Sports agent Arn Tellem is talking to “a handful” of companies about a potential merger with his yet-to-be launched, future sports agency, and will announce the new partner by Thanksgiving, said Steve Greenberg, Tellem’s investment banker.
Greenberg would not name the companies involved in the discussions.
“We are not talking to people with no connection to the sports talent world,” said Greenberg, managing director of New York-based Allen & Co. “I am sure you can imagine the types of companies which would be interested in adding on the pre-eminent basketball and baseball agent and expanding from there.”
Tellem last week stepped down as CEO of SFX Sports and exercised an option to buy back his business.
Tellem said he will run the company’s Los Angeles office, which represents more than 100 MLB and NBA players, until the end of the year. He plans to open his new agency in January. Tellem suggested that he may partner with an entertainment company, as he wants to create a sports agency that provides entertainment and media content worldwide.
“I have been approached by many strategic and financial partners who have expressed an interest in partnering or backing me and my sports agency,” he said. “I am fully evaluating those opportunities, and those opportunities include growing this business, and not just in the United States … but worldwide, and opportunities where sports intersects with media and content.”
Tellem would not reveal what he paid to buy back the Los Angeles office, whose NBA and MLB clients include Kobe Bryant, Tracy McGrady and Nomar Garciaparra, but he said the price was predetermined.
Tellem originally sold his company, Tellem & Associates, to SFX Entertainment in 1999 and signed a five-year contract. SFX Entertainment was sold to Clear Channel Communications in 2001.
After Tellem’s original deal expired in September 2004, he negotiated a new five-year deal to become CEO, with an option to buy back his business after one year. That option was exercised last week, three days before the Sept. 30 deadline.
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| Kobe Bryant is among the high-profile stars who will make the move with Tellem. |
“That was the deal we made,” Tellem said. “They asked me to run it for a year and I thought I would try it for a year. It was a hard decision for me, but in the last few months I came to the realization that I wanted to start fresh and to do something where I felt I was in control and partner up with financial backers and strategic investors that shared my vision of growing this business.”
Tellem is viewed by many in the sports industry as the most powerful sports agent in the United States, not just because of his client base of NBA and MLB stars, but because of his ability to mentor and inspire loyalty in younger agents. Tellem and several of those NBA agents have dominated the business of representing first-round NBA draft picks for the last five years.
Among those in the Los Angeles office who will be joining Tellem are basketball agents Rob Pelinka, Bob Myers, Thad Foucher and Jeff Wernick and baseball agent Joel Wolfe.
Baseball agents who are remaining with SFX Sports are Fern Cuza and Pat Rooney in the Chicago office. Basketball agents remaining at SFX are David Falk and David Bauman, who are based in Washington, as well as Miami-based Jeff Wechsler.
Sources said Wechsler and Bauman were close to Tellem and that their employment agreements with SFX are up at the end of this year. Attempts to reach them were unsuccessful, and Tellem wouldn’t comment on any agent’s contract with SFX.
