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Interview With The Agent: Leland Hardy

Leland HardyLeland Hardy is far from your typical sports agent.  In fact, I had never heard of the extremely impressive innovator and scholar until the gentleman who set me up with B.J. Armstrong for his interview connected Leland and myself for an hour of insightful conversation.  Scratch that.  I had actually heard of Leland Hardy for one reason: he was associated with Master P’s attempt to enter into the sports agent profession with his creation of No Limit Sports.  Many people associate Leland’s name with Master P’s failed attempt in starting a successful sports agency, but the little media coverage of Mr. Hardy has made us all ignorant of the amazing feats that Leland has already accomplished and looks to achieve in the future.

It was probably my toughest interview to this date.  Not only was Leland in the midst of recovering his computer from a virus, but I was going through the exact same drama.  We are all lucky that my computer was able to save the transcript, and without furthur adieu, here is my interview with entrepreneur extraordinaire, Leland Hardy.

Me: Who do you currently represent in the world of sports & entertainment?  What are your future plans in this area?

Leland Hardy: I’m working with “Fast” Eddie Chambers, a 31-1 fighter who was the #1 heavyweight contender for the IBF Championship until January.  He was winning a fight until round 6, but ended up losing by decision to 2004 Olympic Gold medalist, Alexander Povetkin after simply being outworked by him.  He had a comeback fight in Grand Cayman in June and we won a knockout on Showtime.  We are now back in the mix.  I’m working on Chambers with the father son Manager/Promoter team of Robert Murray Sr. and Jr., whom I met through [Mohammad] Ali, and with whom I’ve worked over the years in managing such clients as Bernard ‘The Executioner’ Hopkins and the late former WBA Super Middleweight Champion, Steve ‘Lightnin’ Little.  Guillermo ‘El-Cocodrilo Magnifico’ (the magnificent crocodile) Garcia is another client.  I have taken the Honduran native off the streets of Harlem when he hadn’t so much as ever tried on a boxing glove in his life, and my having guided him as his Trainer and sparring partner to back-to-back New York Daily News Golden Gloves Heavyweight Championships and a year-end USA Boxing national ranking of #7 after only two years is the subject of the soon-to-be-edited documentary. “Ring Dreams.”  There is great promise for him.  I am also working with two young tennis prodigies out of Philadelphia who I think are the best ever.  Better than Venus and Serena Williams were at the same age. I have kind-of advised different ballplayers and helped various retirees in different sports avoid the pitfalls of financial mismanagement.  My nephew, Andre Fluellen, was just drafted by the Detroit Lions with the 87th overall pick in the third round of the 2008 NFL Draft, so I am putting together all of his marketing and promotional strategies as we speak.

Me: Who is your favorite former athlete client, and why?

Leland Hardy: I would have to say (long pause)…Richard Williams, Venus and Serena’s father.  I was the family’s Business Advisor for 15 years or so, from the time that the grls were 6 and 7 years old, respectively.  I went from seeing him working 2 jobs in order to make enough money so that he could teach his kids, to predicting all the things that eventually came to pass.  We had a lot of fun along the way.  He always kept himself rooted in the community and doing things with people in the area where he grew up.

Me: How did you first start advising the Williams sisters?  Which do you think is a better tennis player?  Performance aside, which sister is more marketable?

Leland Hardy: Richard had read an article about me in Sports Illustrated and wanted to get with me.  Similarly, I had read about him in Sports Illustrated and I wanted to see if I could help him with his improbable pursuit.  I was the family Business Advisor, so I negotiated Serena’s first contract, when I got her the Puma deal.  She hadn’t even turned pro yet, and I got her $10 million from Puma when she was ranked less than #100 in the world. I would say that Serena is the better tennis player, because I think she has a bigger heart.  I think Venus has more tools.  Both have the full package, but Serena is the grittier, tougher of the two.  Venus is more marketable…she comes off as less intimidating.  I worked with them all the way up until they became adults, but I am not involved as I used to be.

