January 16, 2025 • 34 mins
What happens in the room when billion-dollar NFL quarterback contracts are negotiated? Athletes First agents take you behind closed doors, sharing never-before-heard stories of record-breaking deals for Justin Herbert, Deshaun Watson, Dak Prescott and more. With $1.4 Billion in current QB contracts, these powerful agents reveal how relationships are built, negotiations unfold, and NFL history is made. Join VP AJ Stevens, CEO Brian Murphy and Athletes First’s team of super agents for unprecedented access to football’s biggest deals.
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Show Notes:
00:00:00 - Welcome to the Athletes First Family Podcast
00:00:29 - Overview of Athletes First Journey
00:01:34 - Record-Breaker: $2.9 Billion in Player Contracts
00:02:12 - Highlight of Top Quarterback Deals
00:05:20 - Reflection on 2024 Success and Client Stories
00:09:11 - Personal Background and Future Podcast Topics
00:10:50 - Founders of Athletes First and First Client
00:12:50 - First Interaction Between Brian and AJ
00:15:56 - Recruitment of Tom Brady to Tampa Bay
00:20:21 - Acknowledging Todd's Vision and AJ's Impact
00:24:48 - Introduction to the Quarterback Series
00:27:08 - Upcoming Topics and Questions for the Podcast
00:29:11 - Exploring Complexities of NFL Contracts
00:30:26 - Personal Growth Through Uncomfortable Situations
00:32:59 - Preview of Next Episode and Company Origins
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
We did three record breaking deals, starting with with Tua,
then Jordan Love and then Dak all record breaking deals
in their own right.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I mean it was amazing. I mean, to do three
top quarterback deals, historic quarterback deals in the same year.
It's never been done before either, you know, I mean,
it's mind boggling. It's awesome. But welcome to the first
episode of the Athletes First Family podcast, the Quarterback series.
(00:29):
I am Brian Murphy, CEO of Athletes First, and this
is my trusted sidekick co host AJ Stevens. Aj is
a VP of Client Strategy at Athletes First and some
would argue the best negotiator in our business. We'll see
about that throughout this series. But welcome he.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Jay, Thanks Murph.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
I'm excited to be here, honored to be here, and
you know, I'm just honored, really excited to know tell
the story of athletes First Family with you.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
It's gonna be great. As you know, as one of
the people who started Athletes First in two thousand and one,
four years ago, and the last twenty four years has
been a ride, a journey we could have never imagined,
all kinds of ups and downs, peaks and valleys, wins,
and losses. But as we sit here today doing our
first podcast, I can say without most confidence at athletes first,
by basically any metric is the largest and most successful
(01:17):
football agency in the history of our industry, which is
crazy to say, but it's true. And why don't you
give you some facts back that up?
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Yeah, I mean you and many agents are known for
hyperbole at times, so OsO irish, so it helps. I
did some digging that pulled out the books and went
through all of our numbers. We have five point three
billion dollars in active NFL contracts on our books right now.
So these are deals that we've negotiated that are still
(01:46):
active contracts that players are playing under right now.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
And I can tell you that blows away any projection's
financial project as we've done in the last three three
four years, and was not even in our minds twenty
four years ago. So that's a good place to be. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
And in twenty twenty four alone, we did two point
nine billion dollars in player contracts, so you know, record
breaking deals across the board, first round picks, you name it.
Those are the guys who we represented this year, negotiated
deals for and all of their contracts combined to make
a record breaking number of two point nine billion dollars
(02:22):
negotiated in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
That's incredible. And we also made history. David Mulgedo, one
of our agents, did over billion dollars of deals himself
or with the team, which is, you know, unheard of
former intern athletes versus we get into now superstar I know,
I know those are mind boggling numbers, right, but like
let's break down. Let's break it down into players, like
how of our players? You know what kind of players
we represent?
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Yeah, and in twenty twenty four, we did a number
of record breaking deals. Yea, the quarterbacks for example, which
is you know the reason that we're here to talk
about quarterbacks on this series. We did three record breaking
deals starting with with Tua, then Jordan Love and then
Dak all record breaking deals in their own right.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
I mean it was amazing. I mean, to do three
top quarterback deals, historic quarterback deals in the same year.
It's never been done before either, you know, I mean,
it's it's mind boggling. It's awesome.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
But we are not just a quarterback agency, no play
with represent players at every position and another position that
we broke a record at was safety this year, so
Antoine Winfield Junior, as a client of ours, we negotiated
his deal. He became the highest paid defensive back in
NFL history, which is the first time that a safety
(03:34):
was able to hold that title.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
That's crazy. The other part of that is, you know,
earlier in our careers we did the highest paid safety
deal for Harrison Smith right with the Vikings, who played
with Antwine's dad when he first started his career. So
I shows you how long we've been doing this. But
I also think currently I think it's we represent five
of the six highest paid safeties in the NFL. Right,
that's right, And we have a couple a couple of
(03:58):
safeties coming up we're going to join that top five.
One of them probably joined the number one. So safety,
defensive backs, of safety has been good to us.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Yeah, we've got plenty of talent waiting for their time
to get their deal as well.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
How about cornerback, Oh yeah, we're good.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
We're good there too. Cornerback this year Jalen Ramsey, we
made him the highest paid corner in NFL history for
the second time in his career.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
YEP, two Brinks trucks you know, and I think we
made him or he made himself the highest paid by
just being an amazing player.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
Yes, he's amazing player. Great dude.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
And then offensive tackle another spot that we broke a
record at. In twenty twenty four, Penney Seuel became the
highest paid tackle in NFL history yep, which you know
is monumental in its own right, but when you consider
that he's only played right tackle in the NFL up
to this point, it's the first time that a right
tackle has ever held the title of highest paid tackle
in NFL in the NFL.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Amazing. And when you think of offensive lineman, highest paid
offensive lineman, Pro Bowl offensive lineman, first Round OFFENSI lineman,
you think Joe Pandos, one of our equity parts news
played offensive line himself, Hall of Fame, Wisconsin, seven years
in the pros. Not a great pro, but you know,
play seven years in the Pro and we're going to
get into some of his success in another series. Doesn't
do a lot of quarterbacks, but he's just he's a
(05:12):
phenomenal agent with and does a great job with offensive liignment.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
And speaking of Joe Panos, another one of his clients,
Robert Hunt, he signed the largest contracts for a guard
free agent in NFL history this year, So another record
breaking deal in its own right for Joe this year
and for athletes First.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Yeah, big Rob. His story come out of high school
not even known how to play football. It's an amazing story.
Probably one we'll get to in a different series and
different podcasts. But you know, every individuals you just mentioned
phenomenal human beings too, and awesome, just great people. So
we are blessed and twenty twenty four was a great year.
Santa was good to us.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Yeah, but we don't have to just look at twenty
twenty four, right, Okay, we can go back through the
history of Athletes First and see all of the clients
that have come through and become a member of the Athletes'
First family and remain a member of the athletes first family.
So yeah, we can go back and look at there's
eleven Hall of Famers who are a member of the
athletes First Family.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
That's amazing, one of them being John Lynch, you know who.
We represent it as a safety, and then we represented
as a broadcaster, and now we work with as a
GM and negotiate with as a GM, and you know,
epitomizes what the athletes First Family is all about. Is
it tremendous human being and someone we're very proud of.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Right and you know, taking it another step, one hundred
and twenty two Pro Bowl players have been a member
of the athletes First Family, represented by Athletes First over
the shore our career.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Take that from John Lynch to last year's Pro Bowl
where Kyl Hamilton made his debut another safety. You know,
we know, we don't know all about Hall of Fame,
but certainly Pro Bowl right now. Maybe a Super Bowl
champion soon. So yeah, it's been great.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
And then the what many say is the most prestigious
award in the NFL, the Walter.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Payton Man of the Year.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
I it, you know, exemplifies service that these players give
to their communities. We've had, we've represented five of those
winners as well.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Yep, most recently Dak Prescott, who had a great celebration
afterwards with Julian Todd. But yeah, I mean, you talk
about Dak Prescott, we go to talk about him at
being the highest paid quarterback in the NFL, and I
think if you ask Dak, if you ask people close
to Dak, you know, you know, what's more impressive that
contract or the WALTI. Payton Award, Like you know, I
think most people say the Multipayton Award. And he's a
(07:30):
he's a phenomenal quarterback, an unbelievable leader. But the impact
he's had on Dallas and other communities is mind blowing. It's,
you know, again, another person we're very lucky to have
part of that first family.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
Yeah. Absolutely, he's a great quarterback, great person.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
It's exemplified by that sticker that he gets to wear
on his jersey showing the Walter.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Payton Man of the Year Award.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
It's awesome.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
And then you know, we can take it a step
further and say, there's one hundred and nineteen first round
picks have been represented by athletes first over the years.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Yeah, for the last five years, we've had more first
round any other agency, you know, and which is great.
