Speaker 1: Hey, welcome in. I'm Doug Gottlie.
Speaker 2: This is all BALLU man. We got a lot to
Speaker 2: get to today, as we've seen Kevin Durant and Lebron
Speaker 2: James and of course Steph Curry all be eliminated either
Speaker 2: from the play in or the tournament itself. And then
Speaker 2: of course you have the wild, wacky world of an
Speaker 2: I l which we'll get to with Part two with
Speaker 2: Dan Poneman, who is the most known and respected of
Speaker 2: the NIL agents I believe out in space in terms
Speaker 2: of landing players. You know, everybody does NIL a little
Speaker 2: bit differently. Some of these guys. You know, there's Darren Heidner,
Speaker 2: who we've had on before, who does more of the
Speaker 2: traditional name moons and likeness deals with the Cavender twins
Speaker 2: and others. But anyway, I think that it's been and
Speaker 2: Jason Belzer has joined us previously, and of course Dan
Speaker 2: Poneman will join us for Part two. I think we'll
Speaker 2: have a part three as well. So let's let me
Speaker 2: give you a couple thoughts here. At the time that
Speaker 2: we dropped this pod, the Lakers have just lost their
Speaker 2: fourth game to the Denver Nuggets, and I thought the
Speaker 2: Lakers gave the Nuggets all they wanted really do. And
Speaker 2: there was a couple of games in the middle where
Speaker 2: Lebron didn't play as well high turnovers defense, Like he's
Speaker 2: not the defender he used to be. It's not really
Speaker 2: close snort should he be asked to be that level defender?
Speaker 2: But I mean, I kind of find it hard. You know,
Speaker 2: you really sound like a Lebron hater when you're finding
Speaker 2: fault with Bron in this particular case as opposed to
Speaker 2: the construct of the roster. And you know, the decision,
Speaker 2: I frankly think that higher divn Ham like that was
Speaker 2: a bad decision. And I don't know Darvin personally. I
Speaker 2: know enough about how he runs his ship. But the
Speaker 2: idea that you would bring a guy who's that inexperienced
Speaker 2: in granted former player, right, So there's the and you know,
Speaker 2: with his size, he can legit look Lebron in the eyes.
Speaker 2: There's a little bit of mutual respect, but like, look,
Speaker 2: Lebron wants to win. And you just got the sentence
Speaker 2: over the past two years of playing for him that
Speaker 2: you know, whether it's personnel and you know D'Angel Russell
Speaker 2: not being good enough for you know, rotations, and I mean,
Speaker 2: even who was in in the last shot last night
Speaker 2: when Jamal Murray hit the shot, Like just the little
Speaker 2: things like substitutions are huge things in everybody's minds, but
Speaker 2: especially Lebron James. So you know, somehow I went from
Speaker 2: if you go back a decade ago, you know, when
Speaker 2: Lebron was winning in Miami. I was trying to tell
Speaker 2: people this guy has been maligned and you know, he's
Speaker 2: held to a ridiculous standard when he's an unbelievable player.
Speaker 2: And since that, in trying to keep it real and
Speaker 2: point out some of his clause and the way he
Speaker 2: does things, et cetera, et cetera, I've become seen as
Speaker 2: the Lebron hater. I just feel like I'm a realistness thing,
Speaker 2: and the reality is that Lebron James is an incredible player,
Speaker 2: and he gave incredible effort and had a ridiculous season. Yeah,
Speaker 2: does he take a lot more plays off shore? Are
Speaker 2: there some excuses afterwards? Like afterwards we heard the man
Speaker 2: we just had so many injuries, Like what are you
Speaker 2: talking about? Game Vincent was hurt. They never got anything
Speaker 2: out of Gay Vincent, I'll give you that, and he
Speaker 2: probably would have been your starting point guard. That is
Speaker 2: a fair assessment. That's fair. But the top four players
Speaker 2: and the Lakers played seventy games. You know, the Lakers
Speaker 2: seven seed didn't have anything to do with load management,
Speaker 2: didn't have anything to do with anything other than they
Speaker 2: just weren't that good. And I don't I'm not convinced
Speaker 2: the Nuggets are as dominant as they were last year.
Speaker 2: Just I don't think their bench is nearly as good.
Speaker 2: And I think that's one of the reasons that they trail,
Speaker 2: you know, so often, they trailed time of all these games.
Speaker 2: As for lebron and where he'll go, you know, he's
Speaker 2: obviously going to leverage the fact that he's a free
Speaker 2: agent and can be a free agent to get Bronni
Speaker 2: with the Lakers. I just think that's a mistake. Just
Speaker 2: do you know, I get it. Like, look, if my
Speaker 2: dad could have done it, he probably would have done
Speaker 2: it too. Get you in the league, give you a chance,
Speaker 2: and you can develop in the G League. But like
Speaker 2: I think, I think Bronni can have a great college
Speaker 2: career and really have a fun college career. Now there
Speaker 2: is a world there where Lebron Lebronny goes to Duquane
Speaker 2: Right plays for his one of his best friends, and
Speaker 2: in year two with the Lakers. There's also a world
Speaker 2: where Lebron as a free agent, could sign for minimum money.
Speaker 2: None of these guys do it, but he could sign
Speaker 2: for a lot less so that they could sign they
Speaker 2: could actually build a super team, and he could act
Speaker 2: like he's thirty nine. He could chill out some games.
Speaker 2: But again, we know the reality of how the Players
Speaker 2: Association would react to that, how Lebron would not. That's
Speaker 2: that's not something he's ever been down for. I just
Speaker 2: don't see it happening. As for Kevin Durant, the Sons,
Speaker 2: you know, that's just a bad mix and bad mix.
Speaker 2: They they made some poor personnel decisions. I don't think
Speaker 2: they needed Brad Deel. I actually think DeAndre Ayton would
Speaker 2: have been a good fit, especially playing for a new
Speaker 2: coach and in Frank, but it wasn't. They didn't have
Speaker 2: a center, they didn't have a point guard, and the
Speaker 2: wings didn't all fit together. They didn't seem to buy in,
Speaker 2: and Frank seem to struggle to coach. And then you
Speaker 2: have the Golden State Warriors and what do they do?
Speaker 2: What do they do with Clay. You know again, it's
Speaker 2: like you bring Clay back? Sure, well, at what price?
Speaker 2: At what price? With all these guys, it's at what price?
Speaker 2: And then we wait to see with the Clippers and
Speaker 2: the MAVs, losing coach could be the next Lakers at coach.
Speaker 2: But also, are you better off playing without Kawhi in
Speaker 2: this series? And hope he's healthy for the next series,
Speaker 2: and see if you can squeak out two more against
Speaker 2: the against the Mavericks more NBA Steff to come. But
Speaker 2: let's take back into the portal and Nil, here's part
Speaker 2: two with Dan Punter.
Speaker 3: All right, let's just get right back.
Speaker 2: Let's just dive right back in, because you just get
Speaker 2: back from Portsmith, which of course is the more traditional
Speaker 2: agent place right where seniors are trying to find a
Speaker 2: guy to help them and guide them through all of this.
Speaker 2: And I know that you were hit up by hundreds
Speaker 2: of people in terms of listening to the first pod
Speaker 2: questions they had. Let's start with a couple of things
Speaker 2: that I get asked, and I just wonder kind of
Speaker 2: your immediate response. Let's start with an agent, and so like,
Speaker 2: why do you need an agent? Why does a college
Speaker 2: player need an agent in the world of an iol.
Speaker 4: Well, I'll answer that question, but first here initial comment.
Speaker 4: It's funny. I was at Portsmouth at Portsmuth Invitational, which,
Speaker 4: for those who don't know, is the top sixty four
Speaker 4: outgoing seniors in college basketball playing in a tournament in
Speaker 4: front of two hundred and fifty NBA scouts. So I'm
Speaker 4: there because I have some guys in the draft, right,
Speaker 4: so I'm going to talk to NBA scouts to push
Speaker 4: my guys get information. Almost every NBA scout just wanted
Speaker 4: to talk to me about Nil. Everybody's like, oh, yeah, cool,
Speaker 4: let's talk about your players, but also what the heck
Speaker 4: is going on with Nil? I mean, everyone is fascinated
Speaker 4: by this world. It's I'm so entrenched in it. It
Speaker 4: seems so normal to me. It's just everyday life. But
Speaker 4: I guess from the outside looking in, it is this
Speaker 4: whole mystery box of madness that I guess. That's why
Speaker 4: there was so much interest in our first episode. I'm
Speaker 4: happy to be back, but I guess, yeah, let's jump
Speaker 4: into it. Why does a player need an agent? Well,
Speaker 4: let's look at any other sport, basketball, soccer, football, where
Speaker 4: athletes are making between one hundred thousand and a million plus.
Speaker 4: Whether it's olympians or pro sports overseas or here, they
Speaker 4: all have agents. If you're a musician and you're making
Speaker 4: a million dollars a year touring, you have an agent.