Leland Hardy boxingMe: What did you like more: boxing athletes or representing athletes?

Leland Hardy: I like them both, because there was nothing like training for a fight and abstaining from the pleasures of life and then being rewarded with a great performance in which you give the public every penny of value for the hard earned money they spent on the ticket to see you fight.  There is nothing that could ever get me to understand how today’s heavyweights won’t fight to the death when the Heavyweight Championship of the World is on the line and they’re behind in a fight. If you want to be a champion, you literally have to be willing to fight for the death and to get up from every knock down.  100% pure, honest competition is a thrill.  I loved that.  You have absolutely no idea how close I am to comin’ back to lace ’em up again in light of today’s sad excuses for heavyweights, like Samuel Peter, Klitchko, Ibragimov, a puffed up James Toney, and so many others, all of whom I know I would knock out in 4 or 5 rounds.  Fast Eddie, with his incredible hand speed and ring generalship, is the exception.  But I also love the aspect of representing athletes, especially when you can help show them the right way.  When you help them educationally or professionally, and help them avoid financial ruin a la Mike Tyson, that means a great deal.

Me: You are mostly known in the athlete representation industry as being aligned with Master P’s No Limit Sports agency.  What was it like working with the guy who “made me say Uhhhh?”

Leland Hardy: P is a visionary and somebody who is passionate about everything he does.  A testament to that is when he almost made the final cut with both the Hornets and the Raptors to play ball at the highest level.  I was personally crushed when he was cut by the Raptors literally on the final day of pre-season.

Me: What are your feelings on everything that transpired with Ricky Williams after he switched over to Leigh Steinberg?  Would you stand behind a client who repeatedly failed drug tests?

Leland Hardy: The things that happened with Ricky are unfortunate.  He is a very good person, but he dances to his own tune.  Some of the things I wouldn’t condone…using marijuana multiple times among them.  Fortunately it wasn’t a worse drug.  He was not motivated by money, he was motivated by achieving greatness.  He was fixated on peace of mind…his own tranquility.  I would stand by the guy, because I would always try to help him and find help for him. You’ll notice that none of those personal tragedies befell him when I was representing him, perhaps because it wasn’t only about money for me either.  When I was Ricky’s agent I spent a lot of personal time with him, talking about and advising him on non-football matters.  When you take that out of a kid’s life, especially a kid who needs it, the kinds of things that happened to him generally aren’t far behind.

Me: Let’s talk about your B.I.C.E.P.S. program.  I actually dug up an article that I wrote about it back on Feb 22, 2007, where I applauded the fact that 116 players had signed up for it that year.  Tell our readers a little bit about the program.

Leland Hardy: I came up with the concept back in 1996.  I was born and raised in Philadelphia, and went to school at Central High School of Philadelphia, Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP), and Wharton – University of Pennsylvania.  I was in a special MBA/MA dual degree program there – the Joseph H. Lauder Institute of Management and International Studies where I was the youngest ever and first ever African-American Fellow, graduating with the class of ’86.  I was the 1983-84 Pennsylvania State Heavyweight Champion, so when I missed making the 1984 Olympic Team, all the other guys who were at or above my level went on to sports greatness.  Many ended up terribly, though.  When I saw many of these guys, including Mike Tyson, Meldrick Taylor, Henry Tillman, etc. end up going through tough times, I decided to come up with a concept to help athletes manage their finances.  I additionally wanted to bring something back to the table at my alma mater, the Wharton School.  It’s called B.I.C.E.P.S. – The Business Institute for Continuing Education in Professional Sports.  I brought together the top professors, developed the curriculum, and so on, to teach intensive classes on all of the subjects that I knew from experience the audience of pro athletes needed to know, e.g. “How to Read Financial Statements,” “Real Estate Fundamentals,” “Understanding Investment Fundamentals,” and classes like that.  Since the start of B.I.C.E.P.S., it has been a phenomenal success.  The program has now been expanded to Harvard, Stanford, and the Kellogg School at Northwestern, and it is the official business education program of the NFL and NFLPA.  I am about to bring it to another university in New York area, but I cannot disclose which school yet.   OK.  I’ll disclose it.  It’s Seton Hall University.