It's awesome. We've had phenomenal drafts, and you know, that's
that's one way that you continue to build up the
numbers that you talked about earlier is getting to go
out and get those first round picks and they get
to their second deals and those pretty pretty big deals.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
That's right, and having great players, you know, just helps
us to negotiate great contracts rightly. And you know, going
one step further down the road in a career for
a player they start coming out of college, they go
to an All Star game, and what we think is
the highest level of all star game for players who
are coming into the league is the Senior Bowl. And
(08:37):
over the last five years, we've had fifty five of
our clients playing that Senior Bowl game, which is you know,
by by far the most foreign agency in the NFL.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Yeah, no, I mean that's a great standard, great measurements
see what type players that were getting come out of college.
And obviously they've done a great job with the Senior
Bowl over the year, has really made it some places
where a lot of players want to be and where
we want our players to go. And yeah, that's a
great stat and you know, all these stats kind of
support what we're saying. Just put our heads down for
twenty four years, worked as hard as we possibly could,
(09:08):
you know, pushed it, disrupted the industry and you know,
and here we are, you know, and we're just we're
talking about the football department here, but obviously we have
a great coaching department reps at front office, personnel, college coaches,
NFL coaches. We have a phenomenal broadcasting department, sales and marketing.
We got offices in New York, Atlanta, Gainesville, Texas, out here.
(09:28):
You know, it's just it's all come together in a
way that we could never imagined. And that's that's what
we're gonna talk about here on this podcast series and
others hopefully.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Yeah, well that's I think that's a great summary of
athletes first from a ten thousand foot of you, maybe
even higher than that, and I know you're very proud
of that, but I think a lot of the people
who are going to be listening to this are going
to be interested in, you know, your personal background as
well at personal and business background and how you kind
of got here.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Yeah. No, I mean, I think you did a great
job telling the people listener to some of the facts.
But as we know, athletes first family is about the people,
right and so being one of the founders, I'll give
you a little bit of my background, a quick deep down,
a quick summary of the background, because some later podcast
episodes we'll do a deeper dive. But yeah, you know again,
Brian Murphy, I was born and raised in Boston. Never
(10:15):
thought I ended up in southern California. Went to the
University of Neurdaime. I was psychollegy major, graduated in nineteen
ninety two. I went immediate to law school as I
graduated from Harvard Law School in nineteen ninety five and
got what another dream job at the time. I went
to go be a litigator at Ropes and Gray, which
is one of the biggest law firms in the country.
I had a great four years at Ropes and Gray,
(10:36):
really enjoyed it. Learned from the best lawyers in the country.
Learned the value of like ridiculous preparation and going above
and beyond to win the case, win the argument, win
the deposition, writing, thinking, arguing, negotiating, I mean literally learned
from the best of the best and had a great
four years there, and thought I was going to just
stay there forever. I was married to my wife, Laurence.
(10:59):
She was pregnant months pregnant the time, and I got
a job offer to, you know, come out to California,
Southern California, Newport Beach and go to work for Steinberg,
Marid and Done, which was the time was the largest
football agency in the world and also the second largest
baseball agency, I believe. So I never thought I'd do this,
but my wife and I, Lauren, we moved out to
southern California. I really didn't even know where it was.
(11:20):
I knew what USC was here for the noteame days,
but moved out and I spent a little under two
years working for SMD Stanburg Run done. I did everything
you could as an agent. I both did some baseball,
did mostly football. I did some special projects, business development.
Not a you know, phenomenal two years. But two thousand
and one, for a myriad of reasons, Dave Dunn and
(11:41):
I decided to leave and start athletes first, and you know,
as we'll talk about the next episode two, Bludsoe was
our first client and we started it in two thousand
and one, and throughout this series and other series, we
would tell what happened over the next twenty four years.
But that's my background, AJ, what about you.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Yeah, obviously less time in the industry, So I got
to go back a little bit further to start. You know,
I grew up a three sport athlete, athlete in high school,
kind of got burnt out, went to college. Thought I
was just going to be a regular person. Got the
itch to get back into sports immediately and started looking
at law schools and specifically law schools that had a
sports law program.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
That led me to New Orleans.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
So a kid who's grown up in Minnesota spent my
whole life there, moved to New Orleans. A little bit
of a culture shock, but Tulane Law was exactly where
I needed to be because it had the program and
everything that I wanted to get into sports. While I
was there, I started this competition. It was a legal
you know, mock negotiation for law students where they would
(12:43):
sit down and they would negotiate NFL contracts a cross
from each other.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
The big draw of this.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Was I was going to get people like you and
people around the industry to come in and sit and
judge and network with me hopefully and other students at
the school. So that was my my first foray into
trying to be an NFL unbelievable program.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
How many years has been around now ten years.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
This last year was the tenth anniversary of it, so
they gave me an award for starting it, so that
was that was pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
In our first interaction ever was ten years. I mean
ten years a correct.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Well, yeah, because I had invited you, your assistant had
committed for you. And then the week of the competition,
I got an email from your assistant saying, Brian didn't
realize this is the week of the Senior Bowl. He's
no longer to attend. I no longer had a big
name judge to come in and sit on it. We
found some replacements.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
He'as you to do right.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
You're not the only big time judge who has bailed
on me or bailed on me over the two years
that I ran it, though, and so you know, that
was my kind of catalyst to building a network with
NFL personnel. It helps lead into an internship with the
Washington Redskins. I worked directly with the vice presidents of
the team who oversaw the salary, cap, player contracts, everything,
(14:00):
Eric Shaffer.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
Eric Shaffer.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Within a week of being there, I realized, this is
exactly what I want to spend the rest of my
life doing. So I you know, took that experience, that
network that I had built up over the over those
years of law school, over the competition and kind of
parlayed into having a position where, you know, I had
some teams that were calling me about positions they had
in their salary cap departments. I flew to three different teams.
(14:25):
I sat down with them, I listened to you know,
what the role would be. At one point I sat
down with with one team's GM for about three minutes,
which you know, three minutes.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
I will take that.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
But the whole pitch for me from him was, you know,
you're going to do all the jobs that none of
us want to do, and we're going to pay you
almost nothing. And then I went to Tampa Jason Light
who is you know, I'm a big fan of his,
huge fe He sat down with me for over thirty minutes,
talking about you know, our family, our upbringing, just get
(14:56):
to know me as a person, and leaving. Leaving tam
I was like, well, I'm like, I'm this is an
easy decision for me. I'm I'm moving to Tampa Bay.
I'm going to work in their front office. And it
was it was great. I went there and did all
the things that no one wanted to do and I
got paid very little. Yep, But you know I felt
good about you know, the people I was working with
and everything I was doing there.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
I think that's a great story. I mean, like, shout
out to Tulane because they've done a great job at negotiation.
Seminar was there last year with my gold jacket and
finally got the judge and make up to my mistake
ten years earlier. But shout out to you too like that.
I mean, that's you want to get into this industry,
That's what you need to do, right. You need to
move with purpose. They go to Tulane with a purpose,
started the start the whole negotiating seminar with a purpose
(15:37):
and then go meet people with a purpose. You know,
not just to say hello, shake hands and be a
while it's a general manager, but like know that you
want to meet these people and create a favorable impression
so you can get a job. So and Jason, awesome,
we both love Jason. We could have a whole podcast
series about our incident, you know, incidance, but our episodes
with Jason. So what did you do that? What did
you do with Tampa?
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Yeah, so my role was specifically to work on all
things salary cap, collective bargaining agreements, player contracts. There were
some operational type things, so I really got to have
a hand in a lot of different aspects of the
the football business. And this went on for you know,
four great years with the team. We weren't great on
(16:17):
the field, but you know, we it was a lot
of a lot of fun. I learned a ton and
you know, in the my last couple of months in
Tampa is when I got to be a part of
the recruitment i'll call it of Tom Brady. And obviously,
you know that you have this guy who was playing
in the NFL since you started Athletes First, Yeah, has
(16:37):
won at the time six super Bowls, arguably the greatest
of all time, greatest of all time non athletes first
client probably, And so the recruitment process of getting him
to Tampa is something I could probably do a whole
podcast series about, or at least an episode, but that
that was an amazing experience. During that whole time, I was,
(16:59):
you know, kind of behind closed doors getting recruited to
come work on the agency side of the business by
Todd Franz, who is a guy that we're definitely gonna
get into. He's going to be on the series with
us here, I'm going to.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Be partnered Athletes First, all time legend.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
And so at the time he's the number one most
powerful agent, according to Forbes, So when he calls, I'm
picking up and I'm you know, trembling a little bit,
thinking like, what are you calling about?
