I attended a recent symposium at Manhattanville College where there was a discussion about the agent business in professional sports. One of the speakers was Art Weiss, the agent for Wayne Chrebet, Harry Carson and several other NFL players. Weiss said the grass was greener in baseball, meaning the financial rewards in baseball were far better than that of football. At first it kind of surprised me. For one, if you think about the biggest, most popular agents in the business, Leigh Steinberg, Tom Condon, David Dunn and Drew Rosenhaus are all NFL agents and all make big money…but mostly because of their long list of clients.
There are very few NFL players whose salary and endorsements alone can provide a very comfortable lifestyle for an agent. Yes, there are Peyton Manning, Donovan McNabb, Michael Vick, Ladainian Tomlinson, etc, but those are the elite. Also, money in the NFL is not guaranteed. Any of these players can have a career ending injury where they lose out on money not yet earned. In baseball; however, you probably have around 50 players who can single handily provide the agent a very lucrative living. I am not saying that in the NFL you must have a lot of players to be very successful and in baseball you only need a one. Instead, I feel that the money being given out in baseball is ridiculous, the salaries are through the roof, and players’ careers are a lot longer than that of the NFL player. Here is a short list of players that on their own, can provide a very good living for an agent: Jeter, A-rod, Manny, Helton, Hampton, Ichiro, Soriano, Giambi, Bonds, Zito, Griffey, Piazza, Pedro, Clemens, Randy Johnson…ok that is enough. But try to name more active NFL players that can earn you similar figures than those named above. Take a look at the top MLB salaries as of 2006. Number 50 in baseball would be one of the highest annual salaries in the NFL.
One can argue that it is smartest to represent NFL players because the NFL is the premier league in the U.S and the sky is the limit in regards to what the future holds. Young athletes tend to want instant gratification; they want to be the number 1 pick and contribute right away. In baseball, it takes some first round picks years to finally make it to the bigs and some high draft picks spend their entire career in the minors.
As to where I stand on this issue, I must admit I am still on the fence. Both the NFL and MLB have its advantages and disadvantages. But to be honest, the unbelievable contracts in baseball, as well as the non existent salary cap, are two big reasons why the grass on the diamond is looking a little greener than that of the gridiron.
-Paul Schackman
10 replies on “Where is the Grass Greener?”
I would say I have to agree that baseball looks like the market to be in in the future. The contracts are only going to get bigger and there is very little being done to slow down the growth in contracts. Despite my previous sentence there are a few problems that I see with representing baseball players: 1. 1 in every 10 players makes it to the major leagues. It’s amazing when you look at the list of 1st round picks from years past and realize that most of them never even sniff the big leagues. On the flip side even though the NFL doesn’t guarantee contracts at least you know when someone is drafted in the first couple of rounds they are going to play in the NFL the following year. 2. There are a few huge markets that drive the price up but the majority of teams cannot pay that type of money. I’m not saying that the other teams aren’t paying big money for their players but realistically only about 3-5 teams can pay A-Rod $30 million in the next few years. I had a third point but I completely forgot it while writing the rest. Either way I think it would be prudent to look into representing baseball players because one or two big time clients can provide a quality life for an agent but it is important to recognize the luck involved.
I just looked at the link to the 50 highest paid baseball players. It’s hilarious that Giambi made 23.5 million last year…only in New York.
You think that contracts are going up. But I will be highlighting an interesting point about all of that in an upcoming post. You may want to look at what is currently going on with signing bonuses from this year’s draft…it’s a little scary.
Actually last year and this year draft picks contracts have been going down, so far. A lot of agents and players will be screaming collusion before too long, trust me.
This is an interesting topic and I’ve certainly given in some thought recently.
There are positive and negatives to representation in the “big three” sports. In basketball: large contracts, strong probability for endorsement money, small draft, small pool of players in the league. In football: smaller contracts, low chance for endorsement money, large draft, huge pool of players in the league. In baseball: large contracts, large draft – but lower chance for players to make it to the big leagues, medium-size pool of players in the league. And this is not even taking into account the different expenses that you would spend on representing a client in each of the different sports (i.e. pre-draft workouts, airfare, client scouting and solicitation, etc) – obviously a sport with a 16 game schedule is going to be different from one with 82 games (or 162 for that matter!).
Personally, I feel most comfortable with basketball and football. I know about the salary rules in each sport, and I feel I would be able to make stronger arguments in negotiation because I have a strong understanding of both sports. Baseball on the other hand, is a sport that I just started becoming interested in during the 2005 season. I don’t feel that I have a strong grasp on the game of baseball yet. In the end, I think I would end up concentrating on the sports I am more passionate about, even if it means neglecting the lucrative market of baseball. One possible idea is if I were to open my own sports agency, I would partner with someone who is competent in the areas where I am lacking – that way there would be different divisions for each sports within the agency.
Another factor to consider is the barriers to entry for agents into each sport. In baseball, you merely need to get a client onto a team’s 40-man roster (not necessarily an easy task) to become an MLB-certified player representative while the NFL has heightened the barriers to entry for agents. It used to be that you only needed a degree, pass the certification test, and pay a fee, but now you have to have a post-graduate degree AND pay the fee/pass the cert test. For a lot of people who aren’t going to start out representing the Michael Vicks of the world, the post-graduate requirement can significantly extend your personal break-even point quite a few years. I believe I’m right, but please correct me if I’m wrong on the certification requirements.
No Brian you are correct, I am actually in Grad School initially for the sole purpose to become a certified NFL agent. I decided against Law School for two reason I dont think I am a law school kind of person, and two the program opens alot more doors in the sports world other than being an agent. It is a good method for the NFL to weed out people who are not serious about representing NFL players.
The contracts in baseball are going down?
The signing bonuses for drafted players are…check out my post from Saturday.
Will do, thanks.