February 13, 2025 • 44 mins
In this episode of the Athletes First Family Podcast, we dive into an inspiring conversation between Brian Murphy, CEO of Athletes First, and Ryan Williams, a leading NFL agent. This discussion reveals the critical role of relationships, the journey from intern to super agent, and the innovative marketing strategies that set Athletes First apart in the competitive sports agency landscape.
From Ryan’s humble beginnings at UCLA, where he washed uniforms and built relationships that paved the way for his career, to securing groundbreaking marketing deals, we explore the perseverance and strategy behind his rise to success. Hear the inside story of how the Campbell’s Soup deal for John Lynch came to life and how a last-minute decision on Clay Matthews’ draft day shirt turned into a viral branding opportunity.
With a focus on trust, creativity, and execution, this episode breaks down key concepts like the Most Favored Nations Clause and what it truly means to be a super agent. Join us as we uncover the strategies that have helped Athletes First dominate the industry and redefine athlete representation at the highest level. #nfl #sportspodcast #podcast
Learn More About Athletes First: https://athletesfirst.net
Follow Us On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/athletesfirst
Subscribe To Our YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AthletesFirstNetwork
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
John Lynch, of course, who's a good friend of yours
and I today was a safety in Tampa Bay, doing
really well, great player, but he wanted more marketing, as
every single player ever represented does, right and so you
set your set out to get him some marketing deals.
And the one deal that you got him got you
a full time offered Athletes First and the reason we're
(00:21):
here today but tell that story is unbelievable. Welcome to
our next episode of the Athletes First Family podcast quarterback series.
I'm Brian Murphy, CEO of Athletes First, joined as always
by my co host AJ Stevens, one of the top
negotiators in our industry and the VP of Athletes First
(00:43):
Client Strategy Department, AJ.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Welcome, Thanks Merph.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
On this podcast we discuss athletes for success in representing
NFL quarterbacks. We tell some of the stories that has
brought us that success and for our new listeners, Athletes
First currently represents one point four billion dollars of active
NFL contracts for quarterbacks and today we have one of
those agents that did one of the monster deals for
(01:08):
the Miami Dolphins quarterback Toua and Ryan Williams.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Welcome, Thank you, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Welcome Ryan. Ryan is one of my closest friends and
equity partner and athletes. First we began to been together
about twenty four years and today's episode, we're gonna hear
an unbelievable great story. We're gonna hear a story of
how Ryan went from being a student manager at UCLA
to his current position as one of the top agents
in the NFL and the only super agent in the
NFL who also has reached the pinnacle of client marketing
(01:39):
in terms of endorsements and that type of revenue generation.
So it's gonna be a great story. It is a
great story.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
You ready to go, I'm ready do it.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Awesome, awesome, Well, let's start at the beginning. We met
first when you were a student at UCLA student manager.
I wanted to jump into that.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Yeah, So you know, I like to tell people that
I got my start in this industry washing jockstraps, which
is actually what I did when I was a student
at UCLA. I was just looking for looking for something
more through my college experience, and there was an opening
to work in the equipment room. And I felt like
(02:18):
coming out of high school where I played football and
baseball and was involved in a lot of things. It
would be a cool experience. And so I was an
equipment manager that involved me washing clothes, putting towels in lockers,
handling the gear for all the players, being at practice,
and really just being involved with the team. And so
(02:38):
while I was there, I became close friends with our
running back to Shan Foster, who went on to have
a pretty successful NFL career. And when he signed with
Athletes First, the company had just just been started, and
I asked him to get me an internship and he did.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Sounds like the perfect preparation to be a sports agent,
know to washing all the job chaps and whatnot. But
so what year was that.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
That was two thousand and two. Yeah, So two thousand
and two, April of two, Deshaun had just gotten drafted
and I had the best, I think, the the easiest
interview known to man. I went to his draft party
and you know Murph. I saw Murph and Murph said,
(03:24):
you're you know, you're Ryan Williams. Deshaun told me that
we should consider you for an internship. I said yeah,
and he said, I hear you're a bartender. I said,
I am. He said, you're hired. So our internship process
has gotten a lot more technical since that point. But
I'm very grateful that I only had to answer one
question correctly and the answer was yes or no.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
There's more questions, but you got that one right. So
we just stopped there. So tell us a little bit
about your internship and what you did that summer.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Yeah, so we had a we had an incredible internship class. Myself,
Cameron Hawn who who is currently at Athletes First had
an unbelievable career as an agent. Sean Kiernan, who represents coaches,
GMS and some players, he was in that internship class,
and the three of us are here at Athletes First
twenty some years later. But you know, it was a
(04:14):
lot of it was you know, the time, the company
was small, as you know, there was six employees and
about twenty five clients, and we're in the middle of
a big lawsuit with SMD at the time, and so
we just did whatever we could do to sort of
stand out. And whether it was doing copies or or
(04:35):
you know, pulling contract details or running to pick up
phones because someone needed a new phone, I mean really
doing anything. And I tell people like in this industry,
although then, you know, I was young, didn't really know
any different. I tell people now, like you never stopped
being an intern when you're a sports agent, like all
(04:56):
the menial tasks that you had back then, you still do.
