An Intern(al) Look at Becoming a Sports Agent

I’ve wanted to become a sports agent for a very long time. It was the reasoning behind my decision to go to law school and it’s something I’ve rigorously pursued since beginning law school. I knew the industry was very cutthroat and hard to break into. I was lucky to catch a break when an alumni of Widener Law School in Harrisburg, who is a certified NFL agent, allowed me to do some work for him. After my time there, I contacted Darren Heitner (of this site) regarding an internship with his agency, Dynasty Athlete Representation. While I didn’t get the position the first time, I did remain in contact with him, which lead to doing some work for the National Sports and Entertainment Law Society. Later, I heard Darren was starting EntertainmentAgentBlog as a side project and was looking for contributors. I had no previous experience dealing with the entertainment industry, nor did I know much about it. However, I still posted because I knew it was a good opportunity. After a few months, I noticed there were new contributors to this site. Subsequently, I asked Darren about contributing here and was granted permission. I’ve been posting on here since the Fall.

Recently I again applied for an internship with Dynasty and was lucky enough to land a spot as an intern this spring. Darren asked if I would begin posting once a week regarding my experience with Dynasty much like Scott Deady’s Rookie Duties. This is my first installment.

This week I was given many tasks to take on for the semester. I started out by making Google Alerts for all of Dynasty’s clients. This way, whenever they are in the news, I can get the information sent right to my Inbox. This will keep me informed and updated so that I can better contribute to Dynasty. I also begin each day by catching SportsCenter and reading Yahoo! Sports to stay up to date on the latest sports news and stories.

My first major task consisted of taking a list of baseball prospects that Darren had compiled after attending the PerfectGame National Underclassman Showcase and finding as much contact information for the players that I could find. I had 25 players to find. This seemed like an easy enough task. However, it is harder than you think to find this information on the Internet. At first, www.whitepages.com proved very helpful. However, for some, it required much more creative avenues. The best luck I had was to friend many prospects on Facebook and then ask them for the information. Most prospects were helpful, with only one or two asking as to what I was doing and why. After I explained my purpose, all were very helpful. I have a few players left before I am finished. I have a deadline of this Sunday. Should be no problem.

In addition to this task, I am beginning to look into ways to find sponsors for this blog and marketing opportunities for clients.

One similar task that Darren asked me to take on was to find ways to promote the University of Florida Levin College of Law’s Sports Law Symposium that is taking place Friday, January 29th. There is a great schedule lined up with some very prominent speakers. The topic this year is collective bargaining. My first way to promote the symposium is to tell all readers to check out this link. Also check out Darren’s previous post regarding the symposium.

Stay tuned throughout the rest of the Spring as I provide weekly posts as to what I am doing as an intern for Dynasty. If anyone has a comments as to how I should direct my posts, feel free to let me know.