| It
is No Secret The $232 billion
per year sports industry has been built on the back of the African American athlete.
In addition to fueling the enormous growth in the NFL, the NBA, and MLB, the talent
of the African American athlete is being leveraged by others to fuel development
in business areas ancillary to the game. Creative
Artists Agency, a Hollywood talent agency (“CAA”), is the latest firm
to leverage their relationship with the African American athlete for personal
gain. In recent months, CAA has acquired the practices of former IMG football
agent Tom Condon, and SFX football agent Ben Dogra, both of whom include a majority
of African Americans as their top clients. CAA is in talks with several top marketing
executives to run the firm’s new sports division. According to sources familiar
with CAA, the company is looking for executives who have contacts at major corporations
and executives at teams and leagues to take the agency beyond just representing
talent, but also in lucrative businesses such as corporate consulting and naming
rights. CAA would not be able to penetrate
the markets if it had not acquired the practices of Condon and Dogra, whose clientele
is dominated by the African American athlete. In addition to receiving negotiation/marketing/public
relations fees, CAA will leverage the representation of those same African American
players to create other, more lucrative opportunities for itself in corporate
consulting and naming rights. The question
I would ask is whether CAA has used those same contacts at major corporations
to create income/career opportunities for their African American clients and at
what level when compared to the money CAA projects it will earn from its expansion
into business areas made possible principally because of its representation of
the African American athlete? Tune in next
week for another more inside information on the business side of sports.
If you have questions or require additional information, please
contact Everett L. Glenn, Esq. at eglenn@espsportslawpro.com
or call 562.619.8460.
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