I tell our interns every year, you know, make sure
the refrigerator is stopped, because if you don't, then I am.
And I'm an equity partner and I shouldn't be responsible
for that, but I will. And so a lot of
that fabric of the internship program and the fabric of
(05:17):
what it really takes to be a sports agent was
built back then watching you guys do it, and you know,
just just being involved in being in the mix out
of necessity.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
And that was our first intern class. It wasn't really planned,
like Deshaun Foster said, we should hire you as an intern,
and Chris Redman, my first client back in the day
of the Ravensrom Louisville, told me that I should hire
his best friend Cameron Hanna as an intern. I don't
know where Sean came from, but like you said, you'
all three here now, and so the internship ended. I
(05:47):
don't think you got internship bonus, is what I hear.
But then what happened next? So the internship banded, you
go back to UCLA and then.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
What So the internship program ended and I actually went
to Europe to study Shakespeare for three months, return returned
back to to the UK. I did not I went
to the UK. I did not get an interurn bonus.
I'm the only intern in the history of athletes first
to not get an internship bonus. And so, uh, I
(06:13):
studied Shakespeare. I came back from that program. I had
a couple classes left to graduate, and uh, I just
decided to show up. So I just came back to
the office and you know, I'll never forget you, kind
of saying like, what are you doing here? And I
was like, I'm interning, and you know, he said, well,
we don't really need you, and I was like, yeah,
you do. You know, you need someone to get you
lunches and you know, do all the tasks that no
(06:35):
one wants to do. And so I just kind of
showed up and just never left.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Yeah. No, I remember you walking in. I'm like, what's
what's going on here? You know what I mean, We've
very happy to see you. And like the lack of
bonus wasn't because of ability. It was just we didn't
we didn't have to. We'd have to bet you guys
back then. But then I remember sitting down with you
and saying, listen right like, you're awesome. You part of
athletes First family. Like you said, we only had six
or seven employees, and we do, like need some help
(06:59):
in the marketing world. We don't. We don't have a
lot of We have no marketing associates. And you know,
you have some clients, including the starting safety for Tampa
Bay at the time, who would like to have some
more marketing. So I'll tell you what, if you work
for free and do marketing deals, I'll give you a
piece of every commission you bring in. And you must
have thought that was a good deal because you started
(07:20):
to work right away.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Yeah, I mean I I I tell people now like
I I was compelled to chase something here at Athletes
First and graduating from UCLA. I had opportunities to go
get a real job and you know, actually make money
and use my degree. But I chose instead to chase
(07:41):
this dream and to pursue sort of the vision that
you guys had and try to try to help build
you know, what you guys set out to build when
you started athletes first. And so I was living in
San Diego, sleeping on my parents' couch, driving up here
an hour each way, making no money, driving a nineteen
(08:02):
ninety five Ford Explore. My mom was a waitress, my
dad was a fisherman, so I didn't really have like
a safety net. And so but I just felt like
if I were if I were to keep going, I'd
either figure it out or I'd figure out that this
was never gonna work and I could always find a job.
