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Sports Agents

Light My Fire

My friend linked me over to a blog he came across, which has a post titled: An Open Letter to Sports Law and Sports Management Students.  If you do not feel like clicking the link and heading over to read the post, this is what it says in its entirety:

Get ready to work for the PGA, NCAA, or a college’s compliance office. You will not be an agent. I’m not trying to be a jerk, but seriously, letting people say “I’m going to be a Major League Baseball Agent” and acting like this will happen is the law school equivelent of letting a college student go “I’m going to be president.”

Unless you have a relative that owns or is a high ranking member of an agency or a relative/close family friend that is a pro athlete, you have no chance. Get over it now. Its not going to happen. Call me negative if you want, but seriously, I’m right, we will meet again in 10 years, I’ll buy you a drink and you call tell me about the anti trust issues related to the NCAA’s latest regulation of players lives and schools mascots.

File this goal right next to win to lotto and move on.

End Rant.

Now Chris, you have an interesting perspective on the industry.  I am not sure what your Pi Kappa Phi brothers over at Bradley University are telling you, but you may want to take a look at the plethora of Sports Agents who do not have a relative that owns or is a high ranking member of an agency or a relative/close family friend that is a pro athlete.  If this post bothers you as much as it did to me, head over to this kid’s site and leave him a lovely comment.

I am looking forward to my free drink in 10 years, though.

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.

One reply on “Light My Fire”

I disagree with this. I had zero contacts in the sports agent industry when I started college. I made contacts by cold calling a few people and met an agent through one of them. I kept in contact with him and during law school I told him I was serious about the agent thing. After many unanswered phone calls he gave me a chance to intern. During my internship they realized I knew my stuff and kept me on after I grad law school. Just make phone call after phone call, take a junior agent to lunch to pick their brain. The key is you need to know your shit. I am currently starting out as an agent at a top baseball management firm and didnt go to an ivy league law school, nor did I play ball past HS. So it can be done. Just work your ass off.

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