Pat Dye Jr. became an NFL player agent after growing up in a football household. The son of former Auburn and College Football Hall of Fame coach Pat Dye, he started representing players 27 years ago and founded his own agency, SportsTrust Advisors (formerly ProFiles Sports), 20 years ago. Sports-Trust Advisors now represents 70 players on active NFL rosters, including DeMarcus Ware, Geno Atkins, Ryan Clady, Ryan Tannehill and Eddie Lacy.
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In this day and age of creating a brand, leveraging a brand, I think the Hollywood talent agencies and the people in that business are somewhat intrigued by our space, and I think that is what is generating this new round of consolidation.”
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Photo by: PERRY MCINTYRE
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On NFL players today: One of the biggest changes is with modern technology and social media, I think players are much more brand aware. Creating their brand, protecting their brand, promoting their brand and looking for people who can help them leverage their brand is probably the biggest change.
On NFL general managers: There has been a change in the overall dynamic of general managers. There’s been a gravitation to more of a business bent. You have guys who historically would not have been general managers because they were not necessarily big-time personnel evaluators. … When I came into this business, the only people who were general managers were lifelong scouts who paid their dues.
On new agents: There has been a lot of what I would say are relatively inexperienced and relatively unestablished agents that are signing top clients that a lot of the top, established agencies are recruiting. And I don’t know what is causing that, but it is just fascinating to see some of the decisions that are being made by top players, by top-15, top-20 picks, going with agents who have never had a first-round draft pick. … That’s a head-turn, because it used to be you’d look at the first round, there would be maybe a couple of players who would have picked an agent, and you are like, “Huh?” And the rest of them would go to people who had been around a long time and had a lot of first-round picks.
On agency consolidation: We went through this same cycle it seems like back in the late 1990s and early 2000s. … We have been through this cycle before and we are going through it again.
On selling his business: We have been approached on multiple occasions. … Some are pretty established firms. Some of them want us to merge, some are interested in acquisition. It is something candidly that — me and my firm have been so busy and focused on trying to build our business, it is not something that we have turned our sights on yet.