Me: Breaking news on SportsAgentBlog.com.  Thanks for that.  How was it growing up with successful brothers and sisters?  Did it make it harder or easier for your development as a successful businessman?

Leland Hardy: It made it easier because I had role models in my own home.  I’m the youngest.  My next oldest sibling was my brother Gilbert Hardy.  He was killed in a scuba diving accident in Morocco.  Gilbert went to Yale Law School and was one of the best attorneys in the country.  He was U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s roommate at Holy Cross College in Worcester, MA and at Yale law School, plus he was the best man at Clarence’s wedding.  My other brother is an accountant who went to Columbia graduate school and is a fairly significant fundraiser for the University of Maryland.  My sister is a board certified anesthesiologist and a certified financial planner who is also looking to put athletes on the right track.

Me: You are quoted in an article as basically calling yourself an “average high school student.”  How did you go from mediocre in high school to a stand-out student in college?

Leland Hardy: I went to a top high school (Central High School of Philadelphia).  While I messed around in high school by playing around, playing hookie, playing ball during the day, etc, I had a couple of outstanding talents that kind of kept me there.  The American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese (AATSP) named me the top non-Hispanic Spanish speaker in the country in 1979.  I ended up going to Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP) and I promised my mom to disregard what I did in high school and that I would do everything I could to focus in college.  My focus improved tremendously, along with my boxing skills.  I accumulated more undergraduate credits than any other student in the school’s history and I was awarded the school’s highest honor, the Distinguished Alumnus Award (as was Chad Hurley, the Co-Founder & CEO for YouTube.)

Me: How has your fluency in Spanish helped you as a sports agent and in your other pursuits?

Leland Hardy: It is impressive and allows me to help athletes…especially when we are on the road.  I used to teach the Williams’ sisters Japanese, Chinese, etc.  I used to teach Serena French and when she won the French Open, she addressed the arena with some nice French phrases we had worked on that the fans could understand.  Establishing friendships globally.  When they were kids I gave each sister an electronic dictionary and it helped them tremendously with their vocabulary.

Me: What language do you enjoy speaking the most?

Leland Hardy: Chinese.  I just love the culture.  The guy who is working on my computer right now is from Shanghai.  He marvels at the development over there.  I’m an executive with a company called Hennessee Group (www.HennesseeGroup.com), which publishes the Hennessee Hedge Fund Index.  It is the only independent, non-bank affiliated hedge fund index in existence, and is a Registered Investment Advisor.  We are expanding business into institutional asset management and also helping the firm grow internationally.  The ability to speak Chinese has helped our business tremendously as we position ourselves to advise sovereign wealth funds and similar clients with valuations in the tens and hundreds of billions of dollars.  We’re also in the midst of opening a new office in Dubai, Hennessee Dubai, with a Dubai-born fellow Wharton school alumnus running things there for us.

Me: How do you feel about this year’s Olympics taking place in Beijing?

Leland Hardy: I hope that it gives an opportunity for the world public, particularly governments, to help China realize that there are concerns about the openness of society in China and I hope that the country will address those concerns.  I think it is a wonderful opportunity.  I was in Beijing with Don King, Evander Holyfield, and the Chinese Olympic Committee when Beijing was selected as the city for this year’s Olympics.  I think China is a true giant, they deserve getting the games there, and it represents an opportunity for them to become even better by listening to the concerns of the global community on human rights, environmental friendliness, etc.  I love China and it’s my favorite contry outside of the U.S.  Having been involved there since graduating with honors from the Beijing Foreign Languages Institute in 1984 and having heled General Motors set up manufacturing operations throughout the country in the mid ’80’s, I want part of my legacy to be having helped China realize her full potential, financially and socially.

