This is not a game : Top sports agents share their negotiating secrets
From the sidelines, professional athletes have leverage that corporate negotiators can only dream of Endowed with unmatchable skills and advised by top agents, stars like Alex Rodrigues, Lebron James, and Maria Sharapova can just name their price, threaten to walk, and receive untold riches, right?
Not quite. For anyone who has followed the saga of Terrel Owens, All-Pro wide receiver for the Philadelphia Eagles, it’s clear that even a star needs to play by certain rules. When Owens’s agent. Drew “The shark” Rosenhaus, fumbled and attempt to secure a better contract for him, Owens vented his displeasure by insulting his teammates and was effectively terminated.
While Owens’s situation is an extreme example of how aggressiveness a backfire, other top agents say they are just as restricted by basic negotiation principles as the next guy. “There has to be some resolute willingness to push the envelope,” says sports agent Leigh Steinberg, head of Leigh Steinberg Enterprises and the inspiration for the character Jerry Maguire in the 1996 movie of the same name, but “you need to remember that all humans have ego and pride, so the key is to try and avoid confrontation.”
Can the intricacies of sports negotiation offer any lessons for finance executives? Sure, signing All-Star pitcher Roger Clemens to another year is much more glamorous than brokering a better compensation package, selling off a business, or quelling employee dissatisfaction. But the similarities outweigh the differences. Deal-making in the corporate world involves “the same dynamics” as negotiating sports contracts, says Peter Carfagna, who oversaw contracts for the likes of Tiger Woods while he was chief legal officer at International Management group and now teaches negotiation strategy at Case Western Reserve university. Even when you have a good deal of leverage, he adds, “you have to use it selectively, so you can develop a reputation for being reasonable.