| Exclusive Interview With Leigh Steinberg | ||||
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While attending the 2009 NFL Hall of Fame ceremonies, the NFL Draft Bible had the opportunity to speak with sports power agent Leigh Steinberg, who has represented the number one overall pick in the NFL Draft a record eight times. Meet the "Real Jerry Maguire" as we discuss the CBA, rookie slotting and other various hot topics... Where joined by Leigh Steinberg one of the top agents in pro football and we are talking about the current CBA. Steinberg: If anything the prosperity continues unabated. In the mist of one of the largest economic collapse in the United States since the great depression but football remains largely unaffected. Television contracts are guaranteed for sometime at record levels. Where EPSN doubled what was previously paid by NBC. With other aspects up significantly Direct TV negotiating and announced at the NFL owners meeting was a significant increase. And brand new revenue streams from internet, merchandising, naming rights. Steinberg: Football remains nationally and internationally bigger and better than ever. And the reason for that in large part is the existing of labor peace. Unlike the self destructiveness of the NBA, NHL and Major League Baseball which engaged in strikes, walk outs. And pushed fans away. The NFL is wise enough since 1987 to have a long uninterrupted period of labor peace. Which has resulted in the focus of play on the field and creative imaginative efforts to develop a variety of revenue sources that have both enriched owner and player alike. So who would ever be suicidal enough because of objections to one part or another to the system? To force these fans a diet of various labor strife and negativity and what becomes to those sports who have striked. Steinberg: I think clearly there are tweaks and adjustments which both sides would like and certainly could be accommodated. But if the cap ever comes out of the bottle and every single aspect of relations between the two sides comes up for renegotiations I don’t ever see it returning. Because personally I’ve never been a big fan of the salary cap I think it undercuts the play on the field. It forces teams to discard veterans that they other wise might keep for there entire career span it forces young players to play too soon instead of playing veterans. It amplifies the effect of injury because of a team losing a talented player behind him has because of the cap a rookie or a less talented veteran. There are many effects of the salary cap that are not positive for football. But the one benefit of it is it’s a system everyone agrees on and that gives us labor peace. So sympathies go out to the labor but also understand at the end of the day owners need to make a profit. But ultimate test or vitality of any business is the value of the franchise. In the year 2000 Houston entered the NFL with a franchise purchase price of roughly 600 million dollars and today the average franchise purchase price is a billion dollars so it’s a healthy sport. There making the adjustments that in terms of the economy they need to be made. I can’t imagine the public being very sympathetic with billionaires on one side and multimillionaires on the other so I’m confident that in any football negotiations the issues are never resolved until the very last second. It’s true in individual contracts negotiations and it’s true in collective bargaining. But it provides fear into the apocalypse as they gaze into the complete devastation that would occur. I’m sure cooler heads will prevail. Steinberg: Taking massive amounts of money out of the compensation pool to pay untried untested rookies has never been especially rational. This bonus (high paid rookies) developed as a response of competitive leagues. With the presence of the AFL or CFL or even USFL the competitive market place meant as it does in any part of free market that when there is competition for services bonusing would occur so that there would be a way to lure a player or type of player you wanted. We haven’t had an alternative for rookies (other leagues) in quite some time. Yes this system continues. And there certainly is a rational argument that moving productive starters once they get the lion’s share of compensation as opposed to players have never played a down. Who history shows will probably have a spotty record of productivity. We know some number of first rounders either are complete of partial flops or under protected. The system is not perfect the scouting is not perfect and we haven’t developed especially at a position like quarterback the coaching and development processes which are full proof. Having said that it really doesn’t affect any player representative that has a broad base factive because as long as there is a guaranteed percentage of compensation coming to players it will come to my veteran clients or comes from rookies money will come to play. So it might just come to more deserving players. If the percentage of revenue goes down and it merely meant less money for rookies and more money for profitability then there would definitely be a different question. Speaking of irrationality the stacking of money at the top of the first round when history would show players in the second round (usher is pushing us off to the side) Okay we got it (Leigh’s response to the rudeness of the usher) have as a good as record of making it in the second round or lower round and being highly productive. Yet the player in the first round might get a 30 to 40 million in signing bonus and the player in the fifth round may make 75,000 dollars. The player in the first round might not start and the lower round player might be highly productive. It’s not rational. Having said that. The current system is filled with irrationality but I’m not sure how that this issue will come down. This is not new it’s been raised (topic of rookie cap). In the 35 years I’ve represented athletes. I’ve represented the very first pick in the first round eight times and with 60 first round draft picks this is a perennial ever present event. Steinberg: You know I sort of took the year off with rookies. We did sign Myron Rolle for next year. He’s headed to Oxford (to earn an M.A. in medical anthropology) in September he’ll come into the 2010 draft. After 35 years I thought I deserved a rest. Myron will be very viable for 2010 although it will be a unique challenge because he will have to navigate the second season of scouting, the all star games, the scouting combine and the campus pro scouting day. While he’s intersperced with his classes. He’s a amazing young man. Steinberg: The guiding prinicpal of our practice is that the athlete is a role model. So we ask that each of them understand the high profile that they have and the ability to trigger imatative behavior and that they retrace there roots and go back to the high school community and consider setting up a scholarship fund at the high school or do something with the community. Turn to the collegiate community and think about a scholarship fund or something that would say this community helped shape me and I’m going to repay it. At the professional level we ask that they think of a cause or something they would like to tackle. Set up a foundation that utilizes communtiy, political and business leadership to help the system. Over 100 hundred of them have established high school scholarship funds. At the collegiate level Edgerrin James repaid his scholarpship to the University of Miami. Warren Moon set up a scholarship to University of Washington and Troy Aikman at UCLA, Steve Young at BYU. At the professional level it’s everything from Warren Moon’s Cresent Moon Foundation where he sends kids to college or the Myron Rolle Foundation which helps disadvantaged kids and deals with health care for under serviced communities. So I think it’s critically important that they understand there responsibility and try to make a positive difference in the world. More over we are in a period where there conduct is so heavily scrutinized that the vindictiveness nature of the cell phone means that the minute they leave there home and walk in public any one can take there picture. But it’s all part of the contract that in essence that they accept. Which is that they need to be able to graciously sign autographs, interact with the press get a designated driver and if they don’t they can play in the sand lot. No one will have any expectations. The unfair aspect of this is the single ling out of a few individual athletes who misbehave out of this huge pool. Is about as reflective of typical athletic behavior as the evening news is of the behavior in a big city. It’s news because it’s aberrational. The typical athlete who wakes up in the morning gives peak performance, drives to the ball park, practices hard, gives peak performance, interacts with the writers, sets up charitable foundation, drive homes sober to his own wife. Is not news. Yet the news cycle because of blogs and talk radio and every kind of EPSN and CNN the repetitive nature of the news cycle means every incident is driven home over and over and over again. So that we see Michael Vick’s misbehavior hundreds of times. It amplifies it and gives you the sense that today’s athletes is some how has worse behavior. If you go to the scouting combine they will tell you that less athletes today are found with drugs that less athletes getting arrested for drunk driving. That the good old days that we all think about had no reporting of that behavior. Domestic abuse was laughed at and glossed over that drunk driving was a slap on the wrist. Today’s athlete is more disciplined and that doesn’t excuse on incident of it but it unfairly disillusions fans. If we force feed fans unremitting diet of athletic misbehavior, contract hassles and the rest. We run the risk of pushing them from the sport they love. 
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