Me: Out of all the positions you have held, what was your favorite one?

Leland Hardy: Pretty tough.  I love the whole opportunity to help people and institutions with their asset/wealth management activities.  Acting in the capacity at Hennessee Group is one of my favorite positions.  Anything that I can do to help people in my travels and connect people, I enjoy.   In addition, I’m on the Board of Sutherland Global services (www.SUTH.com). Sutherland is a 22,000 employee Business Process Outsourcing and IT solutions firm that operates out of six geographic regions around the world and counting, and that services primarily Fortune 50 and Fortune 100 clients.  I’m helping the company expand into new markets, including China and the U.S. government sector.  I would say that Hennessee Group and Sutherland are my favorite corporate involvements outside of my own personal involvements in technology.

NewYork.comMe: When did you first think about the domain name NewYork.com, and how quick after that did you act to claim the domain?

Leland Hardy: Dale Davis and Damon Stoudemire were angel investors in NewYork.com.  I reserved the name back in 1994, long before most people knew what the web was or that it existed.  Now we have some groundbreaking new video and advertising delivery technologies that we are going to announce soon on the site.

Me: You own about a thousand other domain names.  Any of them popular sports sites?  How about sports agent/sports business related?

Leland Hardy: Actually, I have a little more than a few thousand domains.  They run the gamut from financial advisory to law to medicine.  One of the domains that I own with a friend is Unforgivable.com, for example.  I am currently in talks with P. Diddy, who owns the fragrance, Unforgivable, to continue to build the brand.  A friend of mine reserved that name, and I am helping maximize its utility.  I have a number of sports related names, as well.

Me: With all of your intellectual curiosity, what is the your biggest goal/venture that you would like to achieve in life?

Leland Hardy: I would have to say that my main passion is in developing a major enterprise that promotes education as well as outreach to my people in the motherland (continent of Africa).  I just returned from South Africa 2 weeks ago.  Cape Town to be exact.  I was there for the Warton Global Alumni Forum in Cape Town.  I had an opportunity to notice the juxtaposition of profligate wealth against abject poverty.  I stayed in the nicest hotel in all of South Africa, which is located directly across the street of a Lamborghini/Rolls Royce/Aston Martin dealership.  I can drive 10 minutes from there and be in a town with no plumbing, no electricity, out houses and so on.  Wherever I go, people have to worry about where I go, not about me. Ali would go everywhere without a bodyguard because people loved him and he treated everybody well.

I want to build something like B.I.C.E.P.S. that has a connection to my people in Africa.  I am connected to a program called Americas Schools, which provides a way to promote environmental friendliness and raise money for education in K-12 schools in the U.S.  The Clark County Las Vegas school district is the first district that has signed onto the program (fastest growing school district in the country).  We want schools to collect cartridges (ink jet, laser, etc) instead of throwing them away such that they end up in a landfill, contaminating the environment for hundreds of years.  We take those cartridges and recycle and sell them to recyclers.  Of the money we get, 55% goes to the schools who collected for us, the other 45% goes to us and to development of new school programs.  We just developed the first environmental curriculum in Clark County.  The Africa tie in is that one of our partners is Thula Thula, which is the former private hunting ground of the King of the Zulu Nation.  It is run by a noted environmentalist by the name of Lawrence Anthony (aka the Elephant Whisperer).  He additionally has a foundation called The Earth Organization.  Black Zulu school children are now getting computers through the relationship and are now able to communicate with their peers at Las Vegas area sister schools in Henderson, NV.  I hope to do everything that I can to continue to provide equipment and knowledge to African children.

An Outside the Lines YouTube video featuring Leland Hardy:

Update: In an effort to clear up some of the concerns about the contract that he negotiated for Ricky Williams, Leland Hardy has been gracious enough to respond to my follow-up question regarding this matter. Please see below.

Me: The contract that you negotiated for Ricky Williams when you ran No Limit Sports for Master P was groundbreaking and caused you and it to be the subject of a lot of negative commentary from the media and rivals in the industry. What was the deal with that?