Speaker 4: When you're dealing with money at that magnitude, you need
Speaker 4: an agent. You need someone who's been through the battles,
Speaker 4: you know, hundreds, if not thousands of times, who knows
Speaker 4: what to look for in a contract to know, Hey,
Speaker 4: is this team going to be able to wiggle out
Speaker 4: of paying this money or is this ironclad? You need
Speaker 4: someone who understands the marketplace where you're not just I mean,
Speaker 4: I've heard stories from coaches recently where parents are doing
Speaker 4: the negotiations on nil for their kids and they're just
Speaker 4: seeing online these numbers that are sometimes real, sometimes fake,
Speaker 4: like we all saw the Jeremy Roach rumors recently, right,
Speaker 4: and parents are just walking into coach's office and asking
Speaker 4: for absurd numbers and pricing their children out of real
Speaker 4: opportunities by asking for money that the market doesn't have
Speaker 4: for them. Right, Like, with an agent, initially, yes, you
Speaker 4: have someone who's going to protect your money. You have
Speaker 4: someone who's going to understand the marketplace and know how
Speaker 4: to value you properly so you get the right opportunity
Speaker 4: and don't price yourself out of the market. But I
Speaker 4: think specifically in an NIL world, maybe the number one
Speaker 4: function of an agent is making sure you actually get
Speaker 4: your money. Like we've heard all these stories of guys
Speaker 4: being promised big numbers and not getting those numbers right
Speaker 4: our schools, handing out contracts or handing out promises for
Speaker 4: money they haven't raised yet. A lot of them are true.
Speaker 4: Like I've heard a lot of kids who got promised
Speaker 4: one hundred thousand and got twenty, promise four hundred thousand
Speaker 4: and got one hundred. I mean, there are real, real
Speaker 4: instances of that that I've seen.
Speaker 3: How do you protect against them?
Speaker 4: Well, first and foremost, it's getting an ironclad guaranteed contract
Speaker 4: when a kid gets on campus, and you know there's
Speaker 4: always you know, as an agent, you want your contracts
Speaker 4: to be as guaranteed as possible. Like an NBA, I mean,
Speaker 4: the players use an incredible job of protecting their athletes
Speaker 4: where like you can get arrested, you can there's a
Speaker 4: lot that can go down where that money is still
Speaker 4: going to be guaranteed. Now in college. We're not at
Speaker 4: that point yet. Like sometimes there's a give and take
Speaker 4: where hey, if a guy's not academically eligible to play,
Speaker 4: maybe you know, it's fine to cancel the nil contract.
Speaker 4: Or if he gets arrested and he's not on the team,
Speaker 4: But if he's injured, we need that guaranteed. You can't say, oh,
Speaker 4: he's sprained his angle, he's red shirting. He's not getting
Speaker 4: his money right. So you know, as an agent, initially
Speaker 4: we have to get the guaranteed contract. But then also
Speaker 4: I've seen instances of collectives filing for bankruptcy midseasons so
Speaker 4: they don't have to pay their players because they want
Speaker 4: to push out a coach. And it's my job to
Speaker 4: be a little bit of an enforcer, right to go
Speaker 4: to those coaches and say, hey, you promise this kid this.
Speaker 4: This collective you know, promises kid this, and if you
Speaker 4: don't pay him, I control a huge portion of the
Speaker 4: market and I can't trust you again. I can't work
Speaker 4: with you again, knowing that the first time or the
Speaker 4: second time we've done business together, you made a promise
Speaker 4: to a young man and you screwed him out of
Speaker 4: his money. We're not going to work together again, and
Speaker 4: most of the industry is going to find out that
Speaker 4: you don't pay your bills. So I think there is
Speaker 4: a checks and balances where there are agents to help
Speaker 4: stabilize that system to prevent a coach from promising a
Speaker 4: huge number for a grad transfer who, if they don't
Speaker 4: pay him, is one year and out and there's no reprofessions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's the question, right, especially if you know
Speaker 2: the easiest way to get rid of a guy is
Speaker 2: to stop paying a guy, right, So how do you
Speaker 2: I guess it's it's mirror threat of kind of smear
Speaker 2: within or exposing within the industry. That's the only kind
Speaker 2: of defense you really have.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, obviously the contract is the defense, right,
Speaker 4: Like I've had to use, you know, take a legal
Speaker 4: action against collectives who weren't paying money, right. But yeah,
Speaker 4: like I've seen one particular instance I'm thinking of with
Speaker 4: the same boosters who are funding the collective wanted to
Speaker 4: push out the head coach.
Speaker 3: What they do is they just stop payment to the players.
Speaker 2: Right then the players won't play, and the players won't play, and.
Speaker 3: You can't get new players because you don't have any money. Collective,
Speaker 3: You're screwed.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: I know of a coach, I major coach that happened
Speaker 3: to a year ago.
Speaker 2: Okay, so what do you do in that instance when
Speaker 2: it's not the coach's fault, it's the boosters and collective's fault.
Speaker 3: What do you do there?
Speaker 4: That's where the contract comes in, right. I had that
Speaker 4: instance at his school two years ago where the boosters
Speaker 4: wanted to push out the coach. They stopped paying the players.
Speaker 4: Most of those players were on handshake deals, or they
Speaker 4: were on contracts that were negotiated by the parents that
Speaker 4: were very easy to be broken by the collective. Now,
Speaker 4: I had a sense going into it that that school
Speaker 4: was shake. He didn't trust the boosters. So I not
Speaker 4: only put the collective on the contract, but I put
Speaker 4: the individual booster's name as a guaranteur on the contract.
Speaker 4: So when he wasn't paying anybody else and they said, well,
Speaker 4: you can sue the collective or bankrupt we got no money,
Speaker 4: I said, yeah, but your name is on the contract,
Speaker 4: and my kid got all of his money. So that's
Speaker 4: what comes from being through hundreds of these battles, is
Speaker 4: you kind of know how to protect against those situations.
Speaker 3: It's a big toll school.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, I think we're talking about the same score.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you heard this.
Speaker 2: No, A lot of the pushback from some of the
Speaker 2: donors is like, there's no ROI on this thing at all,
Speaker 2: you know, And so I heard that at one is
Speaker 2: a football deal.
Speaker 3: But one of.
Speaker 2: The most regarded returning football players.
Speaker 3: You had a booster who just said, like, I'm.
Speaker 2: Going to buy all his rights, by all his true
Speaker 2: nil rights. It's like a million dollars, and then he
Speaker 2: won't do much of anything and will write it off
Speaker 2: as a loss.
Speaker 3: I'll write off of my personal as a loss to
Speaker 3: a certain amount.
Speaker 2: That's that's that's one way which around some of the
Speaker 2: tax stuff which you don't get any benefit from giving
Speaker 2: this money.
Speaker 4: You heard of that, yeah, well there. I know. There
Speaker 4: was some controversy last year where a lot of collectors
Speaker 4: were promoting to their boosters that these were nonprofit five
Speaker 4: to one C three and you can have tax right
Speaker 4: off from your donations to the collective, and then like
Speaker 4: midway through the year, it turned out to not be
Speaker 4: the case all the time, and there were some unhappy
Speaker 4: boosters who had donated money and it turned out they
Speaker 4: might not be able to write it off. That's actually
Speaker 4: the first time I've heard about the buying NIL rights
Speaker 4: and writing it off as a loss. It's actually pretty genius.
Speaker 4: But one thing I want to talk about when it
Speaker 4: comes to ROI is I mean, let's let's take a
Speaker 4: side step here, right, We've all seen the conversation online
Speaker 4: around like, this isn't true NIL, this is pay for play?
Speaker 4: Is this is not this is not nil? This is
Speaker 4: pay for play. Well, maybe it's not ANIL in the
Speaker 4: sense of, you know, getting an endorsement from Nike or
Speaker 4: your local pizza shop, which is what we thought on
Speaker 4: IL would be. But I actually do believe in many cases,
Speaker 4: in most of these cases, this is players making money
Speaker 4: from their name, image, and likeness because these universities are
Speaker 4: using college sports as a marketing vehicle for the university.
Speaker 4: When Florida Atlantic or George Mason makes the final four,
Speaker 4: emissions go up, revenues go up. Right, those players are
Speaker 4: acting as a marketing vehicle for universities that bring in millions,
Speaker 4: if not billions of dollars.
Speaker 3: So I would I hear here's here'd be my pushback
Speaker 3: on that.
Speaker 2: Everybody push back, and I've I've and I understand that
Speaker 2: I've lost the true Anil war because I saw this coming,
Speaker 2: which is like I love the idea of true nil,
Speaker 2: It's just not a reality. There's just there's no way
Speaker 2: you can check in balance on everything. And this is
Speaker 2: what happens when there's no checks in that the argument
Speaker 2: against what you're saying, which is accurate, right when you
Speaker 2: when you win the school, usually the emissions go up
Speaker 2: and everything goes up.
Speaker 3: But when you win, you also.
Speaker 2: The nil that I experienced as a player, from having
Speaker 2: a great career, from being on teams that people liked,
Speaker 2: is the rest of my life. I don't really have
Speaker 2: to work, you know, I don't, and you know from
Speaker 2: guys getting a chance to There's.
Speaker 3: A guy named Matt Davison. Do you ever hear that
Speaker 3: name Matt Davison?
Speaker 4: I think so.
Speaker 2: Matt Davison he played basketball and football at Nebraska.
Speaker 3: Okay, but his.
Speaker 2: Claim to fame I think it was I want to
Speaker 2: say it was the last time Missouri and Nebraska play,
Speaker 2: but I could be wrong because I'm they're in different
Speaker 2: leagues now obviously. But he caught a ball between his legs.
