B
ob Kain, the longtime
IMG top executive who has been acting as a strategic adviser to
CAA Sports, has stepped down from that role and is now a member of the executive committee of the U.S. Golf Association.
Kain joined CAA Sports as an outside adviser in January 2009 after being asked to take the position by Creative Artists Agency President Richard Lovett. By design, there was never any predetermined term length, Kain said.
“It was just at-will. I didn’t want an agreement with a term,” Kain said. “I wanted to stop any day that I wanted. And I wanted [Lovett] to be able to stop it any day that he didn’t think it was helpful.”
Kain called Lovett last year and they quietly agreed to end the arrangement in late December. “I said, ‘I did everything that I think you wanted me to do and everything that I could do to help,’” Kain said.
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KAIN
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CAA Sports co-head
Howard Nuchow said in a statement, “We were just getting CAA Sports off the ground when Bob came on-board as strategic adviser. We had the great benefit of his decades of experience in the sports business and were fortunate to have access to his insight during that time. Today, we have grown CAA Sports into a leader and are thankful to Bob for everything he contributed to that success.”
Kain said he built lasting friendships with Nuchow, co-head Michael Levine and Lovett. He said he has been fortunate — to be a part of building IMG, the first multisport, global sports agency, and then to advise on the creation and growth of CAA Sports.
Hollywood talent firm CAA hired NFL agent Tom Condon, MLB agent Casey Close and NHL agents Pat Brisson and J.P. Barry away from IMG in 2006. (Close has since left CAA and is now a partner at Excel Sports Management.) CAA officially launched CAA Sports in 2007 and hired Nuchow and Levine as co-heads.
Kain ended his career at IMG in 2006, after working there 31 years. He was originally hired by IMG founder Mark McCormack as a tennis agent, and counted Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi among his clients. He was promoted through the ranks and was the longtime head of IMG’s North Americas division. When McCormack died, in 2003, Kain was named co-CEO.
At CAA, Kain used his experience at IMG to advise CAA Sports on its growth.
“I was a senior adviser and I helped the co-heads of CAA and the owners and co-owners in telling them what to do and what not to do in terms of building a sports agency,” Kain said. “From helping them in advising about the television business, the tennis business, the sports advisory business, the golf business. They had already hired team sports agents from IMG. … But I was an adviser, I wasn’t a doer.”
“I had two really good experiences,” Kain said.
Kain started his career in tennis, but in recent years, his main sports love has been golf. He has played in the 2005, 2009, 2011 and 2013 U.S. Senior Amateur Championships and the 2006, 2007 and 2013 British Seniors Open Amateur Championships.
Last year, the U.S. Golf Association invited him to an interview to become a member of the 15-member executive committee that oversees the USGA. He was voted on to the USGA committee a few weeks ago. The USGA is a nonprofit and Kain will get no pay for being a part of it. “It’s a give-back,” Kain said. “It’s a freebie.”
Asked whether he was done with the agency business, Kain said, “I would never say never. I’m 65. I’m not dead yet.”
But Kain said he doesn’t think he will ever run an agency or “get into the trenches” again. “I already did that. I kind of did that at every level. So I don’t have any interest in doing what I already did.”
> AGENTS PREDICT BIG NFL FREE AGENCY: NFL free agency begins this week, and agents are predicting that players will get bid up like never before as a result of the highest salary cap ever and a mechanism that could force teams under the cap to spend on players.
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All signs point to a lucrative market for prospective free agents like Ndamukong Suh.
Photo by: GETTY IMAGES
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“I expect this to be the best year for free agency,” agent
Drew Rosenhaus wrote in a text. “It will be a great market for the highly ranked players. Exciting time as a lot of money will be spent.”
The cap was set last week at $143.8 million, up from the $133 million a year ago. In addition to that, several teams are under pressure to spend money on player salaries under the rules in the 2011 collective-bargaining agreement. Free agency starts Tuesday at 4 p.m. ET.
Every team has to spend 89 percent of the cap in a four-year rolling average. As the NFL Players Association told agents at the annual agent seminar at the combine this year, 10 teams were under that threshold, and therefore, under pressure to spend on players.
There has never been a free agency period before like there is now, an NFL general manager said. “The amount of room that teams have to spend and the 89 percent rule, it’s a confluence of those two things. There will be more money flooding into the market,” said this club executive, who asked for anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the free agent market.
Kenny Zuckerman, president of athlete representation at Priority Sports & Entertainment and an agent, said there is a possibility that some teams, and especially those that need to hit the 89 percent mark, could strike big contracts for players.
“The teams that need to get to the minimum spend could have a big advantage in free agency this year,” Zuckerman said. “They will have the ability to front load contracts and lure desirable players. However, some of those conservative-spending clubs who have waited will need to jump out early and overpay the guys they want. The reason being, why wait and spend on someone you don’t really want next year, and not have that player on your roster to help you win now?”
Liz Mullen can be reached at lmullen@sportsbusinessjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter at @SBJLizMullen.
