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MLB Players Recruiting Sports Agents

Aroldis Chapman Finds A New Home

Last week, the world baseball community was abuzz about the news that one of Cuba’s top young pitchers, Aroldis Chapman, defected from the Cuban national team and was roaming around somewhere in Europe.  Fantasy baseball players immediately jotted his name down, baseball columnists were wondering what team he would be signed by, and I was trying to figure out which agency would get the rights to represent the Cuban defector.

I thought maybe it would be my Twitter buddy, Joe Kehoskie.  He is an established agent who, on his LinkedIN profile, claims to specialize in the representation of Cuban baseball defectors.  He has represented more Cuban defectors than any other active baseball agent and ranks in the top three historically.  I am not sure if Kehoskie was actively recruiting Chapman, but Chapman ended up going with a different agency: Athletes Premier International.

API is a young agency.  Three Co-Partners founded API in 2006, and they decided to elect Edwin Leonel Mejia as the CEO.  The website, which is less than a week old, does not list any client names and only has one press release.  That press release is the announcement of Chapman signing with the company.

API is also on Twitter.  Exactly a week ago, CEO Edwin Mejia wrote,

WATCH OUT Scott Boras there is a new kid on the block and we coming for that number 1 SPOT!!! www.athletespremier.com

A day later,

paparazzi are no joke!!! Gotta be real careful from now on! The Bomb almost got DROPPED!!!! Stay tuned… www.athletespremier.com

And then on Friday,

Ok this is just friggin crazy! Dudes are just out right trying to buy us now! Even the juggernauts of this game are getting worried! API

I sense a little excitement.

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.

3 replies on “Aroldis Chapman Finds A New Home”

Since writing this post, Athletes Premier has deleted about 75% of their tweets. They even wiped the ones that announced Chapman as a client.

Thanks to Joe Kehoskie for pointing that out to me.

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