Speaker 2: He's a tight end dough for balls. Bad pass bubbled up.
Speaker 2: I think he caught it between his like some miraculous catch.
Speaker 2: He's literally used that to make his life right.
Speaker 3: He's the I think he's the color commentator for football
Speaker 3: and basketball at Nebraska, at least he has been. And
Speaker 3: the point is that the way it used to.
Speaker 2: Work, which I would I would agree with anybody who said, like, hey,
Speaker 2: maybe it's not the actual value of what you brought
Speaker 2: to university, but there's other things that university does for
Speaker 2: you that we don't give him credit for him. I mean,
Speaker 2: most of us couldn't have gotten into the school that
Speaker 2: we played for, let alone, you know, gotten through and graduated.
Speaker 2: But that that's the real essence of how it used
Speaker 2: to be and how it does. It does in fact
Speaker 2: even out, which is, yes, when you go to a
Speaker 2: final four, admissions go up, everything goes crazy, but you're
Speaker 2: also forever part of something special and if you have
Speaker 2: any brains at all, you can make a life for
Speaker 2: yourself out of it. Now, how that factors into the
Speaker 2: NIL world should be, you know, there should be I
Speaker 2: don't want to say performance bonuses, but like team collective deals.
Speaker 2: The reason it's not nil, Daniel is because we're giving
Speaker 2: these guaranteed contracts before there's any ever, any achievement, you know.
Speaker 2: So that's why I propose, like, all right, apparently now
Speaker 2: the transfer portal thing is just going to keep going on.
Speaker 2: But it's the combination of the transfer portal and NIL
Speaker 2: which has this thing a mess because you don't have
Speaker 2: to stay, you can't build culture and can't really build
Speaker 2: a base for yourself for the future. And because we
Speaker 2: give money before the kid even played a snap or
Speaker 2: you know, on a shot, that it's that you're you're
Speaker 2: paying for potential performances. Whereas like again, a real NIL
Speaker 2: would be, hey, here's a guy who's had a great year,
Speaker 2: he was All League, he hit a big shot, he
Speaker 2: should receive, you know, something for all of his hard work.
Speaker 2: Like that would be one in which I think you'd
Speaker 2: get kind of united front on contracts where if you
Speaker 2: I don't want to say backlum, you talked about last
Speaker 2: time about multi year contracts. Is there a way to
Speaker 2: build these things where there's bonuses for you know, team's success,
Speaker 2: where there's bonuses for academic success, where there's retention bonuses
Speaker 2: as well, so you get kids that come back for
Speaker 2: a couple of years, because that's really what makes the
Speaker 2: sport hard to follow.
Speaker 3: Is everybody somewhere else every year?
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're barking up an interesting tree here, Okay, And
Speaker 4: I have two points on it. To your first point, like, yes,
Speaker 4: if you're Doug duckleebin, you're smart and you can you know, talk,
Speaker 4: you know, sell water to a whale, and you have
Speaker 4: a good career. Yeah, there's a lifetime of opportunity from
Speaker 4: your career. But some of these kids you said, you know,
Speaker 4: he said, maybe aren't the smartest, or maybe aren't the
Speaker 4: most outgoing, or maybe aren't the most entrepreneurial, right, and
Speaker 4: now they might not be able to again. I have
Speaker 4: a friend, Matt Mooney played at Texas Tech. He goes
Speaker 4: back every summer, runs it camp, makes probably you know,
Speaker 4: fifty grand whatever because he played on that four team.
Speaker 4: He's entrepreneurial, he's smart, he's savvy. Right. There's other kids
Speaker 4: on that team that don't have that gene, right, that
Speaker 4: aren't capitalizing in that way. But the school did profit
Speaker 4: from their their performance and the name image of likeness.
Speaker 4: So to your second point, we would all love for
Speaker 4: there to be a system where we could actually reward performance.
Speaker 4: As of now, we're not allowed to write into nil
Speaker 4: contracts bonuses for performance. But I think, be great if
Speaker 4: there is a world where you know, you got a
Speaker 4: final four bonus in your contract, right, then all these
Speaker 4: kids are motivated to win and play together because we're
Speaker 4: all going to get paid if we make it far. Right.
Speaker 4: I think there is one tournament that just popped up
Speaker 4: next year, Like I think it's like a holiday tournament
Speaker 4: where they have like you know, eight to twelve teams,
Speaker 4: where every team gets a million bucks and I think
Speaker 4: the winner gets two. I mean, I think that's great.
Speaker 4: That's a great incentive not just for individual performance but
Speaker 4: for team play. And one of the schools or all
Speaker 4: of the schools in that tournament are doing much better
Speaker 4: at retaining their players because there is this pot of
Speaker 4: gold at the end of the rainbow for guys to
Speaker 4: stay because you're like, oh wait, if we stay here
Speaker 4: and we play in the tournament, we win, we split
Speaker 4: two million bucks. So it's great. But right now, the
Speaker 4: system we have doesn't allow us to reward for teams
Speaker 4: success except for in that instance, right, you can't put
Speaker 4: it's harder to put performance bonuses based on the current
Speaker 4: contract of the rules. Right. I have talked to one
Speaker 4: collective recently that has started putting in a bonus for
Speaker 4: a postseason appearance, which is the first time I'd heard that.
Speaker 4: This offseason. They said, hey, this is the number, and
Speaker 4: this is the number that you know, the bonus if
Speaker 4: they make the postseason. I believe that's allowed because as
Speaker 4: a marketing company, which is a collective marketing companies, you
Speaker 4: can say, if the team you know plays these extra games,
Speaker 4: or if the team you're on gets this extra exposure
Speaker 4: that gives us, you know, added marketing value to your name,
Speaker 4: image and likeness, right, so thus we can give you
Speaker 4: a bonus. But the reality is the rules are so gray,
Speaker 4: they're constantly changing. No one knows right from left. So
Speaker 4: until we do stabilize this and like have some real
Speaker 4: rules in a real system, which we all need to
Speaker 4: work together to do, You're right, you're going to have
Speaker 4: to gamble on the potential anile future of these guys.
Speaker 4: But I'll counter that and say most jobs are that.
Speaker 4: If you're hiring someone for a sales job, yeah, there's commissions,
Speaker 4: but you are gambling that the money you're paying them
Speaker 4: is going to lead to profit. That's how most jobs are. Right.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's like, okay, so, which which job is
Speaker 3: this for? For players? Is it their first job?
Speaker 2: I had some it's their first job, you know, like
Speaker 2: you're getting nothing and having to earn it, right, and
Speaker 2: then if you achieve, then your every job you get
Speaker 2: a little bit more. That's where it does kind of
Speaker 2: mirror the business world.
Speaker 4: Isn't so unique because again, like in pro sports, the
Speaker 4: pro team is the for profit vehicle, right, whereas with
Speaker 4: college sports, the college team is a marketing arm for
Speaker 4: the true for profit vehicle, which is the university itself. Right,
Speaker 4: So this is true, true.
Speaker 2: I would only here, here's one thing that I think,
Speaker 2: and your argument is a valid one in that we
Speaker 2: use athletics to market and promote the university. My pushback
Speaker 2: to this has always been, hey, guess what they do
Speaker 2: that with everybody? Right, Like the college, the universities are
Speaker 2: they're brilliant businesses because they operate under this tax exempt status.
Speaker 3: They operate as if they're not a business.
Speaker 2: And then what they do is they charge everybody and
Speaker 2: then you know, they make money off of basically everything,
Speaker 2: and then if you achieve anything science, music, obviously sports
Speaker 2: is the easiest to road. But they're going to get
Speaker 2: all of the juice out of that orange.
Speaker 3: They can't.
Speaker 2: And then the second you finished, they're like, hey, can
Speaker 2: you give something back for the next generation, Like it's amazing,
Speaker 2: what's what they do?
Speaker 3: Like the balls on these people? I just got done.
Speaker 2: I just you know, paid for my kid to graduate
Speaker 2: from X y Z University. And how they want you know,
Speaker 2: undergrand like what it just gave them two hundred fifty
Speaker 2: grand over four years.
Speaker 4: I think I think the tip of the iceberg is
Speaker 4: the NCAA, and the real iceberg is uh colleges and
Speaker 4: universities in America and the scam that that that somewhere.
Speaker 4: I mean, I didn't go to college, right and I'm
Speaker 4: doing great, but I'm the exception of the rule. But
Speaker 4: but yeah, I mean, and to that point, people are
Speaker 4: talking about donor fatigue and NIL the nil world, Like
Speaker 4: when are they gonna stop? You know, when are people
Speaker 4: get tired of donating money for you know, no return
Speaker 4: for these basketbas I mean, it's the meaning of time.
Speaker 4: Every science building and park bench on. These universities were
Speaker 4: built by someone who gave money with no return right,
Speaker 4: and this is used.
Speaker 2: To be write offs with it, right, It's used to
Speaker 2: be right ups and people like again, I guess rich
Speaker 2: people like their names on buildings, that's my building. They're
Speaker 2: you know, whereas with a player, they're here, they're gone
Speaker 2: so quickly. When people accuse you of proaching the player,
Speaker 2: what's the reality to how you view it and how
Speaker 2: things actually good?