And I used to tell people back then, like, if
(08:23):
I graduated from UCLA with the UCLA degree and spend
a year of my life postgraduate just just trying to
make this dream come true and it doesn't work, I'd
better be smart enough to figure out how to get
myself a job, you know. And and so that's what
I did. And I didn't really know what I was
doing from a marketing standpoint. You have to understand, back then,
(08:46):
the level of sophistication of the Internet and the resources
available to us weren't as accessible as they are now.
And so I literally was just trying to figure it out.
And I you know, you guys, and I'll never forget
and Carson Palmer signed with us that year. My job
(09:06):
that Super Bowl in San Diego was to take Carson
Palmer around and basically be his driver for Dave and
for Carson and and when you guys rewarded me with
a ticket to the game to the Super Bowl, which
I considered selling as I was walking in because two
grand sounded like a good deal at the time. And
leaving that game, I just kind of felt inspired. And
(09:29):
John Lynch won the Super Bowl with Tampa Bay Buccaneers,
and so I felt like, hey, I'll take a go
at the super Bowl winner and try and do as
many deals as I can for him. And that was
kind of what I did. I just put my head
down and tried to do marketing deals as best I could.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Real quick before I jump in because you did one
marketing deal you did in particular for John Lynch is
like a legendary story, like it's you can't even make
it up. But one thing you mentioned col Times was
that this was a dream job for you. And back
in the day sports agents weren't is prevalent. They you know,
a lot of people didn't really think it was a
career or whatnot. But like, was this your dream job
was it being a sports agent?
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Yeah. So when I was in high school, my junior
year of high school, Jerry Maguire came out and I
had a VHS tape of it, and I would watch
it every single night before i'd go to bed, whether
it was five minutes, ten minutes, thirty minutes, whatever, I
would just put it on. Start, play stop, play stop,
play stop. And so I had always been I had
(10:27):
always thought this was something that I wanted to do.
And then when I worked for the football team at UCLA,
I got to see how a lot of agents work,
but I also got to see how the players were
and I felt like as an equipment manager, I was
always someone of service. I was someone who was helping
them be great at their sport. And I was always
there whatever they needed, if they needed a ride somewhere,
(10:47):
if they needed whatever they needed. I was just I
made myself available to them. And I looked at the
sports agent profession as an extension of that. Uh. And
you know, and these guys were like my friends, they
were like my buddies. And you know the coolest part
about it was the athletes didn't treat me as less
than when I was an equipment manager. They treated me
(11:08):
as like one of the guys, and I think it's important.
I think that speaks a lot to the locker room culture,
the misconception sometimes that people have. Obviously, you're gonna have
some players that have egos or what have you. But
for the most part, you know, the locker room is
such an interesting place where so many people from so
many different walks of life are coming together for one
common goal, different socioeconomic upbringings, different races, different religions, different everything,
(11:34):
and you're all working together to achieve one goal. And so,
you know, when I left UCLA, it was like I
was going to try to hitch my wagon to a
sports agent star somewhere, and it just so happened that
through that internship, the foundation of athletes first was rooted
in the name the athletes first, which is what we
learned in the equipment room. The athletes always come first.
(11:56):
And you know, I just felt like it was sort
of like, it's either going to be this or it's
going to be nothing. It's going to be this, or
I'm gonna go to law school and just be a
lawyer and so be it.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
I think one of the great things of the avante
relationships we do with our clients, you know, the athletes,
is you know, earning their trust and showing them that
they can trust us in a world that they don't
trust a lot of people and a lot of people
just want want want from them, and our job is
to give, give, give to them. And so speaking of
Jerey Maguire like this, that was a great story fictional,
but your story you're about to tell is real and
(12:29):
it's crazy. So your interning for athletes first, maybe you
know you're doing a good job. But John Lynch, of course,
who was a good friend of yours and I today,
was a safety in Tampa Bay, doing really well, great player,
but he wanted more marketing, as every single player ever
represented does, right, And so you set your set out
to get him some marketing deals. And the one deal
(12:51):
that you got him got you a full time offered
athletes first, and the reason we're here today. But tell
that story. It is unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Yeah, So you know, I didn't really know much and
at the time, the Campbell's Chunky Soup commercials were the
most famous commercials players and their moms and so John
won the Super Bowl and I just kind of put
it in my head like, hey, he deserves that commercial.
