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Vol. 3, Iss. 13
September 10, 2014

 

 
 

When it comes to Leigh Steinberg everyone seems to have it wrong.  The man who Forbes called “the greatest sports agent in history” is frequently mentioned as the inspiration for Tom Cruise’s character in the hit movie Jerry Maguire.  Yes, Leigh Sternberg’s life should by associated with a movie – but not that one.  It’s Forrest Gump.  And in Steinberg’s case it is a life that is imitating art.
 
With his grandfather managing a posh LA country club, the youngster Steinberg found a seat on Marilyn Monroe’s lap and attended his first baseball game with George Burns.  As student body president at Berkeley in 1970, Steinberg gave campus tours to Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison and Gloria Steinem [“After a tour of the campus I took her to my dorm room.  Besides her intelligence I was also struck by her beauty.”]  Steinberg also engaged in a heated exchange with California’s then-Governor Ronald Reagan over student protest issues popular in the day.  Years later Reagan honored Steinberg with a Presidential Commendation for Community Service.  From the very beginning Steinberg’s life resembled Forrest Gump -- and his career as a sports agent began in the same fashion.
 
I’m on the phone with the 65-year old Robert Redford-resembling Steinberg to ask him about his recent New York Times bestselling memoir – The Agent – and a few other things that a huge sports fan would love to ask the man considered one of the pioneers of professional sports as an industry.
 
Also on the phone is Lauren Kelly, my research assistant and a second year student at Villanova Law School.  Coincidentally, Steinberg’s former partner and Villanova Law alum, Jeff Moorad, committed $5 million for the creation of the school’s Jeffrey S. Moorad Center for the Study of Sports Law.  Steinberg, along with Moorad, spoke at Villanova not long ago.  Lauren mentions to Steinberg that she’s a Villanova law student and the two of them start jawing away about the law school, his visit and making plans to meet the next time he’s there.  It was clear from this initial exchange that the affable Steinberg was going to be an easy guy to interview.         
            
The Statistics

When telling the story of a sports agent it makes sense to start at the end – their career statistics.  While Steinberg is not defined solely by these numbers, you can’t obtain his accolades without them.  Steinberg represented the number one overall pick in the NFL draft an unprecedented eight times, along with over 60 other first round picks, and seven NFL Hall of Famers.  He has also represented multiple first round picks and hall of famers in baseball and basketball and been involved with representation of athletes in many other areas of sports.  Steinberg has been rated the #6 Most Powerful Person in the NFL according to Football Digest and the #16 Most Powerful Person in Sports according to The Sporting News.  His client list includes Steve Bartkowski, Steve Young, Troy Aikman, Warren Moon, Bruce Smith, Thurman Thomas, Kordell Stewart, Jeff George, Ben Roethlisberger, Myron Rolle, Matt Leinart, Mark Brunell, Ricky Williams, Howie Long, Eric Karros, Dusty Baker, Lennox Lewis and Oscar de la Hoya. 

The Accidental Sports Agent And What Real Leverage Looks Like
 
Leigh Steinberg didn’t set out to be a sports agent.  It happened by accident – in a true Forrest Gump-esque manner.  While at law school at Berkeley, Steinberg served as an undergraduate dorm counselor and made friends with a resident named Steve Bartkowski.  Bartkowski played quarterback for the school and in 1975 was chosen by the Atlanta Falcons as the number one pick in the NFL draft.  Bartkowski was not happy with the progress that his agent was making in reaching an agreement with the Falcons so he asked the 26 year-old and fresh out of law school Steinberg to take over as his agent.  Steinberg, working out of the card room in his parents’ house, secured a four-year agreement for Bartkowski worth $600,000 – the most lucrative rookie contract in NFL history at the time.               
 
How did Steinberg pull this off?  Simple: leverage.  The Falcons were coming off a horrible year.  The team had the worst offense in the league and attendance was way down.  The Falcons could not afford to fail to sign Bartkowski, who was seen as their savior.  To alienate their fans would have been a public relations disaster.  At that time, the World Football League had completed two seasons.  Steinberg found two WFL teams that were interested in signing Bartkowski.  Using the possibility that Bartkowski would take his talents elsewhere, Steinberg secured a record deal. 
 
With the Bartkowski deal under his belt, Steinberg set out to start a sports agency, which means getting to know the people who could introduce you to the right athletes. 
 
The Agent And The Leigh Steinberg Way 
 
Sports is all about the action on the field.  But sports fans crave what they can’t see.  And that’s what makes Steinberg’s book such a great read.  I get really fidgety on airplanes.  But I sat motionless on a three-hour flight reading The Agent.  That’s because Steinberg, when describing deal after deal for his superstar clients, and other interactions, provides countless behind the scenes stories to which a sports fan is never privy. 
 
