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Internships

An Intern(al) Look At Becoming a Sports Agent

This week was finally a return to a somewhat normal schedule as compared to the insane past two weeks. For those that wondered, I did not advance to the final of Widener’s Mock Trial competition. It was really one of the very few times that I’ve had to do that in my life, so I believe I did well under the circumstances. However, I did receive valuable feedback from the judges.

I began the week by making a profile sheet for one of our clients so that it can be given to team officials overseas. It is our hope that we can find him a team to play on this season. The profile sheet basically involved finding career stats for the player, compiling video for the player, and writing a short blurb on his recent accomplishments. I was not involved in the video portion, but did compile the stats and write the blurb.

I was also involved with getting a company NCAA pool going for employees/clients via Facebook. I friended a lot of clients and invited them to join the pool. Many of our clients were happy to join. After yesterday’s games, it is impossible to know what’s going to happen. So far after the first day, Darren is in first, but I’m only one game behind.

I also completed various other tasks. One of our advisee’s had a question regarding whether composite or two part bats will be legal next season in the NCAA or whether single part bats will only be allowed. I emailed the NCAA individual associated with bat questions. So far I have not received a response. If anyone does know the answer, I’d be happy to hear it. We also received a message from a high schooler looking for an international team to play on this summer before entering college. I did some research and emailed some individuals, but really did not find a good answer for the player. It appears he might be too old for the opportunities that do exist for summer international play.

But despite not being successful on these two questions, I did have some success this week. I managed to get two of our clients endorsement deals with some product companies. Darren had given me a list of companies to contact regarding endorsements. I emailed many of these companies explaining who I was, what we had to offer, and why they should go with our clients. I received a response from a company and also an agreement. I passed the information along to Darren so he could look it over. I acted as sort of a liaison between Darren and the individual from the company as they negotiated the terms. In addition, I also got to look over the contract and give my input on what I thought. It was a great opportunity, as I got to finally put some of my law school skills to work in the sports industry. I had taken a contracts drafting class, which greatly familiarized me with the different parts of the contract. I am also currently taking a Sales class which helped me asses the warranties section. Hopefully my insight was helpful.

In addition to this company, I also might have set up a deal with another product company for a different client. They weren’t able to offer much in ways of compensation, but did offer product. The company was willing to send a sample product for our client to try out before we decide to make a deal. This is important, because you don’t want to sign a product deal for a client and then have the client not be comfortable in the product. Hopefully this deal also turns into something beneficial for our client.

Besides these developments, I also did my usual updates for college players and also helped out a fellow intern with the updates for our high school player watch list. Without giving any names, we did have two college players have tremendous offensive weekends last weekend. Most of the players on our list are having great seasons and hopefully some of them decide to sign with our company.

In closing, I had quite a busy week last week, but it was an exciting week. I finally got involved in a deal for our clients and saw first hand what goes into creating relationships with companies. This experience will help as I try to get my foot further in the door in this industry. Until my next post, have a great week.