Leland Hardy: Well, you know that when you arrive on the scene with the splash and the panache that we did, we wouldn’t be welcomed by an “old guard” who had been running things, with the usual suspect agents expected to land the highest profile, best kids in the Draft, let alone represent a Heisman Trophy Winner, the overall best player in college football, as I did. The agent community was used to shooting fish in a barrel by having kids whom they would otherwise be deathly afraid to walk on the same side of the street as, and whose wives would clutch their pocketbooks if they saw them approaching, aspire to be represented by them. What happened was that the established sports agent community had to come up with some kind of way to derail me and us by any means necessary. So they devised a strategy, working with their entrenched longtime sports media journalists and talking heads around the country, to launch a disinformation campaign, not unlike what was done against Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders during the 60’s. In that connection, the media floated stories and had callers calling in to sports talk radio stations around the country saying “Can you believe it, Leland Hardy and No Limit negotiated a contract for the Heisman Trophy Winner that has him playing for league minimum salary. It’s a disgrace! What the hell are these rookie agents doing ruining a kid’s career like that?” Unfortunately, the very gullible lay public didn’t, and largely still doesn’t know, that when a rookie player receives the maximum number of dollars that can possibly be negotiated for him in the form of his signing bonus, he automatically, by definition, will receive the league minimum salary based on the rules of the NFL’s Collective Bargaining Agreement. So you had millions of fans around the country, and unsophisticated, unknowing local reporters jumping in the band wagon to influence those fans by saying that Ricky received a bad contract. The fact of the matter is that I got Ricky a then record for his draft slot $8.84 million signing bonus, which, with the most conservative financial planning, should mean that he would never have to work another day in his life should he suffer an injury or worse. Moreover, and this is a part of this historic story that few know, I actually negotiated a second contract for Ricky that I and even New Orleans Saints management begged him to sign. This second contract called for Ricky’s entire contract to be guaranteed. He would have received a far smaller signing bonus than the record setting one I negotiated for him, but he would have had large annual salaries, all of which would have increased year to year and would have been guaranteed throughout all years of the Agreement. At the time, only a few NFL contracts in history had ever been done that way, but since then, agents have followed my lead and more and more of them have sought to structure theirs in that way, despite talking out of the other side of their mouths to discredit Ricky’s deal.

What I’m in the midst of compiling as we speak and will soon publish is a white paper on the current financial status of professional athletes on a per agent basis. I’m going to expose the home foreclosures, bankruptcy filings, and related ills of players on a per agent basis so that the American public and, more importantly, players themselves, can see how players are discarded like so many worthless carcasses after commissions are earned and they are thereafter of no value to the agents that they aspired to be represented by. Maybe that will be Part II of my interview on SportsAgentBlog.com!

By Darren Heitner

Darren Heitner created Sports Agent Blog as a New Year's Resolution on December 31, 2005. Originally titled, "I Want To Be A Sports Agent," the website was founded with the intention of causing Heitner to learn more about the profession that he wanted to join, meet reputable individuals in the space and force himself to stay on top of the latest news and trends.

Heitner now runs Heitner Legal, P.L.L.C., which is a law firm with many practice areas, including sports law and contract law. Heitner has represented numerous athletes and sports agents as legal counsel. He has also served as an Adjunct Professor at Indiana University Bloomington from 2011-2014, where he created and taught a course titled, Sport Agency Management, which included subjects ranging from NCAA regulations to athlete agent certification and the rules governing the profession. Heitner serves as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, where he teaches a Sports Law class that includes case law surrounding athlete agents and the NCAA rules.

16 replies on “Interview With The Agent: Leland Hardy”

Wally is my true is what I liked to be called.

Why wasn t Leland asked about the terrible contract Ricky signed with the Saints?

