I apologize for being missing in action for a couple weeks as I was down in Rio de Janeiro competing in the Pan Am Games. That being said, I’m glad to be back and ready to contribute as much as possible. Aside from providing a distraction from reality and some great scenes, my time in Brazil and at the ‘Games’ did serve the purpose of giving me quite a few ideas to think and write about; the first being the matter of representation as it pertains to amateur/individual athletes.
For the purpose of this post I’ll consider those athletes who do not play in organized professional sports leagues (NBA, NFL, NHL, MLB, Australian Football League, English Premier League etc.) to be amateur athletes. You can even throw professional poker players into the mix if you’d like since agencies such as Poker Royalty are on the rise. Regardless of definitions; current trends demonstrate that more and more agents and soon-to-be agents are making their niche in sports such as track and field, tennis and golf (Mark McCormack and Donald Dell using the latter two to essentially provide the foundation for athlete representation as we know it today) in addition to poker, bowling and even table tennis. Many of these young agents are even forgoing the traditionally more popular NBA, NFL or MLB routes in an attempt to find the next Andy Roddick, Allyson Felix, Jeremy Wariner or Lorena Ochoa.
The reason behind these trends of course involves money and the fact that though the majority of individual athletes make a whole lot less than our professional football/basketball/baseball stars; their agents are not limited to 3% as Drew Rosenhaus or Joel Segal is. It’s for this reason that I see the representation of individual athletes as the next big things of sorts; or at least getting a bit more popular. Using U.S. Olympic gold medalist and World Champion Jeremy Wariner as an example (excuse my use of track and field; it just happens to be the individual sport that I know best), his agent who happens to be none other than Michael Johnson, is entitled to 15% to 20% of Jeremy’s appearance fees, meet earnings, endorsement deals, bonuses and basically any income he generates. All in all it adds up to quite the yearly salary that Johnson is drawing commissions from. Furthermore, everywhere outside of the U.S., the Roger Federers and other individual sports athletes of the world are still veritable stars capable of generating very ‘comfortable’ incomes.
So, for fear of being too long winded I’ll say this: all things considered, what’s to keep more and more young agents from avoiding the $1500+ it costs to be an agent in the NBA and NFL and seeking out a career representing Olympic athletes or table tennis and poker stars; even though they’ll never get the acclaim of a Tom Condon or Bill Duffy? Just food for thought…
–Samyr Laine
5 replies on “Amateur/Individual Athletes and Representation”
I agree that agents will look more in depth at individual sports such as those you named as well as UFC and Action Sports. But wouldnt you say that finding those individuals athletes are alot harder than those in team sports. I feel like you have to be in the sport and really understand how it works. I am interested in the Mixed Martial Arts fighters but I think recruiting for team sports is so much easier.
Good article.
It seems everyone is aiming for the same sports (NFL, MLB etc.) when these sports go unnoticed. However, due to the lower profile of these sports there is less demand in areas such as endorsements.
Another sport to look at is Jockeys, I wrote an article on being a Jockey’s Agent last year. They take a 25% cut of Jockey’s earnings.
I think an obstacle for agents into this part of the industry is being familiar with what it entails, or lack therof. More interestingly, how did you do in the Pan Am games?
I definitely agree with you guys in that one barrier is the specific knowledge that is required of these sports and a particular familiarity of what it is an agent does for a jockey, poker player, bowler or track and field athlete (though in a large part it involves pursuing and securing endorsements and working to get the athlete/competitor into top notch competitions). I also feel that when we consider demand for endorsements we often fail to look outside the U.S. where many unique options exist.
Re: the Pan Am Games – things didn’t go nearly as well as they could have or I would have hoped and I ended up 10th. Fortunately for me I competed on the last day of the games so my time in Brazil wasn’t influenced by my performance.
This is a good article, but how do I go about getting certified as an agent for tennis? Thanks