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"Final Call"  High School Senior Football Showcase  and Jr. College Showcase Event , Feb. 4, 2012. Last chance to show your stuff and be seen by college coaches.

Derrick Fox

A Behind the $cenes Look

Today's' sports fans are well educated about many aspects of sporting events. But in this day and age of multi-million dollar athletic contracts and endorsement, most fans are not familiar with what actually goes on behind the scenes. Our major athletes need agents-- good ones! And fans need to be familiarized with the importance and functions of today's sports agent.

There is more to the story than "contracts" and the heavy media coverage of "dollars" received by the players. Agents value the relationships they have established with their clients and vice verse. Agents have a heavy responsibility in helping athletes manage their sometimes short sports lives.

The first responsibility of the sports agent is to recruit the prospective clients for representation by making personal contact with the athletes, watching them performing their sports and eventually meeting with the families. While meeting with the parents, the agent gives a presentation of the advantages of his personal services contract as well as an education of those services once the contract is signed.

After all the particulars are taken care of, the next step is to begin the marketing of the athlete. The agent makes contact with the professional sports organizations through scouts, sending them promotional videos and biographies.

In some sports where scouts aren't watching athletes at events, the agent sets up try outs for the athlete. The agent helps to determine the availability of the athlete in an upcoming draft or promotional event. One sport, in Which this is most prevalent, is boxing - where the agent must "sell'" the athlete to the promoters in order to get a fight scheduled.

Once a sports organization is interested in the athlete, the agent must then begin negotiation of the terms of the contract, usually with the general manager or individual promoter According to Derrick Fox, an agent with San Diego based Ultimate Sports Associates, negotiation ability is the most important skill of a successful sports agent. Creating a reasonable and fair future for both athlete and team is one of the goals of a sports agent.

Being a sports agent can be an extremely lucrative profession, but the agent is only compensated after the athlete is paid his salary. Fox says the agent's cut ranges from five percent of a football player's salary to as much as thirty-three percent of a boxer's salary. The boxer's higher compensation is due to the agent's additional involvement in the scheduling and promotion of their client.

Fox feels that the art of negotiation can be broken down into three categories: acquisition of information, power established with the: information, and defining time restraints. Negotiating power is defined by Fox as "the leverage the agent has in regards to the athlete's position played, experience, individual production, and overall career success.

The information includes the team's specific needs by position, salary restraints, and comparable pay to similarly successful athletes. The time restraints may include completing the negotiation process and establishing training camp schedules!

Another crucial responsibility of the agent is to act as the financial advisor for his client. lie might pay bills, establish a workable budget, and invest for the athlete. The agent has to act wisely and invest in government insured investments, while maintaining the full trust of the athlete throughout his early playing career.

As the relationship between athlete and agent matures throughout the player's career, the responsibility of the agent shifts to marketing the veteran through endorsements and personal appearances as well as preparing the client for life after his Playing career. Some athletes elect to return to college in order to learn a skill or trade to prepare for the transition. into a post-athletic lifestyle and entrance into the work force.

Fox says that of all of San Diego's local sports executives, Chargers General Manager Bobby Beathard is the one he most respects, mainly due to his professional standards and the way he conducts himself during player negotiations, No longer are sports agents considered blood thirsty sharks who prey on money-starved amateur athletes, offering money to anyone who will sign a personal services agreement. Today more is asked of sports agents, and the sports industry has progressed to the point where agents are required to wear several hats. Agents are past just doing contract negotiations, they act as business advisors and sometimes even legal guardians. A good agent does all of this in order to ensure the individual athlete's success both during and after his/her athletic career.

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