people bet forever. Do we want kids getting large amounts of
money. No.
We really want to police that. But.
And these are difficult questions. But at the same time we know that this
is going on. Look when you hear.
A game that shattered a hand and there is a touchdown score and there's a
tumultuous celebration in the stands. We've known for some time that's about
point spread right. And so.
It's never been a secret that people that like crazy part of the reason we
have a popularity of sport. As long as the athletes themselves are
not involved in the wagering I don't have a big problem with sports
betting. What this show is about is presenting
difficulties to professional leagues in that there are players who would like to
invest in sports books. There are players who would like to
gamble on games themselves. How do you view how sports betting is
changing the game and ultimately how these leaks should be policing.
I think that that. Impregnable wall between padding.
Had it been breach because we now have teams and leagues that are buying into
the draft kings of the world you see ads for ending casinos.
The one thing we can't have happen is athletes betting on their own teams and
their own games in a way where they become compromised.
And you have gamblers that have leverage over players and then you have fans
start to question whether or not the games are fixed.
Because once that happens we doubt over whether games are played on an even
playing field it becomes wrestling. And that will destroy the integrity as
to the rest of it. We have had a number of teams in Las
Vegas and that doesn't seem to be compromising integrity.
And I think very soon we'll see para mutual betting where you can go into a
football stadium and bet on which team wins the coin flip and who runs the ball
back first and who scores the first touchdown.
And again as long as it's not players or coaches or executives doing it on their
own team. I think that the spiritual sobriety just
cannot have fans doubting whether the games are played on even playing fields.
Finally obviously we've talked mostly about players in the professional round
but with name image and likeness and the changes in the NYSE.
There is now a whole lead of amateur athletes who are opened up to this
world. How does the NFL change change things
for college athletes and their expectations when they do enter the
professional leagues. Well it's a revolution and it could
happen very rapidly in the course of a year.
In football it's three years until from from when someone graduates from high
school until they come into the pros. I'd be talking to a junior and his
parents. Now all of a sudden if you can't spot a
talent. As a high school junior and signed him
to a new trial and someone else does. You may never have a chance to represent
me. ROSE So you're going to see branding and
athletes involved in marketing themselves with marketing agency.
Younger and younger and younger may think they're going to see it move back
to earlier an earlier age. So so much for the concept of amateurism
and the term sheet and all this. It's going to be how many followers does
someone have on Twitter. And tick tock and Instagram and
commercialization at a much younger age. And the side effect that people weren't
anticipating is how this affects college recruiting because we have collectives
that are happening with alarms at all searched colleges where they're getting
together and now telling a young recruit a 17 year old who comes at this college
or this college and you can be guaranteed 2 million dollars in
endorsement money.