This is it! Week 6 of Professor Carfagna’s “Representing the Professional Athlete” MOOC is here. This week students will gain an understanding of guiding professional golfers and tennis players through the longest career trajectories in sports; gain an understanding of how to diversify an athlete’s endorsement agreement portfolio; and gain an understanding of how to protect your athlete-client through appropriate suitability and morals clauses.
Students will delve into the worlds of golf and tennis. With the longest projected career trajectory, representing professional golfers and tennis players presents the agents with unique opportunities for a lifelong brand-building effort. Agents in these respective sports also have to deal with more complex suitability clauses because of the individual aspects of the sports. We will provide you with any inside look at the career path of Maria Sharapova, from the time her talent was discovered until her present day endorsement endeavors and on-going success within the sport.
Guests for week 6:
Dave Lightner, Principal at FSM Management
Gavin Forbes, Sr. Vice President of IMG Tennis for Cleveland at IMG Worldwide, Inc.
This week Professor Carfagna and teaching assistant Ricky Volante said the following: “We are very excited to bring you this final chapter of our MOOC. We will take the students through the worlds of tennis and golf, joined by two of the most experienced agents in the world. We will provide an unprecedented look into the career trajectory of Maria Sharapova and how she attained such great success. We will also look at the complexity of suitability clauses in these sports because the athletes are so dependent upon their equipment being just the way they like, and how as an agent you must ensure your athlete-client is able to maintain at least some semblance of control over the products they are using.
We are extremely proud of the overall product we have brought to you all, and are already in the process of making it even better for our second run. The level of satisfaction from the response by the students and the fantastic level of participation cannot be put into words. Thank you all so much for making this dream a reality and we look forward to seeing the final projects and joining you all for Representing the Professional Athlete 2.0!”