Speaker 3 (17:23):
Which client? Am I going to get it? You know,
mfter or something.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
And it turns out he just wanted to talk for
forty five minutes about how I should come work for
him the first time he cold called me.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
So, you know, that went on for months. At the time,
it was.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
One of the greatest recruiters of all time is now
recruiting you, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
So it was pretty surreal.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
This went on for probably close to six months before
I finally said, you know what, I know we have
Tom Brady. I know we have Rob Gronkowski. I think
we have a super Bowl winning team. And I think
at one point I said this to him. I was like,
I think we have a great roster, Like how can
I leave a super Bowl winning potentially super Bowl winning team?
And he said to me, you know, Tom Brady's forty
three years old. He could be in a wheelchair by
(18:06):
the end of the year. All my friends in the
industry tell me that they're gonna win the Super Bowl
every year, and only one of them ever does so, like,
do you want to do that or do you want
to come over and work for me and you know,
exponentially grow your career.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
So I, as you said, he's an amazing recruiter. He
recruited me over.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
But to be clear, he recruited at the time he
was he was running the football department at CAA, not
athletes first.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
Right.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Yeah, So I thought I was going to work at
ciaure and I did go work at CAA for a
month and the day this is and this is the
middle of COVID, by the way, the first year of COVID. Sure,
so I'm finally moving to Atlanta from Tampa. On the
day that I arrive in Atlanta, ten pm, Todd calls
me and says, hey, just so you know, I'm leaving CIA.
(18:51):
I had no idea this was coming. I, you know,
was in a little bit of shock, like I just
gave up what I had thought was my dream job.
I thought was a super Bowl winning team potentially, and
gave all that up to come work with you, and
now you're leaving.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
So this was a tumultuous period for a.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
While, a little awkward, Yeah, until you know, he had
decided he was going to athletes first, and he said,
I want you to sit down.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
With with you yep uh and one of.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Our other equity partners, Trace and just have a conversation
with him, because you know, he really wanted me to
come work with him as well.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
So I remember him calling and said listen, you know,
and Todd's a very loyal person and he had some
great people around him. But he had told me the story.
He said, I need you to meet with AJ Stevens
and interview him, like for for what position? So he's
a he's a great negotiator. I'm like, I'm a great negotiator.
I mean, we're all great negotiators. Like what do we
what do we need another negotiator for who's not gonna
have his own clients? Right? He said, would just sit
(19:48):
down and talk to him. And I remember sitting down
and talk to him, and remember I asked you, all right,
what's your goal, what's your dream? What's your utopia? Because
that's what we'd like to do with people we bring
on board. And what was your answer? What is what
was your goal?
Speaker 1 (19:59):
At the I just flat out told you I wanted
to be the greatest negotiator in the NFL.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
Now on this side of the table.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Yeah, And in my mind, I didn't say it's allow,
this is the last place you could go because not
because we don't do that, but we are ready or
have the best negotiators, and we all negotiate as a
team for the clients that we have, and if you
don't have any clients, can be hard to integrate, integrated
hue of that process.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
And I told Todd that. And you know, Todd, as
he does, he had a different vision, is a different
way of doing things. He explained his way of doing things,
and he said, listen, I will do whatever it takes
with my own contract to uh, you know, make sure
that we get age here, you know, which was big,
you know, huge of him, and I took advantage of
it now. But and so ultimately, uh, you know, you
came and joined the athletes for his family. And I
(20:40):
say this, Todd, hopefully listen to this podcast. Like he
was one hundred percent right. You were one hundred percent right.
I was completely wrong. You have transformed how we do contracts.
And I think, as we'll talk about in the series,
I think you've already achieved your goal of being the
greatest negotiator on our side of the on our side
of the table. So it's uh, as one time. I'm
glad I was wrong, but it was great. It was great.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Well, it's great to hear I'm honored to hear it
from you who has been in the industry for so long.
But you know, we've done a lot of amazing things together.
We've negotiated record breaking deals, we've done a tailgate tour.
But this is new, this podcast is new, and so
why are we here?
Speaker 3 (21:17):
What are we doing?
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Yeah, no, that's a great question, Ajay, and I think
that you know, it's important to start the podcast by saying, like,
over the last twenty five years, twenty four years, athletes
First has intentionally stayed out of the press. We don't
talk to the media, we don't really return media's calls.
We ignore all those accolades that the publications do pay us.
For some advertisers, we'll give you an accolade. We just
(21:39):
like we put our head down twenty four years ago
and we said our goal is to be the best family,
the best agency that Athletes First can be, and if
we do that, we know we'll be the best of
the industry. But we don't have to worry about the
rest of the industry just put our head down. We
don't need articles or we don't have pr we don't
needing to just do it right. And so last twenty
five years we spent our time to be the best
(22:00):
that we could be. And then we do that a
couple of ways, like, you know, we have this great
internship program. I think you know thirty percent of our
current employees came up through the internship program. So we
grew our own talent, Like we developed our own talent,
like David Mullagetta, who's you know now is also not
number one on Forbes. Ryan Williams, one of our Crey partners,
whould be a guest on the podcast. Justin Schulman did
(22:21):
Justin Herbert's deal. Kyle McCarthy, who's a legend both on
the coach's side and the player's side. Like we just
we raised our own developed her own. But at the
same time, twenty four years we started going out and said, hey, listen,
all the goats in the industry, you know, the Trace Armstrong's,
Todd Francs, the Joe Panos, Andrew Kessler, Sean Kern, and like,
(22:41):
why don't you come take a look at the way
we're doing things. We do things differently here where a
family we work together to collaborate, where our own company independent,
we're not a big, huge conglomerate. And they all came over,
like everyone we talked to came over, and so like
that's what we spent the last twenty four years doing.
They building this amazing family, it's an amazing team and
just doing the work and doing the work and then
kind of lift up our heads after two and a
(23:03):
half decades, you're like, whoa, all the numbers that you said,
Like that's us that you talk about us, you know,
and like not to mention like the Tailgate Tour and
our athletes first training Academy, all these shrupts of things
we've done that we'll talk about through the podcast series.
And so like, you know, I'm getting old too, you know,
fifty four years old. So after two and a half decades,
it's like, all right, you know, we surpassed our wildest dreams.
(23:24):
You know, we we've climbed the highest mountains and now
we still have more mountains to climb, which are excited
to do. But you know, maybe maybe we take time
to kind of share our story, right, and we're not
We're not certainly not doing the podcast anyone who knows us.
We're not doing the podcast to pat ourselves on the
back or to flex our muscles our success. But like
you know, Athletes First Family is everything to me, you
(23:45):
know my own family. Athletes First Family means everything to me.
I think to me when I was approached about this podcast,
I'm like, you know what, this gives us the opportunity
to exponentually expand the Athletes's First Family. We can reach people,
maybe reach this. You know, anyone listens to it, your parents,
My parents listen to it, right like, you know, we
can reach the listeners and we can. We can we
share with them like our company philosophies. You know, we
(24:07):
can go through last twenty four years. We talk about
our wins, but also talk about all losses and what
we learned from those losses. You know, we can dive
into our company philosophies and our maximums like better together
and athlete first and do the right things for the
right people for reasons. And we show how like we
create those philosophies and you stick to them and you
live them, you can achieve anything you want. So you
(24:28):
know this age right like this is way outside our
comfort zone. And when we talk to some of our
equity partners and other people who are going to come
on as guests, they're like, what, No, I don't want
to do that, right, But when we explain the why,
the purpose kind of like when I talk to you
about your purpose of delaying, Like, the purpose of this
is we want to share our story. I think this
story can help others. I think it can help people
(24:48):
who don't even want to be sports agents, right. And
I think if you look at where we are now, like,
oh wow, they've always No, we haven't always been here.
It's been hard, been really hard to get here, right,
But this is how we got here. These are this
is what led us to this success. And you know
it just the more people that we can impact, the
more people we can benefit, the more people we can
welcome to the Athletes First Family, the better off will be.
