I recently talked with NFL sports agent Jonathan Kline about negotiating contracts. Jonathan is the head agent of Sports Capital Group, and has been a lawyer-agent for almost a decade.
Most of Jonathan’s experience is in negotiating rookie contracts. Objective criteria is very important in this type of negotiating. Jonathan says that the agent has to look at other rookies contract’s from previous years, analyzing player’s drafted in the same spot or playing the same position as your client. “What did they get paid? How many players were drafted ahead of them at their position?” These are some of the questions that help an agent come up with realistic requests to propose to a team’s general manager.
Another agent, Jack Bechta, who writes for the National Football Post says that some of the most important things in negotiation are “leverage” and “mutual respect,” or mutual benefit (2010). These are things that also came up during my time with Jonathan. In addition to using past deals for leverage, Jonathan touched on the option of waiting on other rookie deals from the current draft. He explained that one of the games agents play is trying to wait on other agents to complete their deals first. Depending on the deal, this can create leverage between the agent and general manager. For example, if the player drafted after your client has already signed his deal, it is easy to request a higher contract because your client was drafted higher.
As for mutual benefit, Jonathan reminded me that you will most likely deal with the same general manager and/or team more than once in negotiation. Bad deals can create strife between agents and teams that could harm future deals with that agent’s clients.
Another side of negotiation in the business is simply trying to secure clients themselves. Before an agent can negotiate a player’s contract with a team, he has to get that player to agree to a representation agreement. Both Jonathan Kline and Jack Bectha believe this is where the most dirty tricks and tactics come into play. Jonathan mentioned a few times in our conversations that agents will do whatever is needed to secure a player, including paying them while they are still in college (which is illegal). In one of Bechta’s articles he recounts how an agent told a player that he could get him drafted by his hometown team (no agent has that power), and that agents will tell a player “anything to get the deal done” (2010).
Overall, it is a tough and competitive industry. Always being on your tows and conducting extensive research will be crucial to successful negotiating.
2010-Interview-Jonathan Kline-Sports Captial Group
2010-Jack Bechta-www.nationalfootballpost.com/Leverage-respect-and-style.html
2010-Jack Bechta-www.nationalfootballpost.com/Let-the-agent-wars-begin.html
