Golf agent Mark Steinberg is known throughout the agent community as being very “laid back,” “behind the scenes,” and “reserved.” Those are some of the words that I have heard agents used when describing the long-time agent of Tiger Woods, among other popular golfers. However, even the quiet Steinberg opened up to Sports Agent Blog in an interview conducted roughly six years ago.
In that interview, Steinberg said the two most important aspects of being a sports agent are honesty and integrity. “What I’ve learned in the past 15 years is to be honest and tell the truth,” said Steinberg in that interview. “What I mean by that is not just to be a yes man or a yes woman, but to tell the truth, speak your opinion and be a straight shooter. You need to be fair and not take advantage of your clients and if you work hard, you will have a very successful career.”
Late last week, Steinberg went back on the record, providing a guest column to Businessweek on his client, Tiger Woods’ comeback. He is right – there were a lot of doubters out there and America sure does love a comeback story. But the most interesting part of the column dealt with Steinberg addressing Tiger’s future potential as an endorser.
“We’re not going to do three more deals in the next two months just because he’s No. 1 in the world and we want to strike while the iron is hot,” wrote Steinberg. “He already has a lot of sponsors. We’re looking for maybe one more large global deal.”
And then there’s this:
I’ve been doing this for 21 years. I don’t know if I’m a good agent or a great agent or a legendary agent. I try to not let anything be about me. It’s about my clients. I kind of stay behind the scenes.