(25:09):
So it might be ten, it might be one ten,
I don't know, but that's why we're here, you know.
Very strange, I understand, but uh, you know, I think
it's I'm excited about it, and I know you are too.
But we're starting We made decision were gonna start with
the quarterback series, right, Athletes first family Quarterback series. Why
are we doing that? Why are we starting with.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
The quarterback series?
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Well, I think the main reason we're doing the quarterback
series first is because we've had all this recent success
and a history of success at the position. So, I mean,
currently four of the top seven highest paid quarterbacks in
the NFL are athletes first clients. Five of the top
eleven highest paid quarterbacks in the NFL are athletes first clients,
(25:48):
all deals that have been negotiated in the last couple
of years. You can start with with Dak Prescott as
the highest paid, Jordan love of the second highest paid,
two is the third highest paid, Herbert's number seven, and
Deshawn's number eleven. But every time those guys signs, they
were record breaking deals and it's just a matter of
who's up next that is one of our clients.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
Yeah, no, absolutely, I think the fun part of those deals, well,
I think two is probably the fifth highest, not the
third highest. But the fun part of those deals is
that those deals you were involved with every one of
the deals, right, I mean, you negotiate all of them,
but like we had different agents doing it, right, like
so like Ryan Williams did too. You know, Justin Schulman
did Justin Herbert, David Willigeta did Jordan Love with Andrew Kessler,
(26:28):
and then David willigedt also did Deshaun Watson, I mean
not Dak Todd and yourself did Dak. So we have
all these different superagents working towards the same common goal
let's have let's do a historic NFL quarterback deal. But they're
also different, right, I.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
Mean, yeah, no doubt.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
They all have different backgrounds, different you know, back upbringings,
different styles. You know what the way that one agent
wants to negotiate is, you know, completely different than the
way another agent wants to negotiate. And being able to
be involved in all of those and see those different
styles and and kind of adapt how I work based
on their style and how they want to approach teams.
(27:04):
You know, It's it's been eye opening for me, and
I think it's it's something that people are definitely gonna
want to hear about.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
I haven't myself had to negotiate with all those agents
for the employment contracts whatnot. I can tell you their deal.
Their styles are completely different, but they all work.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Yeah, as I said, speaking out of getting out of
their comfort zone. A number of them actually approached me
to see if I would negotiate their deal to appear
on the podcast. So we may be talking about that
after episode after this one has.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
No appearance fees, but no so so tell the listeners
like what can when they expect to hear? Like, what
are we going to talk about?
Speaker 3 (27:33):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (27:34):
So, I mean we're going to dive into a lot
of different questions that are constantly asked of us. You
know how the conversations go when we have a player
who should be the next highest paid quarterback? How do
we go about, you know, approaching the team. Does the
team just automatically agree yew, we should definitely make them
the highest paid or what does that process like? You know,
how did the conversations go when we have a player
(27:54):
who you know, maybe hasn't been to a Pro Bowl,
doesn't have the accolades, and we're coming to the teams
he should be the highest paid. I don't I don't
care about that type of stuff? How did the conversations
go when you know the person you're negotiating with is
not just the GM or the salary cap person of
the owner of the team. Right, those things can can
make the dynamic of the conversations much different.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Which is another good point, like that, like not only
different agents, the agents are all different, the clients are different.
Like TUA is not exactly the same with Justin Herbert
and not exactly Dye Prescott. But the teams with whom
we're negotiating are completely different. Like the Packers don't even
have an owner, right, and and then so like the
Cowboys have a pretty famous owner, right, you know who's
intimately involved with it. And so you know, we'll go
(28:35):
through all the teams and all over and again like
much respect, unbelievable respect. I mean all the general managers,
cap pologists, Mike Greenberg, we should have thrown that out there, right,
don't want to leave Greeney out. The owners like there,
I mean it's the thirty one NFL owners, right, I mean,
those those are the best of the best. So huge respect.
Is a privileged to be able to work with them,
honor be able to talk to them. But you know,
they're all different, and so we're going to get into
(28:57):
you know, how you know, what we see from who
we're dealing with the different teams as well.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Yeah, and every personality of these people we're talking to
is much different. So some of the negotiations can be
can be very friendly. Someone that you go way back
with it might be more casual. You know, we can
talk about the numbers, but sprinkling some jokes. Some of
them are gonna be very tense, and some of the
counterparts that we're negotiating with, they're they're not gonna be
very happy with us throughout the process at the end
(29:21):
of the process, But at the end of the day,
we have a mutual respect for each other that you know,
maybe maybe a few days has to go by before
we can come back and talk to them again. But uh,
it's it's a small industry and we know that, and
that's why we keep a level of respect in all
of our conversations.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
I think I think it'll also be fun to dive
into Like this is for maybe the nerds out there,
but like you know, big huge NFL contracts, not just
about signing bonus, not just about average per year apy, right,
But there's a lot of different components and you know,
got to figure out which components are important to the team,
which components are important to the players. But I think
you know, you're gonna walk us through all those nerdy
contract details.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
Right.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Yeah, I'm not gonna bore anybody, but we will definite
sprinkle in all of those different aspects of each deal
that we're going to discuss, as well as you know,
some other aspects that are other deals that will come
up in our conversations for sure. Uh, you know, for example,
like how does a player like Deshaun Watson end up
with a fully guaranteed contract when no one else has one?
Speaker 3 (30:16):
You know, that was something that it's very unique.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
It's a great conversation that you know, we can hopefully
peel back the onion and share some details with the
audience too.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Ye, No, it's gona it's gonna be a great series. Again,
what we're gonna do, We're gonna share our stories, right,
We're gonna share our experiences and and you know, we're
not saying that we do the best, we do the
right way, but we do this, we do it our way.
You know, we've had a lot of success doing it,
and it's gonna be a lot of fun. But also
on each podcast, we're gonna end each podcast with kind
of lessons learned, right and and for it could be
(30:47):
lessons learned during the last you know, half hour together
lessons learned from the last twenty four years. But it's
all done susponte top of the head, and you make
me go first, so I'll say, I'll say here, here's
my lesson lesson learned for this one. Right when we
started this company, there was a no brainer to call
athletes first. We always wanted to put the athletes first, right,
And I think that's one reason this podcast is, you know,
(31:10):
so far outside of our comfort zone because we're going
to be talking about our clients. We talk about the
great contracts they have, the great people they are, the
Walter Payton Wards and whatnot. But as you and I,
you know, it's not the athletes on the podcast. It's
us on the podcast. And it's going to be our
partners and our associates on the podcast. And that's uncomfortable,
you know. And it's not that we don't like to
be in front of the camera. We like to be
(31:30):
in back of the camera watching our players make all
the money and make all the plays. But you know,
I think it's you know, we can throughout twenty four years,
I know I have grown and our company has grown
by doing the uncomfortable, but leave our comfort zone behind.
It and growing as a person and as a company.
And I think hopefully to me this podcast series will
(31:51):
will help myself grow, come a bit better at what
I do as a CEO. Help athletes first grow, help
yourself grow, everyone else comes on the show grow, and
also maybe we can help some listeners out there understand
what we do and how we do it and why
we've had the success we've had. So you know, that's
my lesson learned right from episode one. I must hut
up with the athletes first and then be behind this mic.
But we'll have some fun and we'll get after it.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Yeah, So I my takeaway, I'm gonna just use one
of my anecdotes that that I just told you or
that you actually brought to my attention while we were
talking about it, and it's you know, this is a
small industry. A goal of our podcast here is to
make sure that we aren't burning any bridges with anyone
around the industry. So you know, we're not going to
get on here and brag about you know, this deal
is so good. We had that team over a barrel, ye,
(32:36):
which you know I can relate to because when you
you ghosted me ten years ago from my negotiation competition.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
I certainly could have held a grudge, but.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
When I got the opportunity to sit down with you
and interview essentially to be a member of the athlete's
first family, you know, I was more than happy to
I was honored to be in that situation. And so
I think that's a you know, a takeaway of mine
that I've been told year over year, and you know,
I always think about it in the small industry that
this is.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
And now that we work together, you fully believe and
understand how I mess up the schedule like. It wasn't
an intentional slight. It's just you know, you know, details
weigh me down sometimes, ajah.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
So timing, you know what your calendar looks like, you
don't know until it comes up.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Usually yes, yeah, absolutely, Well we're gonna have a lot
of fun. It's gonna be great. I can't wait to
bring our partners on. I can't wait to you know,
expand out this series. But you know, it's a great start.