Speaker 4: Dot So poaching. I don't like this term. Right. Poaching
Speaker 4: is a term that is used in the college basketball
Speaker 4: marketplace but will never be used in a pro pro context. Right,
Speaker 4: if you have a player in Spain playing for Basconia
Speaker 4: for four hundred thousand, and Barcelona reaches out to the
Speaker 4: agent and says, hey, we're really interested in your player
Speaker 4: for next season, we have a million, that is not poaching.
Speaker 4: That is a higher level team exploring building their team
Speaker 4: next year using players who have overachieved at a lower level.
Speaker 4: And similarly, if Basconia is reaching out to the agent
Speaker 4: of a bench player on Barcelona about their interest in
Speaker 4: moving down a level, that's not poaching. That's the way
Speaker 4: the marketplace works. Whereas in college. If there's a player
Speaker 4: making zero dollars at a mid major and a high
Speaker 4: major uses an agent or someone else to put out
Speaker 4: a feeler if that could be interested in moving up
Speaker 4: a level to make life changing money, it's called poaching, right,
Speaker 4: And I think we need to throw that term out
Speaker 4: the window. I do think that we need more strict
Speaker 4: guidelines and by laws around when these conversations can happen,
Speaker 4: how these conversations can happen, what constitutes tampering and what doesn't.
Speaker 4: But you have mid major coaches up in arms that
Speaker 4: everyone's poaching my players. No, these guys are leaving for
Speaker 4: better opportunity. They're leaving to their lives. And and like
Speaker 4: one of my biggest, if not my biggest pet peeve
Speaker 4: in this whole economy, this whole anile world, is when
Speaker 4: I hear coaches say things along the lines of, Oh,
Speaker 4: he's a good kid, he's not worried about money. Oh
Speaker 4: he's about the right things. He's not worried about money, right,
Speaker 4: or like oh that kid just just wants the bag, right.
Speaker 4: It drives me crazy because when I hear a coach
Speaker 4: saying he's about the things, the right things, he doesn't
Speaker 4: worry about money. I hear a coach saying, Oh, he's
Speaker 4: willing to give me his labor for free so I
Speaker 4: can profit. I like that kid, right.
Speaker 3: I don't. I don't think.
Speaker 2: I think. I think you're taking it to way too
Speaker 2: far of an extreme.
Speaker 3: Because.
Speaker 2: Because the kids that I've talked to that the coaches
Speaker 2: gravitate towards it's not that they're not going to get paid,
Speaker 2: it's that that's not the driving force behind every decision.
Speaker 2: And that's actually a really good life lesson. It's a
Speaker 2: hard one that I think all of us learn at
Speaker 2: some point, which is like, oftentimes the best jobs are
Speaker 2: not the highest paying jobs. You got to find the
Speaker 2: right fit for yourself and you know, yes, no, do
Speaker 2: you want to go Do you want to go play
Speaker 2: for nothing when everybody else is playing for something? Of
Speaker 2: course not nobody's nobody is telling you to play for free.
Speaker 2: But you know when you have an established role, established identity,
Speaker 2: when you have sweat equity in a program, You know
Speaker 2: when you care about winning and losing and know that
Speaker 2: the money will take care of itself. There is a
Speaker 2: difference there between Hey, I want you to play for free,
Speaker 2: and you're only concerned about the money, and somewhere in
Speaker 2: the middle is that sweet spot that way you're trying
Speaker 2: to thread that needle.
Speaker 4: Right, You're right, the sweet spot is in the middle.
Speaker 4: And one thing also, you said, oh, the money will
Speaker 4: take care of itself. I've heard so many coaches and
Speaker 4: collectives say, hey, if you come here and perform, we
Speaker 4: could give you more than this. I've heard that every time. Right,
Speaker 4: here's your baseline number. If you come here and play well,
Speaker 4: you could make way more than this. Zero times out
Speaker 4: of what fifty plus deals I've done in the last
Speaker 4: two years, zero times getting more from active.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, but but but but again, this is
Speaker 2: where this is where having an agent, I want to
Speaker 2: be properly compensated for what I'm worth.
Speaker 3: I have Dan Potaman, for example.
Speaker 2: He's negotiate that we get into the window where you
Speaker 2: know that you're in in you know, in the right
Speaker 2: area financially like that it should then it's just about
Speaker 2: like our relationship and I do I want to play for.
Speaker 3: You like because I can?
Speaker 2: Because that should be really the argument, right, Like if
Speaker 2: the kid's a two fifty kid, he can get to fifty.
Speaker 3: A bunch of differlaces, all right, so what makes your
Speaker 3: program you need?
Speaker 2: Why should I come play here when the money is
Speaker 2: the same X, y Z whatever. You know, that's that's
Speaker 2: where the coach has to then okay, here's what we
Speaker 2: you need. And for a player, you can tell if
Speaker 2: he's engaged in that or if it's just dude, listen,
Speaker 2: whoever the highest bet or that's where I'm going, which.
Speaker 3: Again you're allowed to do.
Speaker 2: But I actually really understand that because when that mentality
Speaker 2: is one which doesn't really allow you to engage with
Speaker 2: the players, with your teammates, with the school. And again
Speaker 2: it's not an all or nothing thing. They're all going
Speaker 2: to get paid. It's just a question of the in
Speaker 2: the if you write down the ten most important things,
Speaker 2: is it number one or is it number seven? And
Speaker 2: I think you know, once you get past like three
Speaker 2: through ten, now you're okay.
Speaker 3: But if it's the number one thing, it just doesn't
Speaker 3: work for someplace.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And honestly, when I sign a new client, we
Speaker 4: do an intake interview where we ask them rate one
Speaker 4: through ten, how important are each of these things? Do
Speaker 4: you money? Academics, winning player development, conference, location, So we
Speaker 4: let the client tell us what they value and it's
Speaker 4: our job as an agent to find something that fits
Speaker 4: the buckets that they value most. Right, kids this year
Speaker 4: that are grad transfers that said I need a really
Speaker 4: good MBA or a law program at my grad school. Right,
Speaker 4: that's important to them. There are other guys who say, hey,
Speaker 4: I want a grad school where I can take ballroom
Speaker 4: dancing and not actually have to take real classes. Right.
Speaker 4: So every kid has a different Every young man has
Speaker 4: a different set of priorities. But if a kid says, look, Dan,
Speaker 4: I know I'm probably not a pro. My family is struggling,
Speaker 4: my mom is sick. I need the biggest bag possible,
Speaker 4: that doesn't make him a bad person. Who is a
Speaker 4: coach to tell you what your values should be? Right?
Speaker 4: If you are different, kids have the luxury of saying
Speaker 4: money doesn't matter that much. I have a trust fund,
Speaker 4: my family makes money. I'm middle class, whereas other kids
Speaker 4: know that luxury and this money is life changing for them.
Speaker 4: And if they say this is my number one priority,
Speaker 4: they are not to be judged for that. It is
Speaker 4: not a coach's place to say, oh about the wrong things.
Speaker 4: But to your other point, I.
Speaker 3: Would say, why why can't he Why can't he make
Speaker 3: the judgment.
Speaker 4: Why can't a coach make the judgment that he's about
Speaker 4: the wrong thing? Yeah, because you.
Speaker 3: Know what I mean, Like like, listen, if he if
Speaker 3: he if he is.
Speaker 2: If you bring a kid on campus and you literally
Speaker 2: can't get in a focus because all he's doing is
Speaker 2: chasing ass, you know.
Speaker 4: It's about the wrong things. But I'm saying in the instance, specifically,
Speaker 4: if the kid's life circumstances dictate that money can and
Speaker 4: should be a priority in this decision making process. As now,
Speaker 4: for a coach to say, oh, you should be more
Speaker 4: worried about player development or tell a kid what he
Speaker 4: should be concerned about, right.
Speaker 3: And well, you only do that if you don't have
Speaker 3: the money.
Speaker 4: You do you do that if you have the money
Speaker 4: that right?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: Or fifty short? Yes, but we have great player development.
Speaker 4: Great player Oh yeah, he's about the wrong things. No,
Speaker 4: you don't have a big enough budget. But having said that,
Speaker 4: other guys are represented, probably like only twenty percent end
Speaker 4: up taking the highest financial offer. My goal is generally
Speaker 4: to get multiple schools in the same range, so a
Speaker 4: kid can make a decision based on other factors. Right,
Speaker 4: if you have four schools than four to four fifty. Great,
Speaker 4: Now you can just pick the best one, right. There
Speaker 4: are situations where there's schools that have outlier offers that
Speaker 4: are hard to turn down, but kids and my experience
Speaker 4: rarely actually take those.
Speaker 3: I agree. I know of several of those from last year.
Speaker 2: Biggest deal per year, biggest deal you've done so far
Speaker 2: this year?
Speaker 4: Well, I don't know if I should. I don't know
Speaker 4: if they can tie it back to an individual I've done.
Speaker 4: I've done multiple five hundred plus. I haven't broke a
Speaker 4: million yet this year.
Speaker 3: What is What is the market like this year as
Speaker 3: opposed to last year?
Speaker 4: The market is a lot more robust this year last year,
Speaker 4: last year.
Speaker 2: In terms of a number of deals or the actual
Speaker 2: deals selves.
Speaker 4: Both Like last year. If you heard of someone getting
Speaker 4: last year, you heard of someone getting five hundred plus
Speaker 4: thousand outlier this year, it's completely normal. That's happening all over.
