The happiest man in sports last week was Mike Trout, the Los Angles Angels outfielder who signed a deal worth $US430 million ($607m) over 12 years. It's the most lucrative in the history of professional sports. He does not have to Zip Pay his gas bill.
The second happiest was his agent, Craig Landis, who will see about $21m of that at the going rate of five per cent. Like the fictional character who provided the ageless stereotype, Jerry Maguire, Landis has precisely one client. We all need a Mike Trout in our lives. Or Rod Tidwell.
Tough stance: NRL CEO Todd Greenberg has put unscrupulous player agents on notice.Credit:AAP
Trout, 27, is known as a player who does little to push his own brand, either on social media or any media. He plays, enjoys it and he appreciates the enormous amounts of cash that are regularly deposited into his bank account.
“If you were Mike Trout,” Landis asked, “would you really wake up in the morning and say, Ive got to start changing things?”
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Trout and Landis are not only one of the most wildly successful player-agent combinations in sport, they also have it far simpler that many of their rivals and colleagues. While Landis has hit the jackpot with Trout, many agents must keep large numbers on their books to make a living, often taking calculated gambles on young talent who may or may not hit the big time.
It can be a struggle, even in leagues where money seems endless. A powerful group of NFL agents has found itself at odds with the NFL Players Association, a body it has lobbied for regulatory changes around the way fees are calculated and distributed. The reason? ''Nobody's making money'', according to leading agent Peter Schaffer, who referenced a study that suggested agents were banking just $5493 per year from players in the 2015 NFL draft.
Boo hoo, we hear you say. Yet when it comes to those sort of figures, perhaps it's not quite as big of a leap to the Australian market and the NRL in particular, where agents are now going to come under more scrutiny than ever before following the Cronulla salary-cap affair.
Has that time finally arrived? Perhaps. NRL chief executive Todd Greenberg has spoken before about penalties for agents found to be complicit in cap rorts but to little avail. After the Eels had their own cap scandal, as many as 11 were implicated but walked clear as the club imploded.
Agents have been almost untouchable in rugby league circles and wield more influence in the game than many fans would realise, especially in a volatile player market that has tended to capture more headlines in the average season than anything that happens on the field.
Many of the biggest have cosy relationships with particular journalists and are more than happy to leak details when it suits their neeRead More
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