Although there is little mystery to who will be the No. 1 pick in next April’s NFL draft, the question of which agent, or agents, will represent Stanford quarterback
Andrew Luck provides a different story.
“I don’t think anybody has the lock on Luck,” said a prominent NFL player agent last week who, like virtually every other football agent, would like to represent Luck. The agent noted several reasons for the uncertainty.
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Andrew Luck’s Stanford team vowed to delay talking to agents, several sources say.
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“It’s his personality and value system: He doesn’t want anything to do with the [agent-selection] process,” this agent said. “Also, Stanford runs a tight ship. If you are an agent on campus, you stick out like a sore thumb. They are quick to run you off.”
A third reason, the agent said, is Oliver Luck, Andrew’s father, a former NFL quarterback and executive and the current athletic director at the University of West Virginia. “Any agent would have to go through him,” the agent said.
This agent, and others, said their attempts to communicate with either the quarterback or his father have been unsuccessful.
Oliver Luck was affable and gracious in a recent telephone interview with SportsBusiness Journal but he did not provide many clues as to who might ultimately represent his son — or whether this will be Andrew Luck’s last college football season.
“He can play another year,” Oliver Luck said of Andrew. “This is his fourth year of school and his third year of football.” But Oliver Luck added that his son, who is an architectural design major at Stanford, is scheduled to graduate this spring.
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“My policy is, I am not going to talk about his professional career until his college career is done,” Oliver Luck said. “I think it is a disservice to his teammates.”
According to a number of player-side sources, including agents, Luck is not the only member of the Stanford football team who is not talking to agents. The entire team took a vow not to speak to any agents until the college football season is over, multiple sources said.
Jim Young, Stanford senior assistant athletic director, communications, said he could not confirm or deny that the football team members had agreed to that.
Oliver Luck would not comment on any such agreement, either, or on talk in the agent business that a female relative of his had been certified by the NFL Players Association in the last year.
Attempts to verify that one of Luck’s relatives had recently been certified to negotiate with NFL clubs were unsuccessful.
Warren Moon, the Hall of Fame quarterback who played with Oliver Luck on the former Houston Oilers in the 1980s, said he wouldn’t be shocked if Andrew Luck didn’t hire an agent for his rookie contract.
“Oliver could do it himself,” said Moon, now founder and president of Sports 1 Marketing, an Irvine, Calif.-based sports and entertainment firm. “It’s not going to be rocket science, especially the way that [NFL rookie] contracts are structured today.”
Moon said that while he and Oliver Luck were friends for a long time, he lost touch with Luck after Luck moved to Europe when he was named president of NFL Europe. Moon said he has paid attention to Andrew Luck, though.
“He is very intelligent, very tough,” Moon said of the young quarterback. “As far as being a pro, ready to play the game from day one, he is probably as prepared as anybody coming out in a long time to be able to play right away.”
ATHLETES’ PERFORMANCE SOLD OUT FOR TRAINING: Around this time last year, Athletes’ Performance had a bit of a challenge filling training spots for the 2011 NFL draft. The NFL lockout was looming, and agents, wary of a potential rookie wage scale, were careful about laying out money to secure training spots at the firm, which has provided pre-NFL combine training for numerous first-round draft prospects for the last several years.
This year, for the first time ever, Athletes’ Performance has sold out all 90 of its spots across its three locations in Florida, Arizona and California, said Travelle Gaines, director of elite athlete development. Around this time last year, Athletes’ Performance had about half of its spots filled.
“It has never happened before that we were sold out, period,” Gaines said. The training costs are in the range of $10,000 to $12,000 per athlete.
Gaines attributes the increase in business to the fact that 14 NFL prospects who trained at the company’s facilities were selected in the first round of the 2011 draft, a record number. Additionally, even though first-round draft picks will receive a contract about half the amount of what they received prior to the new collective-bargaining agreement, agents still want to spend money on training, Gaines said. “You keep these kids for the second contract, that’s when the big bucks come in, so it’s an investment,” he said.
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Carlos Beltran, a free agent, has signed with agent Danny Lozano.
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Major NFL player firms, including
CAA Sports,
Octagon and
Priority Sports have trained their clients at Athletes’ Performance for years. New agents and agencies filling spots there include
Joel Segal of
Lagardère Unlimited and
Sportstars, which represents dozens of NFL players.
LOZANO SIGNS BELTRAN: MLB agent Danny Lozano has signed free agent outfielder Carlos Beltran. Beltran, who finished 2011 with San Francisco after being traded from the New York Mets in July, was previously represented by Boras Corp. It was not clear when Beltran left Scott Boras’ firm, but one source said he was interviewing agents earlier this summer.
IMG HIRES FORMER NBC SPORTS EXEC: IMG has hired Aimee Leone, most recently director of operations and special assistant to the chairman of NBC Sports & Olympics, as vice president, IMG Clients.
“Aimee’s experience in network production, athlete and talent agent relations, and high-profile events like the Super Bowl, the Olympics, and the prime time and sports Emmys will make a great contribution to the IMG Clients division,” said Sandy Montag, senior corporate vice president, IMG Clients.
At NBC, Leone was responsible for managing and maintaining relationships with leagues, talent and agents, as well as the overall management of NBC’s sports and Olympic departments, among other duties. She is expected to work with IMG clients in both its broadcasting and speakers divisions.
Liz Mullen can be reached at lmullen@sportsbusinessjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter @SBJLizMullen.
