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Is Southern California Going To Receive A 1st Round Knockout? – SPORTS AGENT BLOG
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Is Southern California Going To Receive A 1st Round Knockout?

The last thing that the University of Southern California needs is another controversy involving agents, but that is exactly what the institution has on its hands.  We are not talking about Reggie Bush money here.  In fact, the whole story started with an agent giving a student-athlete (Dillon Baxter) a ride on a golf cart.  Yes, even a free ride on a golf cart is considered by the NCAA to be an impermissible benefit to a student-athlete.

The golf cart displayed a 1st Round Enterprises logo.  A USC student named Teague Egan is the CEO of 1st Round, which seems to be a start-up agency that works with sports, entertainment, movies, and music, but also includes a financial and philanthropic wing.  Egan seems to already have some experience on the music side of the biz.  He and his company represent an artist named Sam Adams.  This is what Alex Monroe of a website titled, “GetYourBizSavvy” had to say about Egan (written August 20, 2010):

To tell you a little more about Teague, he’s a serious entrepreneur. He started his first business in high school and prior to starting 1st Round Records, he was working on 1st Round Entertainment full time, which is a company that promotes and throws parties in the Los Angeles area. Teague actually made 1st Round Records a branch off of his entire 1st Round company. In addition to the 1st Round Records branch there is 1st Round Sports, 1st Round Capital, 1st Round Pictures, and 1st Round Entertainment. Pretty intelligent of Teague to form a whole plethora of companies around the main one. We asked Teague his goals for 1st Round: “What were really going after with 1st Round is to make it a lifestyle brand where the term 1st Round is all about being in the winners circle.”

Lets hope that Egan’s connections to student-athletes at USC begins and ends with Baxter; USC really does not need to find its name mentioned by the media for any more agent-related activities.

Another red flag – Jordan Campbell is a partner at 1st Round.  Campbell, a “founding father” at 1st Round, is a student-athlete (linebacker) who transfered from USC to Louisville.  Conflict of interest?

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.

4 replies on “Is Southern California Going To Receive A 1st Round Knockout?”

What do you think about this article.
http://sports.espn.go.com/los-angeles/ncf/news/story?id=5836913

He says this, “”To me, a golf cart ride wasn’t an extra benefit, since I give 15-20 rides a day to all my friends to and from class. The question is would they consider riding on the handle bars of a bicycle against the rules? Say we all wanted to go to the movies together, would we have to take separate cars, and the player ride by himself? … I wouldn’t even buy a players ticket to that movie. But a ride?”

Is that not even more violations? It doesn’t matter if you are their friend, you are an agent/advisor and you can’t provide them benefits, which includes transportation. So yes, you would have to take separate cars, just like any meeting between an agent and player while they are still an NCAA athlete.

You are correct, which is a problem with the NFLPA certifying individuals who are still in college. They might be “friends” with players, but the Players Association, NCAA, various laws, only see it from one view: A licensed agent is giving a benefit to a student-athlete.

Why/what is the conflict of interest you speak of? If Campbell received a job from an agent its not a COI, its a flat out violation. I’m guessing its not a real “job” however and that its just him and his buddies “getting together” and pasting their headshots and bios on a webpage to impress bottom-tier clients and chicks.

This guy is a clown, no matter what the venerable (sarcastic) getyourbizsavvy.com blogs about him. So many guys are calling themselves agents without having any clients. Like being a dairy farmer with no cows.

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