Steinberg describes how many very high stakes contract negotiations played out (sometimes all night) and the use of leverage that was such a huge part of them.  He takes you behind the scenes of his negotiations with Cowboys’s owner Jerry Jones to sign Troy Aikman.  Each side had leverage.  Aikman had more.  One Steinberg lesson to aspiring agents when it comes to contract negotiations.  The team will point out your clients’ weaknesses to defend its position.  Don’t bring the athlete, or his father, to these meetings.
 
The Agent takes you along for the ride with Steinberg and Aikman as they sit in the back of a limousine after the Cowboys won the 1993 Super Bowl and Aikman was named the game’s MVP.  Steinberg describes a late night call from a shaken Warren Moon who had just been charged with spousal abuse.  And my favorite story: Steinberg negotiated a deal where Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger, who had grown a heavy beard, would be paid $100,000 by Gillette, to shave his beard after the 2006 Super Bowl, is the Steelers won.  As Steinberg sat in the stands during the game, Gillette began to re-negotiate the terms.  That didn’t last long.  Steinberg knew which button to push to get the deal back to where it had been.  [The Steelers won.  Ben’s shearing, on the David Letterman Show, can be found on Youtube.]     
 
Leigh Steinberg is known for his A-list of clients.  But that’s not all that defines him as an agent.  Steinberg’s objective has always been, he tells me, to help his clients have a “fulfilling life during and after sports.”  He requires his clients to donate money to their alma maters and communities and find causes that they want to tackle.  He recommends that they retrace their roots by setting up charities that are close to their hometowns.  Steinberg works with his clients so that their second career is even better.  To anyone who says that this all sounds like self-serving PR, so Show me the examples, Steinberg can.  He has a career’s worth of them and many are discussed in the book.  This is the Leigh Steinberg way.           
 
Becoming An Agent
 
Lots of people want to be a sports agent.  But what are the chances of succeeding at the level of representing an NFL first round draft pick?  I ask Steinberg this question and his response is immediate: “incomprehensively small.”  He explains that the “economics of starting up in the field are daunting.”  The NBA and NFL have negotiated rookie salary caps, which takes away skillful negotiation, and there are caps on what an agent can charge.  For example, in the NFL it’s 3% (of a severely capped contract) and an agent may have to pay $20,000 for a rookie to train for the scouting process.  Steinberg has this sobering conclusion for would-be agents: “For most agents, unless a practice is filled with many starters and major stars, it is difficult to make a real living.”         
 
Jerry Maguire And Who Really Said “Show Me The Money!”
 
Leigh Steinberg will always be mentioned as the real-life inspiration for Jerry Maguire.  He served as a consultant on the film, had a cameo (introducing Jerry to Troy Aikman) and spent time on the set during the filming.  There is a great picture in The Agent of Steinberg being flanked by Tom Cruise and Cuba Gooding, Jr. (Oscar for Best Supporting Actor).  The movie made Steinberg very recognizable.  Someone paid $15,000 to have lunch with him (“Crazy, I know,” Steinberg says in his memoir.)  
 
Steinberg will always be associated with Jerry Maguire and Jerry Maguire will always be associated with four words: “Show me the money!”  Where did this line – one of the most famous in cinema history – come from?  The answer is a buzz kill.  Steinberg’s client, Tim McDonald, his first to take advantage of NFL free agency, and deciding amongst teams, was being interviewed by Jerry Maguire director Cameron Crowe.  The interview took place in a hotel room with CNN’s Moneyline, hosted by Lou Dobbs, on in the background.  McDonald says that he spoke the line during the interview and Crowe claims that he said it.  That’s it.  That’s the whole story.  So not only was the line never shouted over the phone, the way it was in Jerry Maguire, but its provenance is in doubt, and both possibilities are deadly dull.
 
Being Star Struck
 
Steinberg’s life has been one of non-stop interaction with athletes, movie stars, politicians and the like.  He has long-hosted a party at the Super Bowl that is so exclusive and star-studded that there are tickets from past parties offered for sale on Ebay. 
 
Of course, Steinberg can’t do his job if he’s walking around star-struck all day long.  But surely there must be someone he’s met where he found himself in awe.  I ask him.  He pauses.  It’s a really long pause.  I’m waiting for him to say no.  But then he finally blurts out a name – “Ok, Jimi Hendrix.”      
     
