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What is a Sports Agent
What is a Sports Agent?
The basics behind the industry
A professional sports agent is anyone who negotiates contracts and/or endorsement deals for a professional athlete. Sports agents can be anyone, a friend from college, to a big shot agent from a firm, to a family member, every situation is different. To become an agent you need a four year degree. Although a graduate degree such as a juris doctorate degree is highly recommended (see pg. 2-3), and to pass an exam about rules and regulations of the sport that you would be representing players in. The exam is held once per year and costs around $600-$1,200 depending on the sport. After that, you are now a certified sports agent and all you need now is a cliente. In recent years the job has been growing rapidly causing a very unbalance situation in this career. There are plenty of sports agents, but not enough clients to represent leaving many young sports agents in debt. See, sports agents usually get paid by commission - 4% to 10% - of a players salary, so for those like
Scott Boras who has negotiated over $4 billion in contracts in his career, they are doing pretty well for themselves. But for the majority of sports agents it’s a tough life making it in this industry. The movie Jerry Maguire made the job a dream job to any kid who loved sports, but it glorified the job and made it much more desirable than reality. The job requires countless hours of work, a lot of travel and being away from home, and always being on the clock. Just understand what you are getting into. If you are willing to take the leap into the career and overcome the obstacles, a dream job awaits those who fight to achieve it.
"How Much Money Will I Make?"
Agents surveyed by ESPN.com agreed that less than 5 percent of all registered agents net more than $100,000 a year.
Famous line from the movie Jerry Maguire, a film that made the career of sports representation much more desirable to
young adults.
Three schools with good sports management programs
Xavier University
Oregon University
Syracuse University