If I'm going to take a swing, let's take a
big one. And again I mentioned the sophistication of the
(13:18):
resources wasn't what it is today. So it wasn't so
easy to just go online and find out who the
director of marketing at Campbell's Chunky Soup was or who
the ad agency was. And so you know, I had
to I had to do a lot of, frankly, like
a lot of like idiotic investigation to try to like
figure out how to get to the right person to
(13:40):
hopefully be able to pitch John and his mom in
a way that might register. And so I had made
thirty seven cold calls to various people throughout Campbell's Chunky Soup.
People in like the warehouse probably got a phone call
a message from me, and nothing was nothing was working.
And so I I then thought to myself, if I
(14:01):
can find out the ad agency that produces the spot,
maybe I can go that route. And so I learned
that you know why and are young and Rubacan had
had had the business. And so I called the receptionist
and I just said, frankly, like you know, hey, can
you put me in touch with the person that's in
charge of this commercial. And she was like, I can't
give you that information. So she hung up and I
(14:23):
hung up, and I felt like, okay, that was rude.
And so I was like, but I didn't even get
like that person's there, like they exist behind that curtain,
like I have to try to get to that person.
And so I called back and I faked in a
British accent coming off my Shakespeare studies, and I basically
said that I was I was giving I needed to
(14:43):
give creative director credit to the person that created the
spot for a for a class. And so the person
on the phone said, oh, yeah, it's Eric Klickman, and
I was like, okay, I hung up and I called
back and I in a very strong voice, I said
Eric Klickman, please, and she put me right through. And
so and now this happened over the course for probably
(15:04):
like three hours. Like I timed it differently, So I
tried to let it the dust set a little bit,
and Eric Glickman answered the phone, and you know, I'll
never forget I went into just a full send pitch,
like just I like I took out a water hose
and was trying to make him drink from it and
or a fire hose, and and he screamed at me
(15:25):
and like kind of yelled at me and was like,
how'd you get my name? How do you know me?
You can't call me, you can't talk to me, and
then he like hung up on me. And I was like, Oh,
that sucked, you know, And so I felt like I
was I was there. I was like there. And I
drove home San Diego that night, and I thought to myself,
like hed even really listened, like he didn't get I didn't.
I didn't really hammer it home, you know. And I
(15:45):
had I had always thought like, okay, let's try to
be creative. Let's figure out a different way. So I
drove home, I went to Starbucks, which was my normal routine.
I'd drive home and then I'd go to Starbucks. And
I created this Microsoft word got Awful past. It was terrible.
It was like this is before Photoshop, before Canva, before
(16:06):
all these cool tools that everybody has now. And the
title of it was more than just a safety which
is terrible in and of itself. But I put this
thing together and I I came to the office the
next day, I printed it out, I bound it, and
I FedEx overnighted it to Eric Liickman. And I didn't
tell you guys, because I was so afraid of, like
(16:26):
you guys, seeing me come close and then failing and
being like, oh, he's just a failure, Like I'd rather
you just not even know. And so I sent it.
Now I had told some of my buddies how Eric
Liickman had had, you know, read me the Riot Act
a little bit and had gotten into me. And so
a couple of weeks later, sitting in the office and
call comes in. It's like, Ryan, Eric Liickman's on the
(16:48):
phone for you. I was like, this is one of
my buddies screwing with me, And so I picked up
the phone. I'm like, what what do you want? You know?
And he's like, seriously, that's how you answer the phone.
And I was like, oh my gosh, it's actually you,
you know, And and we talked and I still had
no idea what I was doing. I didn't, you know.
I was trying to make it up as I as
I went along. I hadn't even met John Lynch at
the time, I'd never met his mom. So he's asking
(17:10):
me questions about them. I'm like, yeah, they're best friends.
