The drama of sport once used to star players and coaches. Now the cast list includes agents and managers, as TERRY MADDAFORD explains.
That famous, "Show me the money, Jerry. Show me the money!" line from American footballer Rod Tidwell to sports agent Jerry Maguire in the 1996 movie put the spotlight on agents, characterising them as cash-crazed sharks.
While they have been familiar figures in international sports for years, their highly visible presence in New Zealand has been spawned by the dollars pouring into rugby and the television and sponsorship money that has recently changed the face of sport.
But the question hanging over them is whether they are really defenders of their clients' interests or intent only on feathering their nests.
The first of the heavyweight agents was about as far from the shark image as can be imagined, although he certainly proved he could bite. The highly polished Mark McCormack was Arnold Palmer's long-time lawyer who took on what he saw as a managerial role for Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Tony Jacklin and Bob (now Sir Bob) Charles.
Those five golfing originals in McCormack's IMG "stable" were followed by Australian tennis great Rod Laver, motor-racing Scot Jackie Stewart and French ski star Jean-Claude Killy. McCormack was thrust firmly on to the sporting stage. While he never saw himself as a money-chasing agent, his ability to produce the goods for his clients was impressive.
A typical example was his handling of Jacklin. By today's standards, the $50,000 Jacklin pocketed for victories in the 1969 British Open and the US Open the following year - after scoring his first major wins in New Zealand in the mid-60s - was chickenfeed.
But in McCormack's hands the 25-year-old Briton earned $3 million more off the course than he won on it.
That model is followed in New Zealand now. Paul Gleeson, IMG boss in New Zealand and Charles' representative here for 17 years (he also looks after Kiri Te Kanawa's New Zealand interests) considers his role as decidedly more of a manager than as an agent. But he is not complimentary about some others in the field.
"There are too many cowboy agents out there now. They are only interested in a fast buck," says Gleeson. "We see our responsibility in taking an overall role in looking after their sporting and personal life over a long period.
"We sit down with our clients and ask them what they want over the next 10 years. We want to have them in a position where they can continue to earn after they have retired.
"John Newcombe is a good example. IMG and Newcombe drew up a master plan which saw him earn more money after he retired from playing tennis than he ever made on the court."
In a paper for the University of Edinburgh, titled Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves and ... Sports Agents, Geoff Wightman of UK company Park Associates - whose star-studded roster includes Will Carling, Rory Underwood and cricketers David Gower and Mike Atherton - confessed that a fellow-director's wife would not own up to her husband's profession because of its lack of reputation.
But Wightman explains the role of a sports agent: "Our role is part-PR counsellor, part-lawyer, part- salesman, part-negotiator, part-booking clerk and part-wet nurse."
He also pays credit to IMG. "Their activities allay the widespread belief that whenever big money is introduced into amateur sport, mucky standards of behaviour prevail."
But IMG and Park Associates are well-established heavyweights, while many New Zealand-based agents are still feeling their way in the main-money local sports of rugby and rugby league.
New Zealand Warriors chief executive Mick Watson accepts agents as "part of the deal" but admits he does not make life easy for them.
"Some agents are very good. Others very bad," says Watson. "Agents are proactive and aggressive. I can admire them for that, as they work in the best interests of their clients."
Watson retains a soft spot for long-time local agent and former Kiwi league player Peter Brown, but does not have the same patience with others, including Australian Simon Burgess.
"We realised there were going to be problems with the way he did business," says Watson. "In the end we told him to not bother bringing players to us. There are enough players in the global market without having to go to him.
"If we are not comfortable with the business dealings, we would rather not continue the relationship. In many ways Simon Burgess did not meet our criteria. In the end he has decided to leave us alone."
Watson says he usually prefers to see the back of an agent once the deal is done. But Brown, he says, is an exception.
"He has a lot of Polynesian players and about 10 players altogether in our squad. He understands the game from both sides and is a very good medium. He has proved his trust with the club."
Brown, who also offers other advice to his players, including taxation and property investment, works part-time as an agent taking a percentage of the contracts he successfully negotiates.
"But I'm never going to be a millionaire, mate," says Brown. "Until I have negotiated what I and the player consider a reasonable deal, I basically do it for nothing.
"Once they become a big earner, I charge a flat fee. I can't see how agents who negotiate a $500,000 deal can justify a 6 per cent fee a year over the term of the contract.
"A lot of the players, particularly the Island boys, are pretty gullible. I would rather point out to a player the pitfalls than push him into something he might, in the end, not be happy with.
"Some are offered what seems big money to go and play in England," said Brown. "But when you get down to it, the $450,000 they might be offered there could equate to $300,000 here - without the high costs of living - where they would be much happier.
"They have to look at everything, not just the money."
Warrior Clinton Toopi is grateful for the role Brown has taken in his career. "I tell him how I feel," says Toopi. "He acts in my best interests. I regard him as my personal manager.
