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Interview With The Agent: Teague Egan

On November 22, 2010, I wrote about a University of Southern California student named Teague Egan.  Egan, who is licensed by the NFL Players Association, was found to have given Dillon Baxter (a student-athlete at USC), a ride on his golf cart, which prominently displays the logo of his company (as seen at the bottom of this post).  A lot of people started wondering 1) How an undergraduate student passed through the NFLPA inspection and earned certification (there is a loophole to the union’s post-graduate degree requirement for “sufficient negotiating experience); 2) Whether there was an issue regarding going into this type of sports business with a current student-athlete; and 3) Teague Egan’s background.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to speak at length with Teague Michael Egan, who was rather receptive to speaking to me on the record.  After letting the media talk for the past week or so, Egan was ready to tell his story.  Egan was home for the Thanksgiving holiday, and was not taking a break from trying to build his company, 1st Round.  In fact, he was headed to Pine Crest High School, one of the two high schools in South Florida that he attended prior to enrolling at USC.  Pine Crest has an exceptionally talented basketball program; University of Kentucky freshman Brandon Knight is a graduate of Pine Crest.  Later that day, Egan planned on visiting St. Thomas Aquinas, the second South Florida high school he attended.  He was on the school’s golf and track team; St. Thomas is known nationwide as having one of, if not the, toughest football programs.

Egan was born on July 6, 1988, making him 22-years-young at the date of this article being published.  I believe that Egan felt comfortable speaking with me, as I had also started my own sports agency at the age of 22, as an undergraduate at the University of Florida.  The following contains the parts of our discussion that have not yet been mentioned.

Darren Heitner: Why did you transfer from Pine Crest to St. Thomas Aquinas in high school?

Teague Egan: I transfered from Pine Crest to St. Thomas Aquinas in my Junior Year.  My brother [Riley Egan] wanted to transfer because St. Thomas had a much better track team, which ended up winning the state championship after the transfer.  I was and still am very close with my brother, and I wanted to go where he went.  My brother runs the Pictures Division of 1st Round.

Heitner: What gave you the idea to start 1st Round?

Egan: I was in between businesses.  I had started a couple businesses in high school and college.  These were big business ideas.  I felt like like I was over my head, though.  I had just pledged a fraternity called Phi Psi.  Sterling Brewster was in my pledge class; he became a partner in 1st Round.  A couple of football players also pledged the same fraternity.  Daniel Harper, Everson Griffen (drafted by the Minnesota Vikings in the 4th round, but Egan referenced him as a projected 1st round pick), Spencer Spiegel, and Jordan Campbell all pledged with me.  I became great friends with Everson, Daniel, and Jordan.

In the Spring of Sophomore year, I went to Jordan and said that should start a business.  I came up with the name “1st Round” because a lot of my boys were going to be drafted in the 1st Round, and I thought it was cool.  I grew up with signed helmets, footballs, and jerseys all over my room.  I played 5 sports in high school.  I had season tickets to the Heat and Dolphins.  I loved sports.

I started throwing parties with Jordan.  We went head-to-head with 28th Street Entertainment (Egan stated that this was USC’s top nightlife promotion group).  We threw an entire party for free, but negotiated a huge percentage of the bar.  We provided free transportation to club, free admission, and blew 28th Street out of the water.  The party was packed with hundreds of kids from USC, UCLA, and LMU.  We lost money on the party, but 1st Round Entertainment was officially established.  I was busy throwing parties, having great times with friends, and had an “in” with all the cutest girls.  All of Jordan’s friends on the USC football team started coming to my parties as well.

That summer, I was up on Nantucket Island on the beach hanging out on the 4th of July.  One of the guys I brought out to the beach was the best freestyle rapper I knew.  It suddenly hit me that that I wanted to start a record label.  At the time, I was questioning the success of 1st Round Entertainment, because I was throwing fun parties, but losing money.  But I  had a good name.  I started the record label and signed Sam Adams (the freestyler who accompanied him to the beach).

I first named my record label “Lazy Boy Records.”  I decided to change it, though, and make all of my companies reflect the 1st Round Brand.  I made the decision to do so after reading a book about branding that was written by Richard Branson.  I liked the whole “Virgin” idea and keeping everything under the same brand.  In the near future, I will be doing a management deal with Lady Gaga’s management, for Sam Adams.

Anyway, when Jordan transferred to Louisville, we started the sports agency.  The division is far bigger than negotiating 3% for the athletes we represent.  We want the sports division to be the next Nike.  We don’t want to just deal with contract negotiation.  Instead, we want to manufacture merchandise and apparel.  I structured 1st Round after Nike.  Nike has the swoosh, 1st Round has the wings; easily identifiable.  The slogan is also based after Nike.  Theirs – “Just Do It” vs. ours – “Go Higher” – everyone can identify and relate to it.

Heitner: But it does seem like you also want to represent athletes, no?

Egan: I officially became certified by the NFLPA on October 1, 2010.  My Nike goal is down the road.  I want 1st Round to be a “full service sports franchise.”  The word “agent” has such a negative connotation.  We will provide anything the athlete can want.  I want to do a lot of athlete branding.

Heitner: What is the make-up of your company?

Egan: I structured my company with 6 different divisions.  Each division has a different President.  I also incorporated the “crossover effect,” where each division can help out the others.   Sports, records, pictures, entertainment (parties, but I eventually plan to own restaurants, clubs, entertainment venues), capital, and philanthropic.

