Recently retired MLB Commissioner Bud Selig has hired Sandy Montag of IMG as his agent to represent him in selling the rights to a book about his life and baseball.
Montag will also represent Selig for speaking engagements, consulting and other matters.
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Former MLB chief Bud Selig will be pitching a book soon.
Photo by: GETTY IMAGES
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Montag, who has represented broadcasters, coaches and other talent at IMG for 30 years, last year founded his own consulting firm, The Montag Group. But Montag is continuing to represent talent exclusively at IMG, which was acquired by WME last year, and Selig is a client of WME-IMG.
“A year ago, the idea of hiring an agent would be kind of stunning,” said Selig, who retired as commissioner in January after 22 years
{podcast}
SBJ Podcast Archive:
From Jan. 19: Staff writers Bill King and Eric Fisher, as well as Executive Editor Abraham Madkour, discuss Bud Selig's 22 years as baseball's statesman.
and serves as commissioner emeritus of baseball. He has begun working on an outline for a book.
Selig said he seriously considered going without an agent. “But the more I got into the book and talking to people who had written books and talking to publishers, I wanted someone to represent me,” he said.
Selig said he hired Montag after speaking with two or three other agents. Dick Ebersol, former NBC Chairman of Sports and Olympics, and MLB Chief Operating Officer Tony Petitti are mutual friends, and their recommendations played a role in hiring Montag, Selig said.
“We struck up a friendship almost immediately,” Selig said, adding that the agent is “thoughtful, smart, knows his way around, great with people.”
The book “will be the story of my 53 years in baseball, and many subjects will be covered,” said Selig, who is also teaching at the University of Wisconsin and Marquette University. He is researching the book now, going through boxes containing hundreds of documents.
“I have never written one,” Selig said, “and I want to tell you right now, it is a helluva a lot harder than I thought it was going to be.”
Montag is working with Selig on finding a collaborator and writing a proposal. “We should be going to publishers in the next 30 to 60 days,” Montag said.
Book deals involve an advance payment, as well as royalties of about 15 percent of sales. Montag would not comment on financial deals, but industry sources said a book written by Selig could fetch a seven-figure advance. Selig could also command speaking fees of $75,000 to $100,000 a speech, industry sources said.
“This is not about money,” Montag said. “We want to find the right publisher.”
“Bud has a tremendous career in baseball, as an owner … bringing baseball back to Milwaukee, as commissioner,” he said. “He could write a book that is 800 pages long. The problem is going to be presenting it in a format that people are going to want to read, but it’s going to be a great book. He’s had a tremendous life.”
Montag said there could potentially be a feature film or a documentary based on the book. Selig said he doesn’t know whether the book could end up as a movie, but he is considering many opportunities.
“I would say there are a lot of other things I am probably going to do in the future,” Selig said. “When I move forward into areas that frankly I haven’t done before, I wanted to be represented by somebody. And so IMG and Sandy were really a good fit.”
There aren’t a lot of autobiographies by former commissioners. Fay Vincent, who was MLB commissioner from 1989 to 1992, wrote one in 2002 called “The Last Commissioner.”