Like I'm like, please, I hope they're best friends. And
you know, the call went well, it was a good call,
but again I still didn't want to declare my failure,
so I didn't say anything within the office. I just
kind of kept it to myself. And then you know,
Eric Clichman said, you know, you might be hearing from
(17:30):
Jacqueline Picoerello and Campbells Chunky Soup. And a week later
she called and we talked in same similar situation where
I was trying to negotiate this thing in a vacuum,
having never really negotiated a big deal in my life
and I'll never forget. She was like, you know, this
is the deal and we're going to do Most Favored
Nations and I was like, oh, no, we need we
need fifty thousand more or whatever it was. She's like,
(17:53):
did you not hear it's most Favored Nations and we
already have Michael Strahan and Donovan McNabb and I was like, no, no,
we need fifty thousand dollars. She's like, most favorite Nations.
I'm like, in my head, I'm like, I have no
fucking clue what most Favorite Nations is like I'm like
a okay, yeah, fifty thousand dollars more and so lo
and behold she ended up moving and then everybody got
moved up to wherever we were. And that was the start.
(18:15):
That was, That was And then I came in and
I never forget. I came into the office and I
had the contract and I was like, you know, woul
John Lynch do a Campbell's Chunky Soup deal? And you
guys were like like yeah, like kind of like snicker,
like yeah, of course you would like. And I was like, well,
here it is. And I was like, wait, is this real?
You know how this happened? And one of the crazy
(18:35):
parts of the story is there was a seasoned marketing agent.
This is this this like ghost to speak to how
terrible art industry is. There was a season marketing agent
who was trying to get hired by athletes first, or
trying to basically make his name known at athletes first.
And a few weeks after this had happened, he tried
(18:56):
to take credit for the deal, like he literally was like,
you know, told Dave, well, yeah, I got that deal
for John Lynch. I'm like, I promise you that's not
how this went down, you know, but it just it
was it was an opportunistic opportunity for him to try
to like you know, puff his chest up, and ultimately
the deal happened.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
It's crazy, and I had to put it for this
is two thousand and two, two thou and three, and
like in a time twenty years plus years ago, like
safeties weren't really you know, involved with marketing deals like
Campbell Soup wasn't like one of newm It was a big,
huge deal and they just come out with it, I
think a couple of years before, like you said. The
other people were involved were like star stars, and John
Lynch was a great player, Hall of Fame player, but
(19:37):
at the time like he was a safe to tamp
Bay just wanted the super Bowl, so that was a
little bit helpful. But this was as big as marketing
deal we had done other than like probably Carson Palmer's
you know, memorabilia or trading card deals. And and you
did it with zero, zero training, zero legal background, which
you don't need except for you fair NAS's clubs a
little bit helpful, right, and it was just as mind
blowing and and never never should have been done, right,
(20:00):
I mean, and most people would have given up after
the first call, the first yelling. When you talk to him,
the long conversation, he said, what you might hear from
someone else. Did he know you had called him earlier?
Speaker 2 (20:10):
You know, yeah, he will. He acknowledged it later. And
the funniest thing is is we we ended up doing
that same commercial ten years later with Clay Matthews and
Eric Lickman was again on set. He was he was
he was the create creative director behind it. But he
he like alluded to it like he had known. But
you have to think, like a lot of times, the
(20:31):
you have to think a lot of times, like for
for that guy in his position, like that's it's not
that big of a deal to it, right, Like he's
it's it's like his day to day, you know. So
it was massive to me and massive to you, to us,
but for him that was just his day to day,
Like that was just what it was.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Yeah, okay, great, So then we're going to get into obviously,
we would get to your unbelievable work as a as
an agent served by the agent, all the massive deals
you've negotiated. But what makes you different than every other agent?
I would say that in the history of our industry
is not only you are super agent in terms of contracts,
but you built athletes First entire marketing department. I would say,
(21:08):
no one in the industry has as munch marketing and
endorsement expertise as you do, let alone any serviyed agents,
right and so, and you kind of talked about one
unique deal you've done that never should have been done, unprecedented.