What’s Ahead For The NCAA
 
The NCAA’s several legal kerfuffles of late have been a big story so of course I ask Steinberg about it and the biggest issue of them all – should student athletes be paid?  Not surprisingly, a guy who has spent his life trying to maximize the value of athletes sees the NCAA and NFL as being too restrictive on student athletes.  While he has two diplomas from the venerable Berkeley, Steinberg doesn’t hide from stating the obvious -- not every student athlete is in school to hit the books.  He says that high school football players should be allowed to go straight to the NFL to pursue their dream.  “Athletes are on campus because they are forced to be there to get to the pros.”  Besides, as Steinberg sees it, the system would take care of itself.  He explains to me that it would become clear to some athletes that they need more time to mature so they would migrate back to campus.          
 
As for paying student athletes: “We’re getting closer,” he tells me.  Steinberg advocates for a monthly stipend for student athletes since they can’t hold a job on campus.  He says they should be able to go out on a date and fly home for Thanksgiving.       
 
The National Past Time: Football (And The Other Football) 
 
Pro football long ago surpassed baseball as the most popular sport in America.  We all know that.  But, in fact, as far as Steinberg is concerned, baseball isn’t even number two – that would be college football.  I ask Steinberg why.  His reasons are so many that I can’t even keep up with his answer: football’s marriage to television and the superb production level; the ability to watch your home team anywhere; weekly games making for ideal promotional build-up; the long off season creates a hunger for the game; the draft; the appeal of quick bursts of dramatic action; the contact nature of the game; the synergy with college football; gambling; fantasy leagues; constant innovations in the game; social media; and endless supportive media content and analysis shows.  And there were a couple more that I missed.
 
What about the other football?  Lauren asks Steinberg how one of the most creative sports minds ever would crack the soccer nut?  How do you keep the soccer frenzy, that exists around the World Cup, going after the tournament is over, she wants to know.    
 
Steinberg doesn’t seem optimistic about the situation.  He says that the flurry of interest around the World Cup is “in large part occasioned by nationalism.”  The failure to popularize soccer is not for lack of trying, Steinberg points out.  There is plenty of soccer on television.  But Americans don’t respond.  The game just doesn’t fit the mold of how Americans enjoy sports – high scoring and built-in bathroom breaks.  It is this disconnect that is at the heart of the soccer problem.  Even bringing David Beckham to Los Angeles can’t solve this, Steinberg says.  He once suggested that the rules of the game be Americanized.  That brought a lot of hate mail.                  
 
The Crash And Comeback
 
In a sad turn of events, Steinberg’s life unraveled in the 2000s.  The spiral down began in 1999 when he sold his agency (“probably the worst decision I ever made”) and culminated in early 2012 when he filed for bankruptcy.  It was a confluence of events that led to his downfall; but alcoholism played a big part.  In between there were legal disputes over agency clients, the death of his father, his children developing vision problems, an employee caught taking an illegal loan from a player, losing two houses to mold, divorce, a DUI arrest and a series of lawsuits.  The man who once lived in a $7 million home moved back into his mother’s house.  As Steinberg says in The Agent: “It is quite a decline to go from chauffeur-driven limousines and private plans to having your car repossessed and not having enough to eat.”
 
But America is the land of the comeback story.  And Steinberg is on a mission to write that chapter in his life.  He has been sober since March 2010.  He has re-entered the agent world and looks to represent superstar athletes of every sport, as well as coaches, television and radio broadcasters and others.  He also plans to build an agency marketing arm to promote athletes, corporations, colleges, teams and leagues, as well as develop a virtual studio for the creation and facilitation of sports themed content.  Steinberg plans to continue to teach sports law and with the many causes that are so important to him, such as climate change and green issues, race relations, domestic violence, steroids and concussions in sports and still others.             
 
Forrest Gump
 
Steinberg is talking to me about some of the crazy coincidences in his life.  His jokes about how surreal it is that, while at Berkeley, he engaged in a testy exchange with Ronald Reagan – who years later would give him a Presidential Commendation.  I ask him if Gloria Steinem called him after his book came out.  “I think she lost my number,” he speculates.  Steinberg tells me that he was hesitant to write an autobiography because it would be so Forrest Gump-like that “no one would believe it.”        
 
Despite its very high ups, and very low downs, Leigh Steinberg has had an unimaginable life.  And there is still much more to go as Steinberg sees it.  Surely it would have been much different if he hadn’t been Steve Bartkowski’s dorm counselor.  I ask Steinberg what that life might have looked like.  Maybe television news, he had offers in politics (“probably what I was trained for”) and from a DA’s office and opportunities in corporate litigation.  But it never came to that.  “[Steve Bartkowski] probably [freed me] from a life of legal drudgery,” Steinberg says, with a sigh of relief.      

 
 
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