I'm fired up for this. I appreciate you taking the
time to come out to Orange County to do this
with me, and you know, our first episode, next episode
is gonna just be the two of us again, but
we're gonna be talking about the beginning of athletes first,
(33:38):
and the aforementioned Drew Bloodsoe and how he helped us
start our company and how we really been working with
you know, top tier quarterbacks from the very beginning, starting
with Drew Bloodsoe, Joey Harrington, Carson Palmer. Uh. And then
after that we'll bring in our other agents and talk
about the deals that we did last couple of years.
So it's gonna be fun. Appreciate you, AJ and UH
we'll see you next time.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
Yeah, up, let's go awesome.
We did three record breaking deals, starting with with Tua,
then Jordan Love and then Dak all record breaking deals
in their own right.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I mean it was amazing. I mean, to do three
top quarterback deals, historic quarterback deals in the same year.
It's never been done before either, you know, I mean,
it's mind boggling. It's awesome. But welcome to the first
episode of the Athletes First Family podcast, the Quarterback series.
(00:29):
I am Brian Murphy, CEO of Athletes First, and this
is my trusted sidekick co host AJ Stevens. Aj is
a VP of Client Strategy at Athletes First and some
would argue the best negotiator in our business. We'll see
about that throughout this series. But welcome he.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Jay, Thanks Murph.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
I'm excited to be here, honored to be here, and
you know, I'm just honored, really excited to know tell
the story of athletes First Family with you.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
It's gonna be great. As you know, as one of
the people who started Athletes First in two thousand and one,
four years ago, and the last twenty four years has
been a ride, a journey we could have never imagined,
all kinds of ups and downs, peaks and valleys, wins,
and losses. But as we sit here today doing our
first podcast, I can say without most confidence at athletes first,
by basically any metric is the largest and most successful
(01:17):
football agency in the history of our industry, which is
crazy to say, but it's true. And why don't you
give you some facts back that up?
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Yeah, I mean you and many agents are known for
hyperbole at times, so OsO irish, so it helps. I
did some digging that pulled out the books and went
through all of our numbers. We have five point three
billion dollars in active NFL contracts on our books right now.
So these are deals that we've negotiated that are still
(01:46):
active contracts that players are playing under right now.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
And I can tell you that blows away any projection's
financial project as we've done in the last three three
four years, and was not even in our minds twenty
four years ago. So that's a good place to be. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
And in twenty twenty four alone, we did two point
nine billion dollars in player contracts, so you know, record
breaking deals across the board, first round picks, you name it.
Those are the guys who we represented this year, negotiated
deals for and all of their contracts combined to make
a record breaking number of two point nine billion dollars
(02:22):
negotiated in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
That's incredible. And we also made history. David Mulgedo, one
of our agents, did over billion dollars of deals himself
or with the team, which is, you know, unheard of
former intern athletes versus we get into now superstar I know,
I know those are mind boggling numbers, right, but like
let's break down. Let's break it down into players, like
how of our players? You know what kind of players
we represent?
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Yeah, and in twenty twenty four, we did a number
of record breaking deals. Yea, the quarterbacks for example, which
is you know the reason that we're here to talk
about quarterbacks on this series. We did three record breaking
deals starting with with Tua, then Jordan Love and then
Dak all record breaking deals in their own right.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
I mean it was amazing. I mean, to do three
top quarterback deals, historic quarterback deals in the same year.
It's never been done before either, you know, I mean,
it's it's mind boggling. It's awesome.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
But we are not just a quarterback agency, no play
with represent players at every position and another position that
we broke a record at was safety this year, so
Antoine Winfield Junior, as a client of ours, we negotiated
his deal. He became the highest paid defensive back in
NFL history, which is the first time that a safety
(03:34):
was able to hold that title.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
That's crazy. The other part of that is, you know,
earlier in our careers we did the highest paid safety
deal for Harrison Smith right with the Vikings, who played
with Antwine's dad when he first started his career. So
I shows you how long we've been doing this. But
I also think currently I think it's we represent five
of the six highest paid safeties in the NFL. Right,
that's right, And we have a couple a couple of
(03:58):
safeties coming up we're going to join that top five.
One of them probably joined the number one. So safety,
defensive backs, of safety has been good to us.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Yeah, we've got plenty of talent waiting for their time
to get their deal as well.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
How about cornerback, Oh yeah, we're good.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
We're good there too. Cornerback this year Jalen Ramsey, we
made him the highest paid corner in NFL history for
the second time in his career.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
YEP, two Brinks trucks you know, and I think we
made him or he made himself the highest paid by
just being an amazing player.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
Yes, he's amazing player. Great dude.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
And then offensive tackle another spot that we broke a
record at. In twenty twenty four, Penney Seuel became the
highest paid tackle in NFL history yep, which you know
is monumental in its own right, but when you consider
that he's only played right tackle in the NFL up
to this point, it's the first time that a right
tackle has ever held the title of highest paid tackle
in NFL in the NFL.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Amazing. And when you think of offensive lineman, highest paid
offensive lineman, Pro Bowl offensive lineman, first Round OFFENSI lineman,
you think Joe Pandos, one of our equity parts news
played offensive line himself, Hall of Fame, Wisconsin, seven years
in the pros. Not a great pro, but you know,
play seven years in the Pro and we're going to
get into some of his success in another series. Doesn't
do a lot of quarterbacks, but he's just he's a
(05:12):
phenomenal agent with and does a great job with offensive liignment.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
And speaking of Joe Panos, another one of his clients,
Robert Hunt, he signed the largest contracts for a guard
free agent in NFL history this year, So another record
breaking deal in its own right for Joe this year
and for athletes First.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Yeah, big Rob. His story come out of high school
not even known how to play football. It's an amazing story.
Probably one we'll get to in a different series and
different podcasts. But you know, every individuals you just mentioned
phenomenal human beings too, and awesome, just great people. So
we are blessed and twenty twenty four was a great year.
Santa was good to us.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Yeah, but we don't have to just look at twenty
twenty four, right, Okay, we can go back through the
history of Athletes First and see all of the clients
that have come through and become a member of the Athletes'
First family and remain a member of the athletes first family.
So yeah, we can go back and look at there's
eleven Hall of Famers who are a member of the
athletes First Family.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
That's amazing, one of them being John Lynch, you know who.
We represent it as a safety, and then we represented
as a broadcaster, and now we work with as a
GM and negotiate with as a GM, and you know,
epitomizes what the athletes First Family is all about. Is
it tremendous human being and someone we're very proud of.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Right and you know, taking it another step, one hundred
and twenty two Pro Bowl players have been a member
of the athletes First Family, represented by Athletes First over
the shore our career.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Take that from John Lynch to last year's Pro Bowl
where Kyl Hamilton made his debut another safety. You know,
we know, we don't know all about Hall of Fame,
but certainly Pro Bowl right now. Maybe a Super Bowl
champion soon. So yeah, it's been great.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
And then the what many say is the most prestigious
award in the NFL, the Walter.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Payton Man of the Year.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
I it, you know, exemplifies service that these players give
to their communities. We've had, we've represented five of those
winners as well.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Yep, most recently Dak Prescott, who had a great celebration
afterwards with Julian Todd. But yeah, I mean, you talk
about Dak Prescott, we go to talk about him at
being the highest paid quarterback in the NFL, and I
think if you ask Dak, if you ask people close
to Dak, you know, you know, what's more impressive that
contract or the WALTI. Payton Award, Like you know, I
think most people say the Multipayton Award. And he's a
(07:30):
he's a phenomenal quarterback, an unbelievable leader. But the impact
he's had on Dallas and other communities is mind blowing. It's,
you know, again, another person we're very lucky to have
part of that first family.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
Yeah. Absolutely, he's a great quarterback, great person.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
It's exemplified by that sticker that he gets to wear
on his jersey showing the Walter.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Payton Man of the Year Award.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
It's awesome.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
And then you know, we can take it a step
further and say, there's one hundred and nineteen first round
picks have been represented by athletes first over the years.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Yeah, for the last five years, we've had more first
round any other agency, you know, and which is great.