– Wally

No offense to Hardy, who I’m sure is a nice guy, but Gator/Wally’s right. The first deal Williams signed had to be the worst in the history of the NFL. You can’t just let a blow-hard get away with talking about how great he is. He was a rookie agent who was mostly interested in telling people how many languages he spoke, and he got his ass royally kicked by the Saints. That’s why he’s essentially no longer in the league.

I believe a nice follow up question would have been after that BS answer would be ‘Then why did he fire you?’

Also, very unprofessional for Leland to basically imply that all agents are racists.
What is also very funny is that No Limit and Leland did not even do Ricky’s marketing. They farmed that out to the so called ‘old guard’ of the business.

Also should have been asked, ‘Was this same media that gave you 11 minutes of promotion on OTL?

New Orleans Saints running back, Ricky Williams terminated his relationship with controversial agent Leland Hardy of No Limit Sports and retained Leigh Steinberg as his new agent. Hardy negotiated a now-infamous rookie contract for Williams, which was long on incentives clauses, but short on base salary.

Williams’ contract with the Saints contained an $8.8 million singing bonus, with the remainder of the $68.4 million deal based mostly on incentives [click here]. Due to injuries and overall poor team play, Williams reached only one of his incentives and collected just $3.8 million in his rookie year. Most of the incentives in Williams’ deal are triggered upon reaching 1,600 rushing yards in a season, a very high standard.

Williams become one of several professional athletes to recently sever ties with No Limit Sports, the athletic representation agency created by rapper Master P. [click here]

Alternative Approach

Steinberg also represents Edgerrin James, the Indianapolis Colts running back chosen prior to Williams in last year’s NFL draft. Steinberg negotiated a more attainable, staggered incentive based contract for James, which allowed the rookie to collect $14.8 million last season. Williams and Steinberg are not strangers, as previously Jeff Moorad, an associate of Steinberg, represented Williams while under a minor-league baseball contract with the Philadelphia Phillies. Steinberg often renegotiates his client’s contracts and has done so for NFL quarterbacks Troy Aikman and Steve Young. According to the New Orleans Times-Picayune, however, the Saints do have a good relationship with Steinberg, but any renegotiation talks will not take place until after next season.

Steinberg, who forbids his first-year clients to enter into endorsement contracts, will ask Williams to cancel his local advertisement commitments. Also, Williams will not be allowed to talk with reporters while wearing his helmet, which was his common practice last season during his weekly interviews. The Times-Picayune reports that Steinberg is primarily interested in both establishing Williams as a top NFL running back and in cleansing William’s tarnished image, which was only exacerbated by the player’s comments in a recent Sports Illustrated article.

Darren

I agree with -insidetheleague.com- thanks for the follow up question to leland.

– wally

First off.
Darren great blog and continue on your endeavors.

Next
@Wally
Explain to me how he implied that ALL agents were racists. We would be foolish to think that what he says to applies to everyone but we would be cowards if we denied it ever happens. If you think it was a bad deal and your name happens to Ricky Williams then you definiely have a right to say this guy is a joke.
(If you are Ricky-Man stay off the sauce!)
Otherwise give me the statistical data that disputes what he says. Some of the same talking heads he spoke always lament how “certain” athletes don’t have “heart”, “work ethic”, and “moxey” but crucified this guy for having his player EARN his money.
In short, we are paid to represent our clients interests contractually but we need to represent them beyond what we are getting.

I’m a member of the “lay public” that was admittedly duped by the media onslaught that Mr. Hardy referred to in his interview. I’m no genius, but it would certainly seem to me that the nay sayers who have dominated your blog posts and who have seemingly ganged up on you, the interviewer, succumbed to the same disinformation campaign that Mr. Hardy referred to. To say that you should have asked Mr. Hardy why he was “fired” by Ricky Williams is evidentiary of that and his naiveté in general and about the business in particular. In sports, especially in football, agent agreements are non-binding and players can go from agent to agent at will just by telling their agent “I’ve decided to use the services of another party.” If Ricky himself, and those in his inner circle, succumbed to all of the noise out there, it’s understandable that he might have been infected by the media’s very effective poisoning. Moreover, the party that posted a cut & paste of a nearly decade old article on the matter from the disinformation campaign strategists’ very playbook, is obviously obsessed with this issue and quite possibly obsessed with Mr. Hardy himself.

