Who can ever forget the cigar-smoking, wheeler-dealing image of football agent Eric Hall in the late part of the last century? While the flamboyance of the industry still remains today, people trying to get into this profession shouldn't forget all the hard work that goes on behind the scenes procuring and negotiating employment and endorsement contracts for sportspeople. You'll be the conduit between your player and a club's team owners, managers and coaches when it comes to negotiating new salaries and/or contracts or even joining a new club. You'll broker sponsorship and advertising deals for your client and deal with all their public relations/marketing matters and generally take the hassle of their lives so they can concentrate on what they do best – playing sport to the best of their ability. You'll also act as a middleman if any disputes arise between player and club. You'll plot, maintain and progress a sportperson's career development.
Who can I work for?
There are sports agents firms all around the world, from the giants such as IMG, Octagon and ISM to small niche ones. You may even set up your own business, starting with one or maybe a handful of up-and-coming clients.
Where and when can I work?
You'll mainly be office-based (sometimes that office can be at home), but on the go a lot of the time as well, meeting sportspeople's club bosses and watching them play or scouting for new talent. Hours are open-ended. You're there to support your sportsperson in every way, and this often means being at their beck and call at the other end of an internet connection or phone whatever the time of day (or night!) This means yours is a seven-day-a-week job. You can guarantee the next major client emergency will occur just when you've set your first toe on the beach.
What can I earn?
Sports agents' salaries fluctuate wildly – depending on who they are representing and how many clients they have got. Sports agents, because they get a percentage of their clients' income as commission, are sometimes referred to as 'Mr 15 per centers'. But it is rarely as straight-forward (or as high) as that. It all depends how the contract is negotiating with your client. You may agree to take five per cent of their playing contract earnings and 15 per cent of their endorsements and/or image rights. Some top-end agents can make hundreds of thousands of pounds, some even millions, by taking their slice of the cake. A few cynics even say some agents actively encourage a star to move regularly between clubs so they can get a cut of their client's sell-on clauses. If you're representing someone like Carlos Tevez, who is on a reported £250,000-a-week, plus four other footballers like him, then, work it out for yourself, you're not going to go starving. Obviously, if you're representing Harry Higginbottom from Accrington Stanley reserves, this sum will be substantially lower. Most agents will work with young or unknown players and build up a stable of promising sportspeople.
What are the benefits?
Never a dull moment! Always in a social atmosphere. The smug satisfaction of one of your prodigies hitting the big time. It's not just sports clubs who buy and sell players. If your 'star' makes it big, one of the big boys might come and buy your client's contract out at a nice price. An involvement in the sport you should obviously love.
Are there chances of promotion?
You might move into the even more lucrative entertainments industry.
What will I be responsible for?
- Supporting your acts personally, professionally and emotionally (you are your performer's crutch/agony aunt).
- Handling contracts, pay negotiations, even transfers to new teams.
- Dealing with commercial opportunities and product endorsements outside the field of play.
- Taking away a sportsman's day-to-day responsibilities – ie, admin, including tax returns.
- Keeping the balance right between a client's sporting goals and the business of making money.
- Keeping diaries of appointments for both you and your clients.
- Keeping your client focused.
- Building your performer's profile in the press.
- Networking furiously.
- Constantly monitoring the latest sports scene to see which big club might just need a player such as your client.
What qualifications do I need?
Each sport specifies its own qualification needs. Football's governing body FIFA, for example, insists any contracts between players and clubs are negotiated by authorised agents. You will either have a Masters degree in law or employ your own solicitor to prepare legal documents for your player's contracts. A Business Studies degree wouldn't go amiss.
Do I need any experience?
You'll know your sport inside out. You'll network furiously to build up an easy first-name relationship with those in the know. You'll almost be like a sporting talent scout. A sound grounding of law, or at least enough to sign a binding contract tying your client to a club for a specified time.
What attributes are needed?
You'll have the hide of a rhino for three reasons – 1) the sporting press, fans, managers and everyone associated with your sport will blame you entirely for all the game's ills. 2) The Hollywood-size ego of your tantrum-throwing clients. 3) People's jealousy at your earnings – if you're at the top end of the market. You'll combine the negotiating skills of a middle-eastern bazaar trader with the agony-aunting skills of Deidre Sanders as you pander to your client's pampered egos. More front than Blackpool beach. You're be very sociable and happy networking. Great time-management skills, the latter to juggle several plates on the spin at the same time, so none of your clients think they are being left out in favour of another. Networking skills. Being able to think in the short-, the mid- and the long-term as regards your client's career progression; seeing the bigger picture. You'll have a comprehensive understanding of the transfer and contract markets in your client's sport. You'll know your contract law. You'll be street-wise and be able to smell a rat a mile off.