It's awesome. We've had phenomenal drafts, and you know, that's
that's one way that you continue to build up the
numbers that you talked about earlier is getting to go
out and get those first round picks and they get
to their second deals and those pretty pretty big deals.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
That's right, and having great players, you know, just helps
us to negotiate great contracts rightly. And you know, going
one step further down the road in a career for
a player they start coming out of college, they go
to an All Star game, and what we think is
the highest level of all star game for players who
are coming into the league is the Senior Bowl. And
(08:37):
over the last five years, we've had fifty five of
our clients playing that Senior Bowl game, which is you know,
by by far the most foreign agency in the NFL.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Yeah, no, I mean that's a great standard, great measurements
see what type players that were getting come out of college.
And obviously they've done a great job with the Senior
Bowl over the year, has really made it some places
where a lot of players want to be and where
we want our players to go. And yeah, that's a
great stat and you know, all these stats kind of
support what we're saying. Just put our heads down for
twenty four years, worked as hard as we possibly could,
(09:08):
you know, pushed it, disrupted the industry and you know,
and here we are, you know, and we're just we're
talking about the football department here, but obviously we have
a great coaching department reps at front office, personnel, college coaches,
NFL coaches. We have a phenomenal broadcasting department, sales and marketing.
We got offices in New York, Atlanta, Gainesville, Texas, out here.
(09:28):
You know, it's just it's all come together in a
way that we could never imagined. And that's that's what
we're gonna talk about here on this podcast series and
others hopefully.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Yeah, well that's I think that's a great summary of
athletes first from a ten thousand foot of you, maybe
even higher than that, and I know you're very proud
of that, but I think a lot of the people
who are going to be listening to this are going
to be interested in, you know, your personal background as
well at personal and business background and how you kind
of got here.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Yeah. No, I mean, I think you did a great
job telling the people listener to some of the facts.
But as we know, athletes first family is about the people,
right and so being one of the founders, I'll give
you a little bit of my background, a quick deep down,
a quick summary of the background, because some later podcast
episodes we'll do a deeper dive. But yeah, you know again,
Brian Murphy, I was born and raised in Boston. Never
(10:15):
thought I ended up in southern California. Went to the
University of Neurdaime. I was psychollegy major, graduated in nineteen
ninety two. I went immediate to law school as I
graduated from Harvard Law School in nineteen ninety five and
got what another dream job at the time. I went
to go be a litigator at Ropes and Gray, which
is one of the biggest law firms in the country.
I had a great four years at Ropes and Gray,
(10:36):
really enjoyed it. Learned from the best lawyers in the country.
Learned the value of like ridiculous preparation and going above
and beyond to win the case, win the argument, win
the deposition, writing, thinking, arguing, negotiating, I mean literally learned
from the best of the best and had a great
four years there, and thought I was going to just
stay there forever. I was married to my wife, Laurence.
(10:59):
She was pregnant months pregnant the time, and I got
a job offer to, you know, come out to California,
Southern California, Newport Beach and go to work for Steinberg,
Marid and Done, which was the time was the largest
football agency in the world and also the second largest
baseball agency, I believe. So I never thought I'd do this,
but my wife and I, Lauren, we moved out to
southern California. I really didn't even know where it was.
(11:20):
I knew what USC was here for the noteame days,
but moved out and I spent a little under two
years working for SMD Stanburg Run done. I did everything
you could as an agent. I both did some baseball,
did mostly football. I did some special projects, business development.
Not a you know, phenomenal two years. But two thousand
and one, for a myriad of reasons, Dave Dunn and
(11:41):
I decided to leave and start athletes first, and you know,
as we'll talk about the next episode two, Bludsoe was
our first client and we started it in two thousand
and one, and throughout this series and other series, we
would tell what happened over the next twenty four years.
But that's my background, AJ, what about you.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Yeah, obviously less time in the industry, So I got
to go back a little bit further to start. You know,
I grew up a three sport athlete, athlete in high school,
kind of got burnt out, went to college. Thought I
was just going to be a regular person. Got the
itch to get back into sports immediately and started looking
at law schools and specifically law schools that had a
sports law program.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
That led me to New Orleans.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
So a kid who's grown up in Minnesota spent my
whole life there, moved to New Orleans. A little bit
of a culture shock, but Tulane Law was exactly where
I needed to be because it had the program and
everything that I wanted to get into sports. While I
was there, I started this competition. It was a legal
you know, mock negotiation for law students where they would
(12:43):
sit down and they would negotiate NFL contracts a cross
from each other.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
The big draw of this.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Was I was going to get people like you and
people around the industry to come in and sit and
judge and network with me hopefully and other students at
the school. So that was my my first foray into
trying to be an NFL unbelievable program.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
How many years has been around now ten years.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
This last year was the tenth anniversary of it, so
they gave me an award for starting it, so that
was that was pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
In our first interaction ever was ten years. I mean
ten years a correct.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Well, yeah, because I had invited you, your assistant had
committed for you. And then the week of the competition,
I got an email from your assistant saying, Brian didn't
realize this is the week of the Senior Bowl. He's
no longer to attend. I no longer had a big
name judge to come in and sit on it. We
found some replacements.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
He'as you to do right.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
You're not the only big time judge who has bailed
on me or bailed on me over the two years
that I ran it, though, and so you know, that
was my kind of catalyst to building a network with
NFL personnel. It helps lead into an internship with the
Washington Redskins. I worked directly with the vice presidents of
the team who oversaw the salary, cap, player contracts, everything,
(14:00):
Eric Shaffer.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
Eric Shaffer.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Within a week of being there, I realized, this is
exactly what I want to spend the rest of my
life doing. So I you know, took that experience, that
network that I had built up over the over those
years of law school, over the competition and kind of
parlayed into having a position where, you know, I had
some teams that were calling me about positions they had
in their salary cap departments. I flew to three different teams.
(14:25):
I sat down with them, I listened to you know,
what the role would be. At one point I sat
down with with one team's GM for about three minutes,
which you know, three minutes.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
I will take that.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
But the whole pitch for me from him was, you know,
you're going to do all the jobs that none of
us want to do, and we're going to pay you
almost nothing. And then I went to Tampa Jason Light
who is you know, I'm a big fan of his,
huge fe He sat down with me for over thirty minutes,
talking about you know, our family, our upbringing, just get
(14:56):
to know me as a person, and leaving. Leaving tam
I was like, well, I'm like, I'm this is an
easy decision for me. I'm I'm moving to Tampa Bay.
I'm going to work in their front office. And it
was it was great. I went there and did all
the things that no one wanted to do and I
got paid very little. Yep, But you know I felt
good about you know, the people I was working with
and everything I was doing there.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
I think that's a great story. I mean, like, shout
out to Tulane because they've done a great job at negotiation.
Seminar was there last year with my gold jacket and
finally got the judge and make up to my mistake
ten years earlier. But shout out to you too like that.
I mean, that's you want to get into this industry,
That's what you need to do, right. You need to
move with purpose. They go to Tulane with a purpose,
started the start the whole negotiating seminar with a purpose
(15:37):
and then go meet people with a purpose. You know,
not just to say hello, shake hands and be a
while it's a general manager, but like know that you
want to meet these people and create a favorable impression
so you can get a job. So and Jason, awesome,
we both love Jason. We could have a whole podcast
series about our incident, you know, incidance, but our episodes
with Jason. So what did you do that? What did
you do with Tampa?
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Yeah, so my role was specifically to work on all
things salary cap, collective bargaining agreements, player contracts. There were
some operational type things, so I really got to have
a hand in a lot of different aspects of the
the football business. And this went on for you know,
four great years with the team. We weren't great on
(16:17):
the field, but you know, we it was a lot
of a lot of fun. I learned a ton and
you know, in the my last couple of months in
Tampa is when I got to be a part of
the recruitment i'll call it of Tom Brady. And obviously,
you know that you have this guy who was playing
in the NFL since you started Athletes First, Yeah, has
(16:37):
won at the time six super Bowls, arguably the greatest
of all time, greatest of all time non athletes first
client probably, And so the recruitment process of getting him
to Tampa is something I could probably do a whole
podcast series about, or at least an episode, but that
that was an amazing experience. During that whole time, I was,
(16:59):
you know, kind of behind closed doors getting recruited to
come work on the agency side of the business by
Todd Franz, who is a guy that we're definitely gonna
get into. He's going to be on the series with
us here, I'm going to.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Be partnered Athletes First, all time legend.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
And so at the time he's the number one most
powerful agent, according to Forbes, So when he calls, I'm
picking up and I'm you know, trembling a little bit,
thinking like, what are you calling about?