But over the next ten fifteen years, you literally built
up our marketing department to where it is today, which
is the largest in the industry. And you've done some
(21:30):
pretty creative deals. So you want to talk about a couple.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Of those, Yeah, I mean, and all of this starts with, like,
first of all, the belief of the people at athletes First,
Like they trusted me. You guys trusted me. And you know,
I often tell people that, like one of the beautiful
things of athletes First is that like you and Dave
have always empowered the youth to go be great, Like
(21:54):
it hasn't been. Hey, let me take credit for the
work that you did. It was never that. It was
you have an idea, you want to pursue it, Like, Okay,
what resources do you need? What help do you need
to go make it come to fruition. And back then,
you know, we were six employees with twenty five clients,
and there was a dream and a vision, and you know,
we were all working hard, wearing a lot of different hats.
(22:14):
And so every time I've had a creative idea, it's
been met with optimism instead of doubt. And I think
that's a very important lesson in this industry because you
can look at things very linearly, and if you look
at things very linearly, your representation of your clients is
going to be very linearly or linear. For us, it's
(22:36):
always been broad like, yeah, the line exists, the contracts
are the first and the foremost, but everything on the
periphery matters as well. And so one of the first
creative deals I ever did was I was fortunate enough
to sign Clay Matthews in two thousand and nine. And
you'll see this now. So when you watch the draft
(22:57):
these days, you'll see like players have raised canes on
the raising canes on the table, or you know, there's
all these brand activations. Well, the first one to ever
have it have it was Clay Matthews, and in two
thousand and nine he was coming into the draft, Clay
was a walk on at USC and I came up
with this idea. I was close with the founders of
(23:18):
Muscle Milk, and I came up with this idea where
Clay was gonna have the cameras on him on Day
one of the draft. We thought he was gonna be
a first round pick, and I said to Clay, like, hey,
what if I could sell your shirt? And he was like,
what do you mean? I said, what if I can
get a brand to sponsor your draft day shirt? And
he's like, I mean sounds like free money to me. Cool,
let's do it. And so we made a shirt that
(23:40):
just simply said walk on, and then underneath it it
was muscle Milk. And there was muscle milk all over
his house, you know, and his family, everyone in the
family wore them. And it's kind of like a statement
piece like, hey, I'm a first round pick, but I
was a walk on, like I didn't start here. And
it went crazy. It went viral. Obviously, he gets drafted,
first interview does on ESPN He's wearing a wall on
(24:00):
shirt with muscle Milk. Muscle Milk was so excited about it,
so grateful. Clay became a brand ambassador for THEIRS for
a number of years, and so that was kind of
like the start, and we always tried to push the
envelope with it. At a player a few years later,
Charles Harris, and he was invited to the draft and
(24:22):
he couldn't go because his mom has MS, and so
he was going to watch from home and the cameras
were going to be there, and so I called a
friend of mine, Troy Link, he owns a company called
Jaqueline Speech Turkey, and I said Troy, like, this is
the craziest idea. It's either going to be really really
awesome it's gonna be really really dumb. And he's like,
what is it. I said, well, your mascot is a Sasquatch,
(24:43):
and I have a player who can't go to the draft.
I think it'd be really really cool if we put
the actual Sasquatch behind him during the draft. And so
he gets the phone call that he's getting drafted, and
the cameras go to him on ESPN NFL network and
there's a literal Sasquad sitting behind him. Like everyone will
be like what is this? This is crazy? And Charles
(25:06):
wore a jackline speech Turkey like t shirt to like
kind of put it, put it out there, and so
sure enough it did and it went viral. The next
day on Sports Center, Darren Ravel did a whole piece
on it, you know, another two and a half minute
segment on this draft day, you know, ambushing the draft
and sort of you know, taking it to a new level,
(25:27):
and it was it was fun. The next year of
the NFL like sent out a thing saying like if
players did this, then they wouldn't cut the cameras to them,
and they kind of like tried to like shut us down.
In the twenty twenty draft with Tua, I'll never forget,
they sent out this big memo. It was the Zoom
Draft and so they sent out this big memo like
if players intend on ambushing, we're not going to cut
(25:48):
to you, what have you. And so we one of
the other people in the office was like, hey, Hulu
wants to do something on draft day, like an ambush
activatation and like, but this memo says players can't do anything,
and I was like, their parents can, and so to
his mom and dad wore a Hulu like shirt on
(26:10):
Draft Day and they got paid. And so I've always
just tried to think about things a little bit differently,
like think about, oh, this would be funny if we
could actually pull this off. And and we've pulled it off.
