How to Become a Football Agent

Video Transcript

"Hi! I'm Dr. Lynn Lashbrook. President and founder of Sports Management Worldwide in Portland, Oregon. And we're going to talk today how to become a football agent. Yes, the Jerry Maguire movie did inspire me but I was already an agent, and when I work with Jerry Rice's agent, Jim Steiner, I had a chance to learn it was all about relationships. In one year I got a young man who didn't turn out to be a real successful football player but he had a younger brother that's going to be a future hall of famer. And the reason I tell you that, is it's all about relationships. It's easy to see which players are going to be there but the end of the day if you have a relationship and a trust, and you have an opportunity to represent athletes. The other secret in the agent main, if you're passionate about it is identifying talent before anybody else sees it. Watching a person as a sophomore in college and watching them develop. The other is identifying a player that maybe is not going to be drafted ends up bein' a free agent, and then ends up getting called up the NFL team and actually makes it, and becomes a starter, that happens all the time, and that's why a football agent going back to the Jerry Maguire movie, it is exciting and it is something that we develop the course at Sports Mgt. Worldwide. We're not only do we teach people compliance, how to do it without breaking the rules, how to do everything the right way and we tell people to keep their day job or stay in school while they're learning the business. But once you get a client and once we do the contract, and we work together on it. The player still needs mentoring. What are they doin' with their finances? What are they doin' with their second career? What are they doin' in their personal growth? And all those things. The challenge in the agent industry is the more clients you get, the more money you make but the more money you make, the less likely you can have a mentoring approach to your client, and that's why at Sports Mgt. Worldwide, we create an incubator called agent adviser where you can actually take a course on line and then actually represent players. And remember, every time you get a player that mades it, every player has a younger brother or cousin, a sister, a teammate, a roommate, and it goes on and on. Once you get that first player and even that player plays arena football, those players do get called up to the NFL or they're playing the CFL. It's very exciting. A player plays their way to the NFL, you don't agent your way. What you do as an agent in contract negotiations, if they're drafted and somewhat slotter but then they're free agents. Which is the best place for your client to go? Do you want him to go to a place that makes a little more money but maybe not a good fit, in the offense? Do you want to go to a place geographically that maybe the player rather be in a different climate? There's all those issues and as you know your player, and the family and all the personal relationships out there, you do a good job with your feet on the ground, helpin' a player with a short shelf life, trying to make the right decisions, not only with their investments but maximizing their opportunity, it's a short shelf life. Football, you can be hurt tomorrow, you gotta get disability insurance. There's so much that goes in to representing a football player but there's never been a greater opportunity because every player has a need, and needs a one on one relationship, and that's why I'm so proud of knowing my years having twenty players in the NFL. By giving people an opportunity to get into the business, get a client and grow their own business. It's a very very exciting, rewarding to turn on the TV on Sundays and there is your client playing on the field. It's very exciting."