Speaker 3: The place, but mostly one conference, no multiple conferences.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I can think of right now, guys making
Speaker 4: five to seven and the ACC, the Big twelve and
Speaker 4: the Big ten. I don't know about big I know
Speaker 4: I can think of a couple in the Big East.
Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, generally the SEC has the most money,
Speaker 2: that spends the most money.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, But I'm thinking of a couple of Big
Speaker 4: East teams right now, a couple of Big ten teams,
Speaker 4: a couple of ACC a couple of Big twelve that
Speaker 4: are consistent.
Speaker 2: A couple of big twelves that have big money. But
Speaker 2: I would say across the board, in the SEC you're
Speaker 2: either in like you're you're you got to be in
Speaker 2: on some level. Otherwise it's just it's stupid.
Speaker 4: And the sec of your budget less than three million,
Speaker 4: you're in a bad spot.
Speaker 2: Here's a question that I have that I wont okay.
Speaker 2: So a lot of these guys you're at Portsmouth, A
Speaker 2: lot of those guys are going to go sign their
Speaker 2: first overseas deal, right What has the adjustment been like
Speaker 2: for college players adjusting to the fact that sometimes you're
Speaker 2: going to make more money now in college than you
Speaker 2: are when you're a professional player in your first contract.
Speaker 3: What are those conversations like in the agent side.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I like to have really real conversations
Speaker 4: and lay out clear expectations ahead of time and make
Speaker 4: sure that these guys are making their current their college
Speaker 4: decisions knowing three four steps ahead. So you know. Recently,
Speaker 4: for instance, I had a client turned down upwards of
Speaker 4: six hundred thousand to take about a third of that
Speaker 4: because he really liked the school. I said, great, I
Speaker 4: support you, but like I want you to, let's game
Speaker 4: out the different paths you could be in your financial future,
Speaker 4: and then you can make the decision if this extra
Speaker 4: you know, four hundred thousand dollars is how important it
Speaker 4: is to you, because there might be a point when
Speaker 4: you're twenty five years old playing in the G League
Speaker 4: making forty five thousand when that extra you know, three
Speaker 4: hundred grand to buy a house could be really useful.
Speaker 4: If you want to turn it down, that's fine, but
Speaker 4: let's let's you know, let's talk about these different paths
Speaker 4: because if for these guys, if you're not in the NBA,
Speaker 4: this is your peak earning, right Like G League salaries
Speaker 4: are forty you know, if you're depending onf you're getting
Speaker 4: an exhibit ten or not, like you're making between like
Speaker 4: forty and one hundred and fifteen thousand, you know, pre
Speaker 4: tax in the NBA. You know, rookies overseas are generally
Speaker 4: even if you're a high end rookie, you're making you know,
Speaker 4: fifty to seventy net your rookie year, So most of
Speaker 4: these guys are going to be taking pay cuts if
Speaker 4: you're not in the NBA now. It could work a
Speaker 4: few different ways. On one hand, it could be pissed, like, hey,
Speaker 4: I'm used to making this amount of money, why am
Speaker 4: I making this now? But on the other hand, it
Speaker 4: makes it a little more palatable because if you've saved
Speaker 4: your money now, you can live a little more comfortably
Speaker 4: and climb that European ladder, right or fight it out
Speaker 4: in the G League because you've got some savings, right,
Speaker 4: It makes life more livable. For making a forty thousand
Speaker 4: dollars salary in the G League and you've got two
Speaker 4: hundred thousand saved from your college career, you don't have
Speaker 4: to train guys in the off season to make up
Speaker 4: that income. One thing I think we're going to see though, actually,
Speaker 4: but I've noticed this year is college players being less
Speaker 4: likely to go to the g LE route because they're
Speaker 4: so used to making so much money. Right, Sure, you're
Speaker 4: accustomed to making three four hundred thousand dollars a year
Speaker 4: and you're like, wait, my salary is gonna be what
Speaker 4: forty thousand all right, let me go to let me
Speaker 4: go to Asia and get this bad because I've become
Speaker 4: accustomed to this quality of life and I can't go
Speaker 4: back to, you know, that lower income bracket. So I
Speaker 4: do think it's it's going to make guys go overseas
Speaker 4: quicker rather than going to the G League because they
Speaker 4: want to continue earning at the level they have been.
Speaker 3: Where is the portal now?
Speaker 2: So right now we're in, uh the end of April,
Speaker 2: and when I say where is the portal now, because
Speaker 2: you have this is my interpretation of it, you're actually
Speaker 2: living in on a daily basis.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: So you had the initial thrust of portal guys, most
Speaker 2: of them weren't going to be welcomed back at their
Speaker 2: school anyway. You know, as soon as the season's over,
Speaker 2: they put themselves in them.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: You also had you know, coaching changes or whatever. And
Speaker 2: then as the dust settled, you could see which players
Speaker 2: would go in and probably ask for you know, a
Speaker 2: rate increase. Coach would say no, or we don't have that,
Speaker 2: and then you'd see those players leave, and now the market.
Speaker 3: Kind of gets a flushed.
Speaker 2: You've seen some high end players, a couple of them
Speaker 2: have committed a couple of them happened. A lot have
Speaker 2: declared for the NBA Draft, and I believe again this
Speaker 2: is me outside of your insider is that's just delaying
Speaker 2: the portal thing because it doesn't put you in the portal,
Speaker 2: but it puts you in the portal to declare for
Speaker 2: the for the NBA. And so uh, it's it's kind
Speaker 2: of chaos right now because you have over a thousand
Speaker 2: guys in the portal, but you also have you know,
Speaker 2: over one hundred guys with their names declared.
Speaker 3: For the draft.
Speaker 2: And then you have you know, the grad transfers that
Speaker 2: are there's untold grad transfers and you know they're on
Speaker 2: the market. They don't have to put themselves in the portal. Right,
Speaker 2: what am I missing anything? I'm missing any kind of
Speaker 2: group of players that's out there.
Speaker 4: Actually, grad transfers do have to put themselves in the portal.
Speaker 4: This year, they change that because they had last chaos
Speaker 4: like last year, the are people picking off grad chansers
Speaker 4: from other teams when they're already in school on campus.
Speaker 4: So they did change. And for NBA players, if you're
Speaker 4: testing the waters, you still have to put your name
Speaker 4: in the portal, but where we've reached right now is
Speaker 4: coaching season. And again, I know I just said I
Speaker 4: don't like to use that word, but that's that's the
Speaker 4: terminology we're we're working with here, like the point where
Speaker 4: where the guys in the portal or the guys in
Speaker 4: the portal, there's a few more entering every day, but
Speaker 4: a lot of the guys that are entering now are
Speaker 4: entering with a destination in mind. Right, we've reached a
Speaker 4: point where schools with big budgets have struck out on
Speaker 4: guys that are currently in the portal, and they're looking
Speaker 4: at the roster saying we have to figure something out,
Speaker 4: and they're calling agents to ask about guys that are
Speaker 4: currently on other rosters. And people can say it's unethical,
Speaker 4: it's wrong, but everybody's doing it to each other. So yeah,
Speaker 4: you're getting a guy poached off your roster, but you're
Speaker 4: trying to poach somebody off someone else's roster. So until
Speaker 4: we get to May first, we have about a week
Speaker 4: left of people throwing insane offers at guys who are
Speaker 4: on other people's rosters, and everyone's doing it to each other.
Speaker 4: So no one can be holier than now. Because I
Speaker 4: don't I mean, that's what the name of the game is.
Speaker 4: Until we have a set of rules that we can enforce,
Speaker 4: that set guidelines around what's allowed and what isn't. This
Speaker 4: is the name of the game. So I think the
Speaker 4: first wave of the portal was the guys who knew
Speaker 4: all year they were entering. The second wave was Oh, crap,
Speaker 4: everybody's leaving my team, or prap, my coach got fired,
Speaker 4: or crap, I don't like this new coach. I'm mean
Speaker 4: under the portal, right, and then it's oh crap, they
Speaker 4: brought in someone at my position, So writing's on the wall.
Speaker 4: I got to get out of here, right, And now
Speaker 4: we've passed that phase, and now it's oh crap, I
Speaker 4: don't like I can't get the best guys in the portal.
Speaker 4: Let me go find a guy on someone else's roster
Speaker 4: to pick off. And I think that's a final wave
Speaker 4: of the portal. So we're going to probably see some
Speaker 4: interesting names this week, just like we saw last week
Speaker 4: that no one expected to jump that that that already
Speaker 4: have a spot in mind.
Speaker 2: What about what about when you commit to a school
Speaker 2: and then that school. I saw this yesterday at school
Speaker 2: took like one school took two point guards yesterday. I
Speaker 2: thought that was interesting. How binding are these agreements when
Speaker 2: you commit to a school.
Speaker 4: They're not. They're not, I mean straight up, like most
Speaker 4: of these collective contracts are like tied to being enrolled
Speaker 4: in an institution in a specific geographic region and parameters
Speaker 4: like that. But if you don't go to that school,
Speaker 4: like generally penalty to breaking it again. I suggest that
Speaker 4: on the last one there could be buyout clauses. I
Speaker 4: could prevent that right now. These agreements really aren't binding.