Heitner: Tell me a little more about your capital division.

Egan: This division began based on my and my dad’s background.  I have has several investments in many fields, stocks and bonds (he says that Apple is his biggest holding), money in BlackRock, global allocation funds.  The main area that I am looking at is venture capital and investments into small, upcoming businesses that have huge potential for growth.

Heitner: What are your thoughts on what has been written about you thus far?

Egan: What I have done is almost revolutionary. I have gone into unchartered waters. I am one of, if not the youngest certified agent, and I am an undergraduate student at a university.  Everything that has happened is absolutely ridiculous.  It is such a unique situation.  The rules are in place to prevent people like Cam Newton from getting $180,000 or Reggie Bush from having houses bought for his parents, not to prevent students from getting rides in golf carts from other students.  They try to stress “student” coming before “athlete” in almost everything.  If you want to claim that, then I am a “student” first and then an “agent”.  Call me a “student-agent.”

Heitner: People are calling out the NFLPA for granting you certification while you are a still a student.  What do you have to say about that?

Egan: Athletes should be able to have whoever they want represent them, as long as the person has experience and capability to represent properly. The fact that I am a student should not prevent me from representing an athlete. If a student has sufficient negotiating experience that meets the qualifications the NFLPA deems acceptable, there is no reason he should be denied.  I am a born negotiator.  I have a lot of negotiating experience.

Heitner: What about the criticism regarding Jordan Campbell, a current student-athlete, being a part of your organization?

Egan: Jordan never actually signed the LLC documents.  I believed that it was a bad idea and a potential conflict.  I am going to wait until after his eligibility to make him an official partner.

Heitner: What is your plan for 1st Round Sports in the immediate future? Are you going to wait until the criticism subsides before you go out and recruit players?

Egan: Now that this all happened, I have to watch myself and stay within the rules even tighter, but I am not going to sit back.  The #1 thing was to make sure that my friends did not get hurt.  Now that they are back and reinstated, I feel free to talk with the media.  I will be putting the golf cart up on Ebay and will have some of the proceeds go back to USC Football.  I am looking at baseball and basketball on top of football, and already represent an MMA fighter (Ryan McMahon) and have connections to the UFC.

Heitner: What about the threat of getting in trouble for rules violations?

Egan: Rides to clubs, free entry to clubs, and golf rides around campus were given to everybody.  There was no special treatment being given to athletes.

Heitner: What kind of advice would you like to give people who dream of becoming sports agents?

Egan: It’s all about relationships.  How is anyone supposed to be a sports agent if he is not friends with the athletes and is some random 30 or 40 year old guy?  It is all about trust.  I have amazing relationships with the guys.  They know and trust me.  It’s not the grades you make, it’s the hands you shake.

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.

10 replies on “Interview With The Agent: Teague Egan”

I am a college student and I have a few questions about sports management, however finding someone experienced to ask is the hardest part ,the main thing I would just like to know is what major steps can I take to become closer to being an agent?

What I’d like to know is if this guy is half as successful as he depicts himself, why is it that his facebook profile picture shows him drinking Natty Ice?

All I can say is that you must position yourself to be in the right place at the right time. Don’t depend on others and don’t expect anyone to help you. Use everything around you as leverage and plan to spend at least 18 months working for free and literally giving it all you got. If you want to be an agent you better absolutely love helping people – if you don’t, then no shame. You can make so much money in a variety of fields and still be involved with sports. What Teague is doing is simply seeing the big picture and how one area can benefit another. While it is risky to be chasing too much and not focusing on one area to be your niche – especially to launch off and gain significant traction; sometimes it pays off.

There is a lot of bullshit out there, many guys really don’t focus on relationships, only how can they take advantage of a situation and in the process rarely succeed. I know runners who have great lives, travel a lot, and meet people, but that is short-lived because they are disposable and likely do not understand where their leverage lies (otherwise they would simply not be a runner and use their leverage).

The idea that one is “playing with dads money” may not be true at all – most “daddy’s” pay for college education, living expenses, and sometimes provide a home post-college…

Don’t think of yourself as wanting to be an “agent,” think of yourself as something else (an attorney, an accountant, a businessperson, an opportunist, or entrepreneur) before you declare that you want to be an agent. Some agents spend 90% of their time for as little as 10% of the return, but simply because they care about people – simply an advocate.

WIl or should Egan appeal his revocation from the NFLPA??

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=5880708

“…The union also is revoking the agent certification of Southern California undergrad Teague Egan, who gave a ride across campus to tailback Dillon Baxter, a violation of NCAA rules. Union spokesman George Atallah said a review of Egan’s qualifications showed he “is not fit to be a certified contract advisor.”

“We appreciate that the NFLPA let us know about its action promptly so we could alert our players, including those who are soon to be draft eligible,” USC vice president of compliance Dave Roberts said in a statement from the school. “Although the NFLPA has decertified Egan, USC would still view any benefit received from him by a current student-athlete to be impermissible under NCAA agent rules.”

I think these players genuinely like and trust Teague. They’re not just hanging out with him because he’s blowing daddy’s money on drinks and limo/golf cart rides for them. Think of how difficult it is to stick your neck out as a young entrepreneur when all you have is a massive trust fund to fall back on ..and the kid obviously has “it” ..you can’t watch that Campus Cribs video and not think he’s the coolest guy at USC (and possibly in the entire world). Kudos Reggie- -Bush-League-Teague.

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