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The People Who Manage Professional Athletes’ Moves

“Athlete relocation” is a niche service provided for professional athletes (those beginning their careers as well as athletes who have amassed great wealth) who find themselves constantly on the move.  Throughout my many years of writing about sports business (and sports agency in particular), I have found that the same names continue to come up over and over again whenever the phrase “athlete relocation” is mentioned.  Those names are: Ikem Chukumerije of SportsRelocation.com, Chris Dingman of The Dingman Group, and Ed Kaminsky of SportStar Relocation.

Recently, Krisanne Alcantara of Aol took notice of these specialized individuals in a piece titled, Sports’ Unsung Hero: The Athlete Relocation Agent.  As Alcantara correctly noted,

The athlete relocation agent must be a flawless coordinator and multitasker, handling such large responsibilities as selling homes; finding new ones; and locating new schools for the athletes’ children. But there are also smaller tasks to arrange, such as shipping household items; the new home’s electronics setup; and the gathering of information on local grocery stores, doctors and restaurants.

While sports agents may wish to handle such duties themselves, they typically do not have the time and/or requisite skill to perform such tasks to the level of the aforementioned athlete relocation specialists.  Further, they do not have the wealth of experience that gentlemen like Chukumerije, Dingman, and Kaminsky have obtained through years of practicing their trade.

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.

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