Speaker 4: So if you know, I think you know from my perspective,
Speaker 4: if you commit to a school and you give your
Speaker 4: verbal agreement and you handshake or a sign with the
Speaker 4: collective and before the period's over, somebody else, another school
Speaker 4: makes a bigger offer, I do think it is unethical
Speaker 4: and I would never advise a client to back out
Speaker 4: of an agreement for a higher offer. If you've already
Speaker 4: made an agreement, I think your word, you should stick
Speaker 4: with your work. Right. However, if you agree to something,
Speaker 4: you agree to a role, and they say you're gonna
Speaker 4: be the only point guard, and we make an agreement
Speaker 4: and they bring another point guard, they put themselves in
Speaker 4: a position where now you might need to look around
Speaker 4: for an opportunity that suits you better, if that makes sense.
Speaker 4: Like I think it's it's not right to break a
Speaker 4: handshake or written agreement if everything is as they promised
Speaker 4: it would be. But if you're really change and they
Speaker 4: lie to you, and I think a kid should have
Speaker 4: the right to shop around and find something that suits
Speaker 4: them better.
Speaker 2: Okay, Uh, the least one least one for for this
Speaker 2: for this part we're talking about.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: Then there's also a bit of a waiting game here, right,
Speaker 2: because you have let's just use the term we use
Speaker 2: the term mid major waight too loosely, right, because there's
Speaker 2: actually low major, the major minusment mallior plus all right,
Speaker 2: So in the in the mid major world, like you
Speaker 2: have players, a lot of them grad transfers. They're sitting
Speaker 2: out there and you've established what their value is, right well,
Speaker 2: what you believe it should be, and schools that are
Speaker 2: recruiting them are somewhere in that area. But you know
Speaker 2: in the back of your head that that after poaching
Speaker 2: season probably comes panic season. We hang out anybody we
Speaker 2: got to go, and we'll be willing to overpay guys
Speaker 2: that we previously thought were at you know, at fifty.
Speaker 2: Now we're willing to give them seventy five or one
Speaker 2: hundred because now we're high major as opposed to fifty
Speaker 2: or seventy five is really kind of topping out at
Speaker 2: the mid major level. But that's like a delicate balance
Speaker 2: for you, right, because you have the player and you
Speaker 2: want to put them in a place where they can play.
Speaker 2: You want to make sure you don't want to because again,
Speaker 2: it hurts your relationship with the team. If you send
Speaker 2: a kid who can't play at a high major level
Speaker 2: to a high major you know, yeah, you got over
Speaker 2: on them for a year, but your relationship is everything.
Speaker 2: And because you've done the evaluation thing, go back to
Speaker 2: when you're fourteen. So what's that waiting game like where
Speaker 2: the balance of Hey, I have a bird in the hand,
Speaker 2: but I potentially have two in the bush. Do I
Speaker 2: take this deal? Do I not take this deal? Knowing
Speaker 2: that the high majors are going to panic when some
Speaker 2: of them need to fill roster spots here late late
Speaker 2: in the portal game.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean we've already reached panic season peak panic seas,
Speaker 4: and I'll tell you that much. But again, my philosophy isn't.
Speaker 2: The best part about You're talking about peak panticsies as
Speaker 2: you're doing so with no facial effect at all, like
Speaker 2: you're like they're panicking.
Speaker 4: I'm not panicking the school, right, I just have to
Speaker 4: sit here and navigate the changing marketplace and understand what
Speaker 4: phase of the portal we're in. But again, my philosophy
Speaker 4: as an agent is, when you find something you like,
Speaker 4: you take it. You don't wait to get an extra
Speaker 4: twenty or fifty that might be out there on the horizon.
Speaker 4: You find something that suits you, right, you take it.
Speaker 4: And maybe I have the luxury as an agent to
Speaker 4: say that because these the difference of commission is not
Speaker 4: materially affecting my life.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: If you're an agent where you've got four guys and
Speaker 4: your whole income for the years depending on these four commissions,
Speaker 4: maybe you drag it out to get every single penny
Speaker 4: and you put them in bad situations. But my business
Speaker 4: is doing well enough that I don't need the extra
Speaker 4: two thousand dollars here and there for myself. I can
Speaker 4: tell a kid, hey, yeah, maybe you can get an
Speaker 4: extra five or ten grand if you wait. But this
Speaker 4: is a really good situation where you're really valued, and yes,
Speaker 4: someone could come out of left field and offer you
Speaker 4: a crazy bag, but this wool has been recruiting you
Speaker 4: for a month and done a really good job. Kind
Speaker 4: of go where you're valued, right. But having said that, yeah,
Speaker 4: there are gonna be some guys that were getting offered
Speaker 4: forty fifty sixty all through portal season and someone's going
Speaker 4: to come off for one twenty because they're desperate. Of course,
Speaker 4: that happens all the time. And additionally, there are going
Speaker 4: to be situations where people are tapped out on budget
Speaker 4: and they don't like their roster and they're going back
Speaker 4: to boosters being like, yo, I need another, I need
Speaker 4: another one, one, five. There's this really good kid on
Speaker 4: this other roster. I need a million form right now.
Speaker 4: And that's when kids get really overpaid. There are a
Speaker 4: few schools last year that late in the period paid
Speaker 4: absurd sums for guys who averaged you know, four points
Speaker 4: a game, and uh, and those coaches got fine.
Speaker 2: Then yeah, and then you have to pissing enough the
Speaker 2: boosters and then you get yourself and they get yourself fire.
Speaker 2: If you were going to establish a couple of basic rules,
Speaker 2: basic rules, I put you in charge how do we
Speaker 2: calm the chaos?
Speaker 3: What do you do?
Speaker 4: First off, we have to have a mutually agreed upon
Speaker 4: uh governing body for collective contracts where if there's non payers,
Speaker 4: late payers, liars that there are repercussions. We can't have
Speaker 4: schools out here, uh not you know, promising one thing
Speaker 4: and not paying it, or or giving contracts for money
Speaker 4: that hasn't been raised yet. And I've seen that a lot. Right,
Speaker 4: They're they're they're they're promising three million in contracts with
Speaker 4: one to five in the day. Right, So we need
Speaker 4: something to put parameters on on uh you know what
Speaker 4: happens when when the kids aren't getting paid with their
Speaker 4: own Additionally, we need heay.
Speaker 3: So so let's let's start with that. So how do
Speaker 3: we do that?
Speaker 2: Because because right now, the I'm sure the NCAA and
Speaker 2: the NCAA in parness to them is they're just really
Speaker 2: made up of the schools and the issue that I
Speaker 2: think most of the school the high major schools have
Speaker 2: is like, look, we're handling this like this is the Senate.
Speaker 2: Everybody gets a We want to be more like that.
Speaker 2: If anything, in the House representatives where things are more
Speaker 2: skewed in our favor because we're making more of the
Speaker 2: money and we should determine how all this stuff goes
Speaker 2: and so the end, So all these schools like what's
Speaker 2: the difference with the past rule? You can get a
Speaker 2: shot down in a court anyway, none of it can
Speaker 2: stand up. So how do you how do you handle
Speaker 2: that element to it well?
Speaker 4: And we're far away from this, but I think, you know,
Speaker 4: players having some sort of union where we can work
Speaker 4: together with the NCAA where they're not just making rules
Speaker 4: on the player's behalf, but that we're working together collectively
Speaker 4: bargaining to find something that works for everybody. Like I
Speaker 4: have friends at the NBA, at the NCAAA. I just
Speaker 4: hung out with two of them at Portsmouth this week
Speaker 4: and we talked about potential solutions. We're so far away
Speaker 4: from those actually being able to be put in put
Speaker 4: in to reality. But again, I think the problem to
Speaker 4: this point has been ncage is arbitrarily making rules that
Speaker 4: everyone has to follow, where the players don't get a say.
Speaker 4: The institutions are the only ones that get to say.
Speaker 4: When we get to a world where the players and
Speaker 4: the institutions can work together to create as system that
Speaker 4: works for everybody, then we're going to be in business.
Speaker 4: But I think we're pretty far off from that because
Speaker 4: the NCAA has been i think hell bent on putting
Speaker 4: the toothpaste back in the tube. It's not going back
Speaker 4: in the tube. The toothpaste is on the table or
Speaker 4: the toothbrush whatever, and now you want to use let's
Speaker 4: call it what it is and let's figure out how
Speaker 4: to work together to move forward instead of putting that
Speaker 4: toothpaste back in the tube. So in the NCAA is
Speaker 4: going we're going to start working together to create a
Speaker 4: sustainable system.
Speaker 3: Okay, so we have.
Speaker 2: There's other obviously a bunch of other kind of things
Speaker 2: that hoops to jump through before you get there. Okay,
Speaker 2: So but in the in the short term, some sort
Speaker 2: of accountability where people have to pay what they contract
Speaker 2: to pay, and what else.
