Lunch with the Boys

Guest contribution from an entity within the sports representation industry.

Let me begin by saying that I’m excited to be part of this blog, and reassure you that I’m not here as the proto-feminist of the group. I would, however, like to give voice to some of the topics that we women in this industry rarely hear addressed. When I was discussing this opportunity with a young agent in my office, he said he’d love to read about anything he hasn’t seen hashed out a hundred times before. I laughed because I guess the topics I want to write about fit the bill!

I continued to think about potential topics for this blog, the sports agent industry and the company I work for in particular as I prepared for a talk I was scheduled to give to a group of undergraduate students in the Sports Business Association at Arizona State later that afternoon. As I arrived in the lecture hall I noted that the group consisted of about 50% women. I thought that was interesting, and more interesting still was the fact that when I asked how many students wanted to be agents, more than half that raised their hands were women. Yet during the question and answer portion of the talk they hesitated to ask the question, “What is this industry like for us?” I wasn’t surprised that once the topic was broached there were lots of specific questions, and they were eager and grateful for answers.

Their queries came back to me at lunch today. I’d gone to a local Italian joint with three (male) agents from my office and a younger baseball client. The ballplayer considers me a friend, and although experience suggests that most women should be wary of that label from most ballplayers, I went along. From past lunches, I knew what I was in for, but I chose to be included.

Lunch was peppered with business talk about contracts (his and others), how people are doing in the playoffs, and discussion of University of Arizona’s football program. I say peppered because in between we, or rather they, talked about other topics that used to make me blush and are certainly not appropriate for a public blog. I have no way of knowing if they censored themselves at all or if I’ve succeeded in becoming one of the guys, so I laughed along as usual, but kept thinking about the young women at ASU, their aspirations and the reality of sports agency as I’ve experienced it.

I expect that my experience is similar to that of other women, and I think it’s worth talking about. But beyond writing from a personal perspective about working in what has long been a man’s industry, in the coming weeks I’d also and perhaps more importantly like to post about marketing female athletes, about the differences in representing men and women, and about the particulars of women in sports in all capacities. I welcome the opportunity to think more about questions I have, discuss them with colleagues and write about them here. I hope also to hear from you about subjects that, for all their obviousness, still feel taboo.