FAME, the company founded by David Falk that he sold to SFX Entertainment in 1998, has been resurrected as Fame Basketball, a division of SFX Sports, said David Bauman, who will serve as Fame Basketball president and chief operating officer.
“That is our heritage,” Bauman said of the name change. “We were FAME before the company was sold to SFX.”
With all the changes at SFX, Bauman said that the basketball practice in Washington, D.C., wants to go back to the days when it was a boutique firm “representing the best and the brightest.”
As previously reported, SFX Sports is in the midst of major changes. CEO and prominent agent Arn Tellem left earlier this year and sold his basketball and baseball practice to Wasserman Media Group. The heads of the baseball, tennis and golf divisions are also in discussions with SFX parent company Live Nation about buying their businesses back.
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A Hollywood talent firm wants a shot at representing
potential NBA first-rounder J.J. Redick. |
Fame Basketball represents more than a dozen NBA players, including
Andrew Bogut (last year’s No. 1 NBA draft pick and a Bauman client) and
Elton Brand (a Falk client).
Falk will still be the founder of the company but does not want to have a formal, corporate title, Bauman said. The old FAME stood for Falk Associates Management Enterprises, but the new Fame is not an acronym for anything, Bauman said.
DUNN FEARS CLIENT LOSS: NFL player agent David Dunn, who represents 60 NFL players, including a number of starting quarterbacks, said that he could lose all of his players and that his agency, Athletes First, may go out of business if the NFL Players Association determines he should lose his agent certification.
“If I lose my certification, Athletes First would likely lose a substantial number of clients, perhaps all of them, as I am the firm’s primary NFL contract negotiator,” Dunn said in a sworn declaration.
“Athletes First stands to lose more than $15 million in future revenues if I am permanently decertified. Jobs would certainly be lost, and more likely than not, the company would cease to exist in its present form.”
Dunn’s declaration, made under penalty of perjury, is attached to a number of legal motions aimed at appealing a federal court’s decision that could mean he would lose his NFLPA certification to represent clients.
The NFL Players Association has been trying to enforce a two-year suspension on Dunn since 2003, when its Committee on Agent Regulation and Discipline voted to discipline him based on testimony by NFL players in the (Leigh) Steinberg v. Dunn trial.
But Dunn and Athletes First filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, which stays all administrative actions against the debtor, and the NFLPA could not go forward with the disciplinary process.
But the NFLPA filed suit against Dunn, contending that when he entered bankruptcy he lost the right to continue to represent NFL players unless the union wanted him to continue, and U.S. District Judge Ronald Lew, in a March 1 ruling, agreed. Lew said in his ruling, however, that the NFLPA would have to ask the bankruptcy court to lift the stay before it proceeds against Dunn.
There is a hearing in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Santa Ana, Calif., on May 2 on a motion by the NFLPA to lift the stay so it can discipline Dunn. NFLPA General Counsel Richard Berthelsen said the union’s disciplinary committee would decide whether Dunn should lose his certification or be able to submit himself to the disciplinary process, in which he can appeal the two-year suspension to an arbitrator.
REPPING REDICK: A Hollywood talent firm has inquired about representing Duke guard J.J. Redick, who is seen as a potential first-round pick in this year’s NBA draft, in marketing and entertainment work, said Paul Haagen, a Duke Law School professor who oversees the university’s agent search process.
Haagen said that Redick would likely hold an agent interview process later this month, but he would not name the entertainment agency or the other agents who may be invited to the interview process.
Haagen also is advising Duke forward Shelden Williams, another potential first-round pick, on his agent search. Williams will conduct interviews not at the Duke campus but at his family’s home in Oklahoma, Haagen said.
Freshman Josh McRoberts, a third Duke player who is seen as a potential first-round pick, has said that he is returning to school next year. But Haagen, noting that a number of draft prognosticators have McRoberts as a potential top-10 pick, said, “With any kid that is going to be drafted that high, they are constantly rethinking it.”
Contact Liz Mullen at lmullen@sportsbusinessjournal.com.