Speaker 4: Rules around when contracts can be signed, how they can
Speaker 4: be negotiated, when they can be negotiated right there should
Speaker 4: the portal seasons would be called free agency, right it
Speaker 4: should be for transfers, you can negotiate from here to hear,
Speaker 4: this is when contracts can be negotiated and signed. These
Speaker 4: are the rules around when a player can ask for
Speaker 4: an agent can ask for an extension, you know, just
Speaker 4: like we have in the NBA, right, Like, there needs
Speaker 4: to be some parameters around what's acceptable and what isn't
Speaker 4: so we can have a little bit of guardrails on
Speaker 4: this chaos. Right. I think this system is not sustainable
Speaker 4: of these external anile collectives again, like, let's call them
Speaker 4: what they are, and let's you know, tie them to
Speaker 4: the institutions and have situations where there can be like
Speaker 4: we talked about performance bonuses and postseason bonuses and schools
Speaker 4: directly raising money to give to the players. Sharing the
Speaker 4: TV revenue, Like I was speaking to some of the
Speaker 4: other day who proposed what if the conferences shared some
Speaker 4: of their TV revenue with the collectives? Right, Hey, there's
Speaker 4: two million a year to each collective from our TV
Speaker 4: our TV revenue is as a conference, right like starts
Speaker 4: taking the burden just solely off the shoulders of the boosters, Uh,
Speaker 4: bringing some of that TV revenue in and tying the
Speaker 4: collectives to the schools. I think that's the problem with that.
Speaker 2: The problem with that is that money is generally all
Speaker 2: spoken for, so you can get it, but something's going
Speaker 2: to come up short, and we all know what that
Speaker 2: we we all know what that is, right, That's the
Speaker 2: only place they're going to cut is in the non
Speaker 2: revenue generating sports.
Speaker 3: That's where the that's where the cuts at.
Speaker 4: Yeah, in theory, yes, but like also we have you know,
Speaker 4: these It's funny I see schools raising one hundred million,
Speaker 4: five hundred million for these crazy practice facilities and you know,
Speaker 4: building new arenas and like maybe some of those luxuries
Speaker 4: aren't quite as necessary with a kid.
Speaker 3: Rather, I listen, I agree with you.
Speaker 2: Most of these coaches will tell you, like I don't
Speaker 2: want a new facility, don't want any of that shit.
Speaker 2: But that all that in the collector, all that in.
Speaker 4: The collect Northwestern. But I think they built like a
Speaker 4: nine one hundred million dollars nine hundred and thre hundred
Speaker 4: out of practice facility on the lake. I'm sure some
Speaker 4: of those players would have rather had a slightly less
Speaker 4: a beautiful practice facility on the lake and a little
Speaker 4: more money in a pocket.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, it's it's always amazing. They all they all do things.
Speaker 2: And some of it they do because they get grants
Speaker 2: from the state, you know they can, and they get
Speaker 2: some academic money as well. There's okay, So so UH,
Speaker 2: guardrails for contracts in terms of timing and UH and
Speaker 2: some some fine print issues.
Speaker 3: You got to have accountability for non payers. What else?
Speaker 4: Well, one thing I would theoretically like to say is
Speaker 4: sometimes a certification program for agents, right like the NBA
Speaker 4: has You have to pass a test and pay dues
Speaker 4: to be an NBA certified agent, and and the NCAA
Speaker 4: anybody can just pop up and call themselves an Anisle agent.
Speaker 4: And there are people who are sabotage and play's career
Speaker 4: is ruining. I mean, it's it's it's it's tragic. But
Speaker 4: the question is who's in charge of certifying those agents.
Speaker 4: In the NBA, it's the players Union that certifies those agents.
Speaker 4: It's it's a it's an organization that is created to
Speaker 4: protect and defend their players, so they want these agents
Speaker 4: to be qualified. So it's not the NBA certifying the agents,
Speaker 4: it's a players union. So if the NCAA is in
Speaker 4: charge of certifying agents, their incentives are different than if
Speaker 4: it was if it was the players. And we don't
Speaker 4: have a union yet, the players aren't even employees yet,
Speaker 4: so we're so far away from that, and so I
Speaker 4: don't know how we can get to a place where
Speaker 4: there's a vetting process for agents. Until we have that,
Speaker 4: I mean, I've talked to the NCAA about their agent
Speaker 4: certification program for players who are testing the waters the
Speaker 4: NBA waters right, and I think they want to create
Speaker 4: something for an il agents, but they really can't because
Speaker 4: if they're marketing deals, these are marketing companies that are
Speaker 4: giving marketing deals, not the institutions themselves. So the NCAA
Speaker 4: really their hands are tied. But I think we need
Speaker 4: to get to a point where there is some type
Speaker 4: of vetting process for agents, because there are some people
Speaker 4: who are doing some criminal things to kids' careers by
Speaker 4: just not knowing what they're doing.
Speaker 2: Right, You have guys who are kind of the old
Speaker 2: school runners and they're you know, moving pieces around and
Speaker 2: just to make a quick buck. And those people, some
Speaker 2: of them even actually it's not that they have anything
Speaker 2: any bad intentions, They just a little there. It's just
Speaker 2: a little too old school.
Speaker 4: I'll actually say some of those old school guys are
Speaker 4: better agents than some of these pop up agents. Like
Speaker 4: some old school AAU coaches know this market better than
Speaker 4: anybody know how to price a player cut a deal.
Speaker 4: Because They've been doing it for twenty years now. Some
Speaker 4: AAU coaches and runners for years have been doing deals
Speaker 4: in pocketing the money, which is criminal, right. But there
Speaker 4: have been guys who have been helping kids families keep
Speaker 4: their lights on with you know, shoe box money for you,
Speaker 4: and they know this market better than anyone. But some
Speaker 4: of the worst actors I've seen in this place are
Speaker 4: actually like college kids or recent grads who read about
Speaker 4: NIL and call themselves an Nile agent, or reach out
Speaker 4: to kids on Instagram. And I get dms all the
Speaker 4: time because people will see my tweets or listen to
Speaker 4: our podcast, right. And I've had people say, hey, I've
Speaker 4: signed these five players, they're in the market, but I've
Speaker 4: never seen an anile collective contract. Can you send me
Speaker 4: one or can you tell me how to talk to
Speaker 4: a collective. I'm like, you're representing a player in the
Speaker 4: biggest decision of his career and you've never seen a
Speaker 4: collective contract. You don't know how to have the discussion.
Speaker 4: They're like, hey, do we talk to the collective now
Speaker 4: or when they get there? Like they don't even know
Speaker 4: how the process goes. There's no education in this other
Speaker 4: than listening to us talk on this podcast or reading
Speaker 4: me and Darren Heidner and Mitt Winner's tweets, and I
Speaker 4: think some of the worst actors I've seen are just
Speaker 4: like young people who call themselves agents and reach out
Speaker 4: to people on Instagram. And because you've got ANIL agent
Speaker 4: in your bio, you seem official and you are ruining
Speaker 4: people's careers.
Speaker 3: Sure, all right, let's do this.
Speaker 2: So we have basically one week left until the portal closes,
Speaker 2: so we'll see. As you point out, there's going to
Speaker 2: be probably some big names here. I'll throw out here
Speaker 2: that if you listen to this and you have any
Speaker 2: any sort of nil question, feel free to tweet us
Speaker 2: or hit us up on Instagram to d m us
Speaker 2: and we'll work it into a part three. And in
Speaker 2: the meantime, like you get hit with these questions all
Speaker 2: the time, as do I like you, and I got
Speaker 2: to keep like a better text chain going of it.
Speaker 2: We get the add that I think we're going on
Speaker 2: something else. But it's going to be an interesting week
Speaker 2: because you've had I know, there was one player. There's
Speaker 2: one player that everybody said he told people was a
Speaker 2: million dollars and he committed to a place, So I'd
Speaker 2: love to know if that was in fact a million
Speaker 2: dollars at the end of the day, and then let's
Speaker 2: let's have a part three kind of wrap up discussion.
Speaker 2: But yeah, so my my original rules that I thought
Speaker 2: would work would be that you didn't get nil you
Speaker 2: didn't get nil money until you played a game for
Speaker 2: your program. That that was my and I believe that
Speaker 2: you have to have retention bonuses like the whole way
Speaker 2: to use this to quote unquote save the sport and
Speaker 2: propel the sport because I think that there's a there's
Speaker 2: a window there where you can make it so that
Speaker 2: it's better than it's ever been because guys will stay
Speaker 2: there two or three years and they're not going to
Speaker 2: be a second round or undrafted draft pick.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: But uh, but you gotta how do you create that window?
Speaker 2: What do people want to see? They want to see
Speaker 2: the best players play at the biggest schools, but they
Speaker 2: want to see and for as long as possible they
Speaker 2: kind of fall in love with these kids, if you will.
Speaker 2: I thought that more tell your deals and you know
Speaker 2: it's with the new rule, it's not going to happen,
Speaker 2: so it doesn't even work. Bring it up I have
Speaker 2: thought that not sitting out on the second transfer is
Speaker 2: a mistake, like when you you don't have to be
Speaker 2: fully engaged mentally because you can transfer and play anywhere.
Speaker 2: But again, that's not the path that they're choosing to
Speaker 2: fight right now. So I think the way to do
Speaker 2: it is you have to have some sort of retention bonuses.
Speaker 3: And I'm with you on.
Speaker 2: The buyouts, like, hey, you want to leave, sure, bye
Speaker 2: and go ahead, I'll be a buyout. I think those
Speaker 2: two things along with some sort of delayed gratification.
Speaker 3: Where you have to perform for your getting paid.
