Editor’s note: This story is revised from the print edition.
In an intriguing mixture of a traditional agency with a cutting-edge social/digital shop, Reed Bergman’s Playbook Inc. talent firm has been acquired by social and digital marketing guru Gary Vaynerchuk’s VaynerX.
Playbook, which represents broadcast talent, like Dan Patrick, Rich Eisen and Jesse Palmer, is being rolled into VaynerTalent, a separate entity that includes top-shelf clients.
Bergman is now president and managing partner of that group, and an equity partner, along with Vayner.
Playbook began as a baseball agency, stemming from Bergman having once partnered with top MLB agent Scott Boras in an agency doing the marketing of players for whom Boras represented on the field. Since then, Playbook has represented various athletes and brands in a variety of sports marketing ventures.
“It’s an evolution for me, from a sports-centric business to one that incorporate sports with other opportunities,” he said.
Bergman added that he is now as interested in managing the careers of actresses and entrepreneurs as athletes, “as long as they have large social followings they want to monetize — and that’s all of them. No one on the buy side cares about Q Scores anymore, they want to know the size of your social media community.”
Gary Vaynerchuk’s VaynerX is branching out with the acquisition of Playbook.getty images
Vaynerchuk said that sports marketing needs to be more about marketing and less about sports.
“We can be outrageously disruptive there,” he said. “Most sports marketers are fans first and marketers second. So I believe the delta between what VaynerTalent and VaynerSports can do and what’s out there in the market is huge.”
Even with Bergman now ensconced in broad-based talent marketing, the move begs the question of what VaynerX’s end game is regarding sports. Vaynerchuk insists his ambitions are “narrow.” Vayner-Sports, an athlete representation business launched by his brother AJ in 2016, now has around 25 NFL players as clients, and an entry into basketball and other sports is expected. None of Vayner-Sport’s NFL athletes are household names, but as for their social and digital prowess, “when we have a fifth-round offensive lineman making more money in brand deals than an eighth-year All-Pro, it gets their locker room talking,” Vaynerchuk said.
“It’s way cooler now [for an athlete] to do a six-figure Instagram deal than to do a local card ad on remnant inventory during a Yankees game. It’s all about content and distribution. Once you get those humming, anything is possible.”
■ MUSIC MATTERS: While concerts at the NFL championship are nothing new, having fashioned a three-day concert series with performers Bruno Mars, Cardi B and Aerosmith during the upcoming Super Bowl week in Atlanta and sold it to top-tier sponsors, including Anheuser-Busch InBev and EA Sports, On Location Experiences CEO John Collins is now calling it a template of sorts.
The past few years saw On Location Experiences involved in concerts largely at private “pop-up venues.” This year, their musical offerings will be at the State Farm Arena, home of the Atlanta Hawks.
“Having it at a venue that size allows you to get bigger acts than you would for a private concert and still take advantage of some nice suites and clubs for the corporate crowd,” Collins said, adding that overall sales of Super Bowl packages are 50 percent ahead of last year.
Putting a Super Bowl imprimatur to the concerts, aka “The Bud Light Super Bowl Music Festival,” makes Collins think there’s a place for something of that scale in every Super Bowl city, though a downtown arena isn’t always adjacent to the Super Bowl site, as it is in Atlanta. For Super Bowl LIV in South Florida, Collins said they may opt for a temporary outdoor facility.
“The idea is to have a music festival [every year] that fits with the Super Bowl in quality and scale,” he said. “Something which offers opportunities for the public and the NFL’s corporate partners.”
Terry Lefton can be reached at tlefton@sportsbusinessjournal.com.