"I regard what he gets from negotiating on my behalf as money well spent. Some managers want to take money from you from the start. I hear other players complaining about agents who are only out for themselves."
Phil Kingsley-Jones has been a similar father figure to All Black great Jonah Lomu and stresses he is "a manager, not an agent".
Kingsley-Jones says he likes to see himself as being to Lomu what Brian Epstein was to the Beatles or Colonel Parker to Elvis Presley.
"I have others I manage things for," says Kingsley-Jones. "In many ways, I'm like an extra parent.
"My initial motivation was to keep Jonah Lomu in rugby and, more particularly, Counties. I was with him from the time he left school in 1993. I did not earn anything from him then. In 1994 I got him the sponsorship to keep him in rugby when rugby league was an option.
"My job now is to go out and look at the marketplace. No agents are involved. No go-betweens. Unlike agents, I don't do it for the money," says Kingsley-Jones. "I wrote the contract Jonah has with the New Zealand Rugby Union."
Agents can be involved in complicated situations. Jim Rowe, who has managed musicians as well as sporting stars, had a close association with Henry Paul, who has been involved in recent high-profile negotiations with both rugby codes on opposite sides of the world, and this week confirmed his switch to English rugby club Gloucester.
"I was a long way down the track in my negotiations with the New Zealand Rugby Union," says Raglan-based Rowe. "But he had other agents, including Simon Burgess, working for him in Australia and another in England."
One of the newer arrivals is Roger Mortimer, who started out as an agent eight years ago when he negotiated the deal that took John Timu from Otago rugby to league at Canterbury Bankstown.
"I approached him and got a fee for completing the deal," says Mortimer, who has since worked with Zinzan Brooke, Hamish Carter, Sara Ulmer, Shane Howarth, Ian Jones and others.
"Professional sport could not work without agents, but I'm really concerned about the advice players are getting. The Henry Paul thing sounded like a real shambles."
On the other side of the negotiations are the sports administrators such as New Zealand Soccer chief executive Bill MacGowan, who has had dealings with agents in rugby league (at the Warriors) and now soccer.
"Fifa have licensed agents throughout the world who are under constant scrutiny," says MacGowan. "We have none in New Zealand yet, but any that do get a licence will be under our control."
Dragan Jevtic works in New Zealand for Fifa-licensed, Belgium-based Pro Agency. He negotiated All White Jeff Campbell's move from the Football Kingz to NSL club Adelaide City.
"I came from Yugoslavia and saw many young players' careers being destroyed in being given the wrong advice," says Jevtic. "We don't like to impose on players. Jeff left it to me."
Jevtic admits that agents can pocket plenty if they factor a deal like the one signed this month by the world's greatest soccer player, Zinadine Zidane. His agent picked up a cool $US2.7 million ($6.5 million).
But the big money is rare. David Howman, New Zealand Tennis chairman and long-time lawyer for many New Zealand sportsmen and women, says he has a "loose arrangement" with players such as Jeff Wilson, Stephen Fleming, Nathan Astle and Craig McMillan.
"I have a pretty good idea of what contracts are worth," says Howman. "There is obviously a lot of to-ing and fro-ing, but at some stage you have to put the stake in the ground.
"A lot of agents who thought they were going to make a lot of money have been sadly mistaken. Deals with the rugby union are usually one-hit affairs. They can be quite lucrative, with agents picking up anything from 6 to 20 per cent from the total package. I prefer to operate on a 'fair fee' basis.
"A lot of players need someone between them and the employer," says Howman. "There is a place for certain people to do this. You will never get rid of them [agents].
"It is not their job to act for the New Zealand Rugby Union. They are there to try and make as much money as they can for the player and themselves."
With Carlos Spencer as his most high-profile client, David Jones has seen it all. He works fulltime in commercial law but part-time he acts for rugby players, yachtsmen and tennis players.
"The NZRFU are very insular in their thinking," says Jones. "Some of the stories you hear would make you say rugby is still very amateur in its thinking. They play the loyalty card all their time but there is no loyalty on their part.
"The rugby union speaks with a forked tongue.
"I have no problems with agents," says Jones. "They come and go just like players. In reality, it is very hard for agents to achieve much, as the union controls so much right across the board. This is unlike Britain, where the clubs have that control.
"And, with the NZRFU effectively tying up the sponsorship/endorsement dollar, there is not much for the agents to come and go on.
"Despite what you might hear, the contracts aren't big. There is probably a window of only two to three years where a player can earn something around $200,000. Most players get $65,000, of which the agent will be taking 5 to 15 per cent off the top.
"This fee is not tax-deductable, which means $65,000 in reality is worth closer to $40,000.
"Talk of huge money is so divorced from reality."
Jones says the Jerry Maguire example is miles away from the New Zealand scene.
"For most agents it is the smell of an oily rag stuff."
Sport: Agents of change
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