But again it goes back to the support, like these
are ideas that like some places would say, no, you
can't do that, like that, that's not how it should go.
And thankfully at Athletes first, it's like, no, we want
(26:30):
we want to encourage that way of thinking. And it's
and it's now that we have twenty five salespeople and
you know, they're far more creative than I ever was,
Like we're doing deals like this all the time, and
it just becomes it becomes part of the foundation of
the company. How creative can you get? Let's think about
something else that's cool. Let's think about something that's fun,
and the brands love it.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Yeah. No, and I think we have a great sales
team now, a great creative team. But it helps Athletes
first to be able to point back to those instances
where you disrupted the industry, you did something that's never
been done before, right, and and then that's that's our standard,
Like we don't want to do what other people are doing.
We want to we want to you know, disrupt everything
and be trail blazers, you know, and you also have
(27:10):
to be willing to fail, right, and we're not going
to do a podcast and all the creative ideas that
we failed on, right, but it's uh there there. We
need to be at one hundred percent. But that's okay
because as long as you put in the athletes first
and you're trying to do, you know, really push the
envelope and do great things, sometimes you can swing a miss,
but that's fine too. You mentioned TUA, and I think
it's important to move to that your experience as an
(27:31):
agent because again despite building up the top marketing industry
uh in the an agency, in the department in the industry,
and also launching this great concept which you talked about
another podcast called gold Farm along with Scotti, Uh, you've
been an agent. You've been a top top agent. So
agent I wanted to give us some of the highlights of
his his agent career.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
Yeah, So, I mean we're going to talk about obviously
Ryan getting his foot in the door from from an
internship level.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
You build up this marketing.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
Department, you do a great job of that. You're one
of the best marketing agents in the industry, and then
you must have had an itch to scratch on becoming
a certified agent.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
So what year did.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
You become an agent? Take the exam and go through that.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Yeah, so you know you hit the nail on the head.
There was an itch there prior in twenty thirteen or
twenty twelve, somewhere around there, the NFLPA changed the regulations
where you had to be certified individually in order to
represent players. Previous to that, it was sort of like
an umbrella. So I could work as an agent underneath
Da've done certification and so I became an official agent
(28:35):
in twenty thirteen. But previous to the rule change, we'd
all sort of been working as agents in the under
Dave's umbrella. Got it?
Speaker 3 (28:43):
So under Dave's umbrellas, when you have your first first
round pick. Yeah, two thousand and eight, you have your
first first round pick, Keith Rivers. He goes ninth overall.
You follow that up a few years later and you
get your first record breaking contract that you negotiate. So
twenty thirteen, which you say is your first year that
you were a certified agent operating on your own, you
have Clay Matthews negotiate the largest linebacker contract in NFL history.
(29:09):
He also became the highest paid defensive player in Packer's history,
obviously a legendary organization there. Twenty sixteen. A couple of
years later, you again reset a market with Josh Norman.
I'm sure there's a good story behind that one, as
he was let walk from the Carolina Panthers, goes to
Washington signs the biggest deal for a cornerback in NFL history.
(29:31):
To me, the biggest part about that deal is that
he was the highest paid cornerback from twenty sixteen all
the way until twenty nineteen. That's something that you just
don't see very often anymore because it's always just the
next player up is going to reset that market. So
the fact that you were able to forecast that market
and really set the standard for multiple years, I think
was a huge accomplishment. And then two years later you
(29:54):
get another Matthews. Jake Matthews is up for a deal
as the Falcons left tackle and he gets the largest
extension for a left tackle in NFL history at the time.
So another another big deal. So it's not like the
two a deal was Ryan's first float into breaking records,
but we get to twenty twenty four and you do
have your your best year on record so far. Do
(30:17):
you have the Brandon Ayuke deal, the Tua deal, and
a couple of other deals. You have a first round pick,
and you have four hundred and fifty million dollars in
negotiating contracts all done in twenty twenty four. Brandon Ayuk negotiation,
we could probably make a whole podcast about that one
with the twists and turns and everything that that took
(30:37):
throughout the offseason this year. And really the reason we're
here is to talk about the Tua deal and you know,
the biggest contract that you've ever negotiated.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
It was the biggest four year.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
Contract in NFL history when it was done, So hats
hats off to you on that huge accomplishment.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Lots of success over the years and a lot and
you just talked about the record break deals. Obviously there's
other types of deals that are just as historical and
monumental for the player themselves. Right, But the next episode
we're going to jump into the whole tour relationship and negotiation.
