Sport is a growth industry and, for many parents, it is seen as a vocational pathway for their talented kids. In part two of this four-part series, Dylan Cleaver and Gregor Paul looks at the role of the school in athlete development, particularly in Auckland where going to the ‘right’ school is seen by many as increasingly important.
Sport is also a growth industry and, for many parents, it is seen as a vocational pathway for their talented kids. In part three of this four-part series, Dylan Cleaver looks at how promising sportsmen and women can turn that talent to cash.
The talent has been identified, school and club have done a good job of developing it.
The scouts are watching, the agents are circling, promises of riches are swirling.
For many parents and kids, this is the most fraught part of the process. This is what all the hours of practice and dedication were for but, up until now, sport had been fun. It was a simple, innocent equation: hard work + talent = success. Now it has changed a little: hard work + talent = reward.
It's a different ballgame. It's a world of contracts and vague promises. It's a world of government grants and high expectations.
As Rob Nichol, head of the New Zealand Rugby Players' Association and Athletes' Federation explained yesterday, talented kids are being asked to make really big decisions about their futures younger and younger.
Truth be told, it's not the kids making the decisions, it's the parents (this is a legal requirement - when the child is a minor, parents have to be involved). Even when it is the kids making the calls, they're usually doing what they think their parents want, particularly when it comes to the two rugby codes.
"In the Polynesian culture, it's more often than not the parents and, more particularly, the father who will make the decision and they may have other financial pressures to consider," says Nichol. "I know on its own that might sound inflammatory, but I say it with a lot of empathy. I don't blame them one bit."
These are often big families with comparatively limited means. A professional rugby career is seen as not just a way out of poverty for the athlete, but also the family. Good, long-term decisions often give way to short-term financial gain. Clubs know this, which is what no doubt prompted Mt Albert Grammar principal Dale Burden to say in the Herald on Sunday: "Some of the absolute drivel [agents] tell boys and their families is so far off the mark and the kids believe it."
Esportif player manager Bruce Sharrock, one of the veterans of the business, acknowledged that kids were being targeted younger and younger.
"In a perfect world, we would not be talking to kids until they were in their final year of school and are on their way out... but that's not the world we live in," Sharrock told NewstalkZB. "They reality is, we have commercial games, rugby league and rugby union, who sit alongside each other and want the best talent."
Rather than looking at the player manager or agent as the villain in this story, there is a growing acceptance the good ones can actually act as gatekeepers.
Sports lawyer Aaron Lloyd said he would recommend that promising athletes on the cusp of signing a professional sports contract, no matter what the code, should look at a small "suite" of trusted advisers: an agent, accountant and, as a backstop, lawyer although, ironically, he said the latter was the least critical early on in careers.
"Many of the evils and pitfalls of professional sport can be managed by a good agent," Lloyd said, noting that vetting process that has led to accredited agencies has weeded out most of the bad managers.
Still, there are too often cautionary tales of well- and not-so-well-meaning uncles or friends taking on the role with disastrous results, as they either had ulterior motives or were simply working out of their depth.
New Zealand's young sevens sensation Rieko Ioane. Photo / Getty Images
Lloyd said the agent should be more than a person who makes sure they are working on behalf of their client's interests when it comes to contracts. They need to be a trusted source of advice in all sorts of areas, not just dealing with clubs.
"They should be the person you go to when you've been given a supplement that you're not sure about."
They should also, says Lloyd, promote autonomy with their clients.
"These kids need to learn some personal responsibility because they carry personal liability. Some of them get so used to having all their thinking done for them outside sport and that sort of over-protection can have negative on- and off-field consequences when these guys realise they're not used to having to make decisions for themselves."
A lot of them might not have great self-awareness, but they will have great access to the sort of money out of reach of most of their peers. Unfortunately, it can be easy come, easy go.
"It can be lost through exploitative friends and family or just because they're young men with money and they want to spend it without thinking long term," Lloyd says.
He recommends engaging an accountant and looking to put money in a trust with an independent trustee. That way, these young athletes need to justify why they're taking money from the trust account... and avoid becoming a salutary tale of someone who had a lot and lost a lot.