Incidentally, I don’t hide behind phony names like the readers of your blog who ganged up on you. My name is Louis Penn and I’m a rabid Eagles fan.

DeJaun – I stand corrected on the word use of ALL. I just felt it was cheap shot to other agents saying they only represent these guys because they can make money off of them and would otherwise have nothing to do with them. Ricky did sign with Steinberg who makes his clients give money to charity and as reported on this blog is worried about the concussion problem in the NFL. What data are you looking for?

Louis – I was cutting and pasting the article to show what Edge made his rookie year as compared to Ricky.
The contract got worse after Ricky’s rookie year.

Guys – Call up any agent that was working in the late 90’s and they will tell you it was one of the worst deals of all time. I believe the NLFPA actually looked into the deal because it was so bad. In addition, for any agent or want to be agent to read that Leland blames the media for their down fall is laughable. Boras and Rosenhaus are vilified in the media all the time and still retain and land top players every year.

Many questions are repeatedly asked on this blog – How do I get into this industry??? Having a ton of cash – Which No Limits had. – Connection to a top player which they had. And they blew it with that contract.

I have no axe to grind with Leland. If anything, this article and sudsequent post should be looked at as a learning tool.

thanks
wally

Uh…did I hear somebody say jealousy? Here we are, literally ten years later, and the Wally Gators, and the InSideTheLeagues, or whatever phony names these guys hide behind to post anonymous comments want to call themselves, can’t get over a New Jack coming into their world and teaching them a new way to do things. I’m here in North Carolina football country itchin’ for the season to start and I can only wish that more guys with the balls, guts, and brains of a Hardy would come to the table and maybe we wouldn’t have our sport compromised by so many prima donna ball players who could care less about winning. Pay for play. Legends like Jim Brown would have had it no other way. Hardy, if you happen to see this, way to go and please come back to the biz! The NFL needs you.

Eric Carter

@ Wally
fair enough man but I am approaching contract negotiations from the point of view of Eric Carter’s post.

Disclaimer: I am a Sports marketing specialist who has a separate Sports Risk Management practice . I will be moving into representing players in about 18 months. Because I am biased to “alternate” forms of income for my clients incentive laden contracts should be the norm to me.

Back on post—- Data I am referring to would be information from independent sources outside of our industry. In our industry, the “big boys” think that Heisman Trophy winners should lay down at their feet. They don’t like a “new jack” coming in and changing the rules. So they will discredit a newby because they are SORE LOSERS. Most competitors are.

There is a new generation of agents that are HUNGRY but not GLUTTONOUS.
Here we come……

PS..Steinberg cares about concussions because his clients were prone to it. He had a QB client on every roster one year! He even had all 3 QB’s at Pittsburgh(Kordell’s 4th year I believe). He has never been vilfied like Leland ..never called greedy as an indvidual agent….The media refers to the “agent industry” as being greedy when they talk about some and vilify the Carl Postons and Bill Duffy’s. Food for thought.
If you wanna discuss 901-351-8752 or see me on LINKED IN

again Darren –Keep up the good work man

Jealousy… yes that is it. see below for article published by Sports Business Journal

Published April 28, 2008 : Page 75The Ricky Williams contract

In 1999, the industry was buzzing about one of the worst contracts ever crafted for an elite athlete: the rookie deal for New Orleans Saints running back Ricky Williams, negotiated by Leland Hardy of No Limit Sports, the upstart firm owned by rapper Master P. The incentive-laden, eight-year deal was worth as little as $11.6 million and as much as $68.5 million. The problem? Williams would have to be one of the best running backs in NFL history to collect the full value of the contract. In 2003, Williams fired No Limit and signed with veteran NFL agent Leigh Steinberg.

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