Speaker 3 (17:23):
Which client? Am I going to get it? You know,
mfter or something.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
And it turns out he just wanted to talk for
forty five minutes about how I should come work for
him the first time he cold called me.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
So, you know, that went on for months. At the time,
it was.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
One of the greatest recruiters of all time is now
recruiting you, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
So it was pretty surreal.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
This went on for probably close to six months before
I finally said, you know what, I know we have
Tom Brady. I know we have Rob Gronkowski. I think
we have a super Bowl winning team. And I think
at one point I said this to him. I was like,
I think we have a great roster, Like how can
I leave a super Bowl winning potentially super Bowl winning team?
And he said to me, you know, Tom Brady's forty
three years old. He could be in a wheelchair by
(18:06):
the end of the year. All my friends in the
industry tell me that they're gonna win the Super Bowl
every year, and only one of them ever does so, like,
do you want to do that or do you want
to come over and work for me and you know,
exponentially grow your career.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
So I, as you said, he's an amazing recruiter. He
recruited me over.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
But to be clear, he recruited at the time he
was he was running the football department at CAA, not
athletes first.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
Right.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Yeah, So I thought I was going to work at
ciaure and I did go work at CAA for a
month and the day this is and this is the
middle of COVID, by the way, the first year of COVID. Sure,
so I'm finally moving to Atlanta from Tampa. On the
day that I arrive in Atlanta, ten pm, Todd calls
me and says, hey, just so you know, I'm leaving CIA.
(18:51):
I had no idea this was coming. I, you know,
was in a little bit of shock, like I just
gave up what I had thought was my dream job.
I thought was a super Bowl winning team potentially, and
gave all that up to come work with you, and
now you're leaving.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
So this was a tumultuous period for a.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
While, a little awkward, Yeah, until you know, he had
decided he was going to athletes first, and he said,
I want you to sit down.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
With with you yep uh and one of.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Our other equity partners, Trace and just have a conversation
with him, because you know, he really wanted me to
come work with him as well.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
So I remember him calling and said listen, you know,
and Todd's a very loyal person and he had some
great people around him. But he had told me the story.
He said, I need you to meet with AJ Stevens
and interview him, like for for what position? So he's
a he's a great negotiator. I'm like, I'm a great negotiator.
I mean, we're all great negotiators. Like what do we
what do we need another negotiator for who's not gonna
have his own clients? Right? He said, would just sit
(19:48):
down and talk to him. And I remember sitting down
and talk to him, and remember I asked you, all right,
what's your goal, what's your dream? What's your utopia? Because
that's what we'd like to do with people we bring
on board. And what was your answer? What is what
was your goal?
Speaker 1 (19:59):
At the I just flat out told you I wanted
to be the greatest negotiator in the NFL.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
Now on this side of the table.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Yeah, And in my mind, I didn't say it's allow,
this is the last place you could go because not
because we don't do that, but we are ready or
have the best negotiators, and we all negotiate as a
team for the clients that we have, and if you
don't have any clients, can be hard to integrate, integrated
hue of that process.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
And I told Todd that. And you know, Todd, as
he does, he had a different vision, is a different
way of doing things. He explained his way of doing things,
and he said, listen, I will do whatever it takes
with my own contract to uh, you know, make sure
that we get age here, you know, which was big,
you know, huge of him, and I took advantage of
it now. But and so ultimately, uh, you know, you
came and joined the athletes for his family. And I
(20:40):
say this, Todd, hopefully listen to this podcast. Like he
was one hundred percent right. You were one hundred percent right.
I was completely wrong. You have transformed how we do contracts.
And I think, as we'll talk about in the series,
I think you've already achieved your goal of being the
greatest negotiator on our side of the on our side
of the table. So it's uh, as one time. I'm
glad I was wrong, but it was great. It was great.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Well, it's great to hear I'm honored to hear it
from you who has been in the industry for so long.
But you know, we've done a lot of amazing things together.
We've negotiated record breaking deals, we've done a tailgate tour.
But this is new, this podcast is new, and so
why are we here?
Speaker 3 (21:17):
What are we doing?
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Yeah, no, that's a great question, Ajay, and I think
that you know, it's important to start the podcast by saying, like,
over the last twenty five years, twenty four years, athletes
First has intentionally stayed out of the press. We don't
talk to the media, we don't really return media's calls.
We ignore all those accolades that the publications do pay us.
For some advertisers, we'll give you an accolade. We just
(21:39):
like we put our head down twenty four years ago
and we said our goal is to be the best family,
the best agency that Athletes First can be, and if
we do that, we know we'll be the best of
the industry. But we don't have to worry about the
rest of the industry just put our head down. We
don't need articles or we don't have pr we don't
needing to just do it right. And so last twenty
five years we spent our time to be the best
(22:00):
that we could be. And then we do that a
couple of ways, like, you know, we have this great
internship program. I think you know thirty percent of our
current employees came up through the internship program. So we
grew our own talent, Like we developed our own talent,
like David Mullagetta, who's you know now is also not
number one on Forbes. Ryan Williams, one of our Crey partners,
whould be a guest on the podcast. Justin Schulman did
(22:21):
Justin Herbert's deal. Kyle McCarthy, who's a legend both on
the coach's side and the player's side. Like we just
we raised our own developed her own. But at the
same time, twenty four years we started going out and said, hey, listen,
all the goats in the industry, you know, the Trace Armstrong's,
Todd Francs, the Joe Panos, Andrew Kessler, Sean Kern, and like,
(22:41):
why don't you come take a look at the way
we're doing things. We do things differently here where a
family we work together to collaborate, where our own company independent,
we're not a big, huge conglomerate. And they all came over,
like everyone we talked to came over, and so like
that's what we spent the last twenty four years doing.
They building this amazing family, it's an amazing team and
just doing the work and doing the work and then
kind of lift up our heads after two and a
(23:03):
half decades, you're like, whoa, all the numbers that you said,
Like that's us that you talk about us, you know,
and like not to mention like the Tailgate Tour and
our athletes first training Academy, all these shrupts of things
we've done that we'll talk about through the podcast series.
And so like, you know, I'm getting old too, you know,
fifty four years old. So after two and a half decades,
it's like, all right, you know, we surpassed our wildest dreams.
(23:24):
You know, we we've climbed the highest mountains and now
we still have more mountains to climb, which are excited
to do. But you know, maybe maybe we take time
to kind of share our story, right, and we're not
We're not certainly not doing the podcast anyone who knows us.
We're not doing the podcast to pat ourselves on the
back or to flex our muscles our success. But like
you know, Athletes First Family is everything to me, you
(23:45):
know my own family. Athletes First Family means everything to me.
I think to me when I was approached about this podcast,
I'm like, you know what, this gives us the opportunity
to exponentually expand the Athletes's First Family. We can reach people,
maybe reach this. You know, anyone listens to it, your parents,
My parents listen to it, right like, you know, we
can reach the listeners and we can. We can we
share with them like our company philosophies. You know, we
(24:07):
can go through last twenty four years. We talk about
our wins, but also talk about all losses and what
we learned from those losses. You know, we can dive
into our company philosophies and our maximums like better together
and athlete first and do the right things for the
right people for reasons. And we show how like we
create those philosophies and you stick to them and you
live them, you can achieve anything you want. So you
(24:28):
know this age right like this is way outside our
comfort zone. And when we talk to some of our
equity partners and other people who are going to come
on as guests, they're like, what, No, I don't want
to do that, right, But when we explain the why,
the purpose kind of like when I talk to you
about your purpose of delaying, Like, the purpose of this
is we want to share our story. I think this
story can help others. I think it can help people
(24:48):
who don't even want to be sports agents, right. And
I think if you look at where we are now, like,
oh wow, they've always No, we haven't always been here.
It's been hard, been really hard to get here, right,
But this is how we got here. These are this
is what led us to this success. And you know
it just the more people that we can impact, the
more people we can benefit, the more people we can
welcome to the Athletes First Family, the better off will be.
(25:09):
So it might be ten, it might be one ten,
I don't know, but that's why we're here, you know.
Very strange, I understand, but uh, you know, I think
it's I'm excited about it, and I know you are too.
But we're starting We made decision were gonna start with
the quarterback series, right, Athletes first family Quarterback series. Why
are we doing that? Why are we starting with.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
The quarterback series?