Speaker 2: And I understand the other side to it, right, The
Speaker 2: other side to it is, hey, they offer me this
Speaker 2: gargantuan some money, everybody says they don't have it, and
Speaker 2: if I don't get it July first, or you know,
Speaker 2: July fifteenth, when I've been on campus for a month,
Speaker 2: I'm out. So that's the other side to it, right
Speaker 2: that you have to you have to protect the student,
Speaker 2: not just protect the school. But there has to be
Speaker 2: some form of balance in protecting both sides.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, I think retention bonuses are great. Graduation bonuses are great.
Speaker 4: Team performance bonuses are great. Multi year deals with biolts.
Speaker 4: Now biots have to go both ways. If you run
Speaker 4: a kid off, you gotta pay him. You got to
Speaker 4: buy him out of the right. And those are great,
Speaker 4: And I think it would be fine if you don't
Speaker 4: get paid unil you play for the school. If we
Speaker 4: talked about there was some type of governing body where
Speaker 4: if the money doesn't get paid, there's legal repercussions and
Speaker 4: you can collect on that money like we have in overseas.
Speaker 4: We have FEBA that you know, can can enforce that.
Speaker 4: So I think me and you are having these conversations,
Speaker 4: and everyone should be having these conversations. Who are you know,
Speaker 4: stakeholders in the sport to move these things forward? You
Speaker 4: know again, what we're doing right here is trying to
Speaker 4: think of ideas and no one has all the answers.
Speaker 4: But we get instead of his complaining about the way
Speaker 4: things have changed, let's continue having no one has answers.
Speaker 4: I am knee deep in this thing every single day
Speaker 4: up to my eyeballs. I'm going to pick up my
Speaker 4: phone and have fifty calls. But I don't have all
Speaker 4: the answers. All I have is some ideas and a
Speaker 4: desire for this thing to stabilize because I love college
Speaker 4: basketball and I grew up doing some fourteen years old.
Speaker 4: My best friends in the world are all college coaches,
Speaker 4: and I just want to move this thing forward, just
Speaker 4: like you do. We've created built our lives on this sport,
Speaker 4: and I think instead of just complaining and bitching about
Speaker 4: how everything's bad, like, let's just continue having these conversations
Speaker 4: between me and you, between college coaches, between the NCAA,
Speaker 4: between the agents, between the players, between the AAU coaches,
Speaker 4: so we can all put our ideas together and fare
Speaker 4: out how to move this thing forward. Because there is
Speaker 4: a path forward, like you said, where there can be
Speaker 4: a better future than there was before. No one, I
Speaker 4: don't think anyone thinks the past was great, where coaches
Speaker 4: are making millions of dollars and kids' families can't afford
Speaker 4: to fly to see him play, and the only way
Speaker 4: to do it is for a coach to illegally give
Speaker 4: part of his salary and risk going to jail to
Speaker 4: help keep that kid's lights on. No one thinks that
Speaker 4: was the right system, but we all know that this
Speaker 4: isn't the right system either.
Speaker 2: No, No, I do, but I do wonder like whenever
Speaker 2: we put any even even if we get a collectively
Speaker 2: bargain upon agreement, right, and again your years down the road.
Speaker 2: Basketball has been an under the table pay sport forever, right,
Speaker 2: So it's like, hey, we can.
Speaker 3: Only pay a kid two fifty, Like, do we really
Speaker 3: think that that's what it's going to be. So that's that.
Speaker 4: But look, you're right, but the more the salaries are,
Speaker 4: the less the under the table is relevant. When the
Speaker 4: salaries are zero, that fifty grand in the shoe box
Speaker 4: means a lot. When the salaries are four hundred thousand,
Speaker 4: that fifty grand in going. It's funny. I noticed this.
Speaker 4: I had this observation in the agent game recently. So
Speaker 4: it used to be some agencies would pay huge upfront
Speaker 4: sums to players to sign with them for the draft, right,
Speaker 4: two hundred grand to get you a late first round pick. Well,
Speaker 4: now players are late first round picks are coming out
Speaker 4: with five hundred thousand in the bank. The agent can't
Speaker 4: buy them anymore. They have to pick. They're generally in a.
Speaker 3: Pick energy, so it affects It affects the pro world
Speaker 3: that they already have money, so there's not the desperation
Speaker 3: in once once they get to the pro world. Just
Speaker 3: to side with an agent.
Speaker 4: It's a lot harder to buy a draft pick, which
Speaker 4: is great for me because I've never had the resources
Speaker 4: to buy a draft pick in the first place. So
Speaker 4: now guys are picking based much more based on, you know,
Speaker 4: all things being equal, because you know that money doesn't
Speaker 4: go as far. And I think to your point, the
Speaker 4: shoe box money, Yeah, when there's a collectively bargained you know,
Speaker 4: a system, Yeah, there might still be cheating, but the
Speaker 4: cheating is going to have much less of an impact
Speaker 4: because that you know, the under the table money is
Speaker 4: going to be so much less than you know, in theory,
Speaker 4: than what the salaries will be. So again to your point,
Speaker 4: your earlier point, there is a brighter future here where
Speaker 4: things could be great. We saw, you know, Armando Baycot
Speaker 4: stay in college five years because he could have been
Speaker 4: a two way player, but he kept coming back to
Speaker 4: North Carolina. We've seen this with a few guys who
Speaker 4: have stayed in college longer because that that money is
Speaker 4: good and they can stay and developed. That's great. They're
Speaker 4: gonna be got more guys graduating. There's going to be
Speaker 4: there's so much upside.
Speaker 2: I mean, honestly, like even the Kofe Coburn story is
Speaker 2: a terrible story for him, but it's a great story
Speaker 2: for other big guys. Right, Like he leaves Illinois, could
Speaker 2: have played one more year, doesn't play for a year
Speaker 2: because he thought, you know whatever, he was making an
Speaker 2: Illinois like that's what he should be playing for, and
Speaker 2: that's like not the reality. And now I think he's playing.
Speaker 2: I think he went and played the Philippines whatever. But
Speaker 2: it's more. And you know, you hate it for Kobe,
Speaker 2: but you like it for the best, Like, hey, dude,
Speaker 2: you could stay here and have and have a hell
Speaker 2: of a have a five year run where you're valued
Speaker 2: as opposed to going out in the real in the
Speaker 2: pro world, where you're not nearly as valued anymore because
Speaker 2: of your position.
Speaker 4: I had this conversation this morning with the recruit and
Speaker 4: his mother where he has two years left and he's
Speaker 4: signing a one year deal for two hundred K, and
Speaker 4: I'm like, hey, buddy, you played well. Next year, you
Speaker 4: could make three hundred. He's like, oh, no, next year,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna go pro no matter what I said, No,
Speaker 4: no you're not. Because if next year you could stay
Speaker 4: there and get your degree and your other best option
Speaker 4: is going to Finland for thirty K. You're going to
Speaker 4: take that three hundred and you're going to get your degree.
Speaker 4: We're not just I know in your head you think
Speaker 4: that's a good idea, but it's not a good idea.
Speaker 4: And I think we're going to see more and more
Speaker 4: guys staying, staying longer, graduating now that. On the other hand,
Speaker 4: there's the multi transfer progress towards degree conversation of credits transferring.
Speaker 4: But that's I think two in the weeds for this
Speaker 4: audience for now. Even though every college basketball coach listens
Speaker 4: to this podcast, I had no idea everybody listens to
Speaker 4: the podcast. So hey, all my friends listening to this,
Speaker 4: I know you all know what I'm talking about with
Speaker 4: the progress towards degree issues we're dealing with right now
Speaker 4: with multi time transfers. But I guess we can get
Speaker 4: into that next time.
Speaker 2: Well let's say that next time, okay, because you also
Speaker 2: have the progress or agree you have the online online classes,
Speaker 2: which is an issue at some of these schools right
Speaker 2: they don't want to take online classes and anything else that
Speaker 2: comes up in this last week and a half in
Speaker 2: the portal, and then we'll get to you get to
Speaker 2: part three.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we never want to get into the weeds of
Speaker 4: the academic Yes, Black Cities. I'm not the foremost expert.
Speaker 4: We should bring on like Brandon Goebel or someone or
Speaker 4: maybe just like a college coach, because there is we.
Speaker 3: Can bring on Geobal.
Speaker 2: I think Goble has been on before. We can bring
Speaker 2: on Goobal. I got no issue with that.
Speaker 4: With Goebel's my transcript. Man, I'm like, yo, Gooble, look
Speaker 4: at this. This is this kid going to be able
Speaker 4: to transfer. He's got to stay put. He's a wizard
Speaker 4: with it. I don't know how he does it.
Speaker 2: All right, brother, I appreciate you joining me. Now you
Speaker 2: get both phone calls to make. Thanks for being my guest.
Speaker 4: All right, thanks so much for having me again.
Speaker 2: All mine. Thanks to Dan Paraman. What a talented guy
Speaker 2: with a great presence and way of presenting all his answers.
Speaker 2: Truly appreciate his time. My thanks to you as well
Speaker 2: for listening. Reminder, if you want to listen to the
Speaker 2: Doug Gotlib Show, do so daily three to five Eastern
Speaker 2: twelve to two Pacific, or listen. We have an hour
Speaker 2: pod that is unfiltered, unedited and it's really cool. It's
Speaker 2: called in the Bonus check it all out. Where we
Speaker 2: download this find, you can download that one as well.
Speaker 2: I'm Doug, gotta leave.
Speaker 4: This is all ball
Speaker 2: H