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Well, I think the main reason we're doing the quarterback
series first is because we've had all this recent success
and a history of success at the position. So, I mean,
currently four of the top seven highest paid quarterbacks in
the NFL are athletes first clients. Five of the top
eleven highest paid quarterbacks in the NFL are athletes first clients,
(25:48):
all deals that have been negotiated in the last couple
of years. You can start with with Dak Prescott as
the highest paid, Jordan love of the second highest paid,
two is the third highest paid, Herbert's number seven, and
Deshawn's number eleven. But every time those guys signs, they
were record breaking deals and it's just a matter of
who's up next that is one of our clients.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
Yeah, no, absolutely, I think the fun part of those deals, well,
I think two is probably the fifth highest, not the
third highest. But the fun part of those deals is
that those deals you were involved with every one of
the deals, right, I mean, you negotiate all of them,
but like we had different agents doing it, right, like
so like Ryan Williams did too. You know, Justin Schulman
did Justin Herbert, David Willigeta did Jordan Love with Andrew Kessler,
(26:28):
and then David willigedt also did Deshaun Watson, I mean
not Dak Todd and yourself did Dak. So we have
all these different superagents working towards the same common goal
let's have let's do a historic NFL quarterback deal. But they're
also different, right, I.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
Mean, yeah, no doubt.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
They all have different backgrounds, different you know, back upbringings,
different styles. You know what the way that one agent
wants to negotiate is, you know, completely different than the
way another agent wants to negotiate. And being able to
be involved in all of those and see those different
styles and and kind of adapt how I work based
on their style and how they want to approach teams.
(27:04):
You know, It's it's been eye opening for me, and
I think it's it's something that people are definitely gonna
want to hear about.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
I haven't myself had to negotiate with all those agents
for the employment contracts whatnot. I can tell you their deal.
Their styles are completely different, but they all work.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Yeah, as I said, speaking out of getting out of
their comfort zone. A number of them actually approached me
to see if I would negotiate their deal to appear
on the podcast. So we may be talking about that
after episode after this one has.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
No appearance fees, but no so so tell the listeners
like what can when they expect to hear? Like, what
are we going to talk about?
Speaker 3 (27:33):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (27:34):
So, I mean we're going to dive into a lot
of different questions that are constantly asked of us. You
know how the conversations go when we have a player
who should be the next highest paid quarterback? How do
we go about, you know, approaching the team. Does the
team just automatically agree yew, we should definitely make them
the highest paid or what does that process like? You know,
how did the conversations go when we have a player
(27:54):
who you know, maybe hasn't been to a Pro Bowl,
doesn't have the accolades, and we're coming to the teams
he should be the highest paid. I don't I don't
care about that type of stuff? How did the conversations
go when you know the person you're negotiating with is
not just the GM or the salary cap person of
the owner of the team. Right, those things can can
make the dynamic of the conversations much different.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Which is another good point, like that, like not only
different agents, the agents are all different, the clients are different.
Like TUA is not exactly the same with Justin Herbert
and not exactly Dye Prescott. But the teams with whom
we're negotiating are completely different. Like the Packers don't even
have an owner, right, and and then so like the
Cowboys have a pretty famous owner, right, you know who's
intimately involved with it. And so you know, we'll go
(28:35):
through all the teams and all over and again like
much respect, unbelievable respect. I mean all the general managers,
cap pologists, Mike Greenberg, we should have thrown that out there, right,
don't want to leave Greeney out. The owners like there,
I mean it's the thirty one NFL owners, right, I mean,
those those are the best of the best. So huge respect.
Is a privileged to be able to work with them,
honor be able to talk to them. But you know,
they're all different, and so we're going to get into
(28:57):
you know, how you know, what we see from who
we're dealing with the different teams as well.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Yeah, and every personality of these people we're talking to
is much different. So some of the negotiations can be
can be very friendly. Someone that you go way back
with it might be more casual. You know, we can
talk about the numbers, but sprinkling some jokes. Some of
them are gonna be very tense, and some of the
counterparts that we're negotiating with, they're they're not gonna be
very happy with us throughout the process at the end
(29:21):
of the process, But at the end of the day,
we have a mutual respect for each other that you know,
maybe maybe a few days has to go by before
we can come back and talk to them again. But uh,
it's it's a small industry and we know that, and
that's why we keep a level of respect in all
of our conversations.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
I think I think it'll also be fun to dive
into Like this is for maybe the nerds out there,
but like you know, big huge NFL contracts, not just
about signing bonus, not just about average per year apy, right,
But there's a lot of different components and you know,
got to figure out which components are important to the team,
which components are important to the players. But I think
you know, you're gonna walk us through all those nerdy
contract details.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
Right.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Yeah, I'm not gonna bore anybody, but we will definite
sprinkle in all of those different aspects of each deal
that we're going to discuss, as well as you know,
some other aspects that are other deals that will come
up in our conversations for sure. Uh, you know, for example,
like how does a player like Deshaun Watson end up
with a fully guaranteed contract when no one else has one?
Speaker 3 (30:16):
You know, that was something that it's very unique.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
It's a great conversation that you know, we can hopefully
peel back the onion and share some details with the
audience too.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Ye, No, it's gona it's gonna be a great series. Again,
what we're gonna do, We're gonna share our stories, right,
We're gonna share our experiences and and you know, we're
not saying that we do the best, we do the
right way, but we do this, we do it our way.
You know, we've had a lot of success doing it,
and it's gonna be a lot of fun. But also
on each podcast, we're gonna end each podcast with kind
of lessons learned, right and and for it could be
(30:47):
lessons learned during the last you know, half hour together
lessons learned from the last twenty four years. But it's
all done susponte top of the head, and you make
me go first, so I'll say, I'll say here, here's
my lesson lesson learned for this one. Right when we
started this company, there was a no brainer to call
athletes first. We always wanted to put the athletes first, right,
And I think that's one reason this podcast is, you know,
(31:10):
so far outside of our comfort zone because we're going
to be talking about our clients. We talk about the
great contracts they have, the great people they are, the
Walter Payton Wards and whatnot. But as you and I,
you know, it's not the athletes on the podcast. It's
us on the podcast. And it's going to be our
partners and our associates on the podcast. And that's uncomfortable,
you know. And it's not that we don't like to
be in front of the camera. We like to be
(31:30):
in back of the camera watching our players make all
the money and make all the plays. But you know,
I think it's you know, we can throughout twenty four years,
I know I have grown and our company has grown
by doing the uncomfortable, but leave our comfort zone behind.
It and growing as a person and as a company.
And I think hopefully to me this podcast series will
(31:51):
will help myself grow, come a bit better at what
I do as a CEO. Help athletes first grow, help
yourself grow, everyone else comes on the show grow, and
also maybe we can help some listeners out there understand
what we do and how we do it and why
we've had the success we've had. So you know, that's
my lesson learned right from episode one. I must hut
up with the athletes first and then be behind this mic.
But we'll have some fun and we'll get after it.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Yeah, So I my takeaway, I'm gonna just use one
of my anecdotes that that I just told you or
that you actually brought to my attention while we were
talking about it, and it's you know, this is a
small industry. A goal of our podcast here is to
make sure that we aren't burning any bridges with anyone
around the industry. So you know, we're not going to
get on here and brag about you know, this deal
is so good. We had that team over a barrel, ye,
(32:36):
which you know I can relate to because when you
you ghosted me ten years ago from my negotiation competition.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
I certainly could have held a grudge, but.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
When I got the opportunity to sit down with you
and interview essentially to be a member of the athlete's
first family, you know, I was more than happy to
I was honored to be in that situation. And so
I think that's a you know, a takeaway of mine
that I've been told year over year, and you know,
I always think about it in the small industry that
this is.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
And now that we work together, you fully believe and
understand how I mess up the schedule like. It wasn't
an intentional slight. It's just you know, you know, details
weigh me down sometimes, ajah.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
So timing, you know what your calendar looks like, you
don't know until it comes up.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Usually yes, yeah, absolutely, Well we're gonna have a lot
of fun. It's gonna be great. I can't wait to
bring our partners on. I can't wait to you know,
expand out this series. But you know, it's a great start.
I'm fired up for this. I appreciate you taking the
time to come out to Orange County to do this
with me, and you know, our first episode, next episode
is gonna just be the two of us again, but
we're gonna be talking about the beginning of athletes first,
(33:38):
and the aforementioned Drew Bloodsoe and how he helped us
start our company and how we really been working with
you know, top tier quarterbacks from the very beginning, starting
with Drew Bloodsoe, Joey Harrington, Carson Palmer. Uh. And then
after that we'll bring in our other agents and talk
about the deals that we did last couple of years.
So it's gonna be fun. Appreciate you, AJ and UH
we'll see you next time.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
Yeah, up, let's go awesome.
Hosts And Creators
Brian Murphy
AJ Stevens
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