But real quick on this offseason, you know, like you said,
we don't want to go through the whole Brandon Ayuk
(31:16):
negotiation is somewhat complicated, but just touch upon Like two
of the deals you did this offseason were Brandon Ayuk,
which you negotiated the team negotiate ed by you with
John Lynch, you know, the same John Lynch who was
in your wedding and who got the Campel soup deal right.
And then also you negotiate a deal to make Deshaun
Foster the head coach of Uchile, which is just crazy
(31:37):
to me. So this year, how old are you right for?
Forty four years old? Kind of like a full cycle,
right with Deshaun coming back to Sean and John.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
The Deshaun contract was done in the stadium of the
Super Bowl that John Lynch's team was playing. Literally, I
was sitting in the seat that's creotiating Toshawn's contract to
kind of have this full circle.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Did How did that make you feel? Like, coming back
full circle with like, as you just said, with John Lynch,
uh in Ayuk and then Deshaun's own deal, Like I
had to be just surreal.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Yeah, I mean it's you know, it's this industry. UH
has has a tendency to bring a lot of tears yea.
You know there's there's players that get injured and lose
their their careers and you cry over it. There's draft
day phone calls that change people's lives in the entire
you know, room erupts in tears. I will say, like
(32:32):
when DeShawn called me. I was at the Super Bowl
the night before the Super Bowl, uh Saturday night, and
he called like four times. And I just recently helped
him become the running back coach of the Raiders. So
he left UCLA one with the Raiders, and I said
to the Raiders, I said, look, the only thing that
I just need to like say, is there's a chance
he gets to the UCLA head coaching job. And the
Raiders were awesome. They were like, we're never gonna block
(32:54):
him from that. If he has that opportunity by all means,
like like he can, we want him to take that.
And so the night before the Super Bowl, I get
a series of phone calls from DeShawn and I was
inside our athlete's first house like we have a you know,
the big party, and I text him, I say, are
you good? Because normally if a player calls twice in
a row, then it's it's like it's an emergency. And
(33:16):
so he's like, we need to talk, and so I
step outside. I'm like, what's up and he's like, UCLA
once make me the head coach. It's like, I need
you to negotiate the deal. And I don't do coaches.
I don't I don't represent coaches. And so I was like, Deshaun, like,
we have a whole coaching department, and he said, Ryan, no,
he said I need it. I need you to do it,
Like I just you can, you know, lean on one
of the lawyers in your office. And thankfully our general
(33:38):
counsel had worked on Chip Kelly's deal previous, so you know,
he had some information, but he didn't want anyone to
know and he didn't want anyone involved. And he's like,
they're going to call you tomorrow at six am to
start negotiating.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
Just a little background, like Athletes First has an entire
coaching department, front office department run by legendary Trace Armstrong,
and I've done hundreds and hundreds of deals, but this
was one that had to keep very confidential in the
inner circle.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
It was very quiet the way UCLA like kind of
handled their process, and so and Deshaun felt that that
Trace might represent someone else who was in the running
and so and again he didn't really know who TRACE's
clients were. He just figured coaching agent, I want my
own guy.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
And so.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
Literally I started at six am on Super Bowl Sunday.
I rode to the stadium with John Lynch's family and
the forty nine Ers family members, negotiating the contract in
the back of the bus. John Lynch's brother actually went
to UCLA and so it was very very hard to
like keep the secret from him. Then we went to
(34:46):
the tailgate party, which is what everyone goes to prior
to Super Bowl. Then I was literally pacing back and
forth on the phone there, and then I went into
the stadium and I was in the stadium literally negotiating
at my seat. And you know, in any of these negotiations,
there always comes there there. You know, the common misconception
is that the talent, whether it's a coach or a player,
(35:09):
is just sitting there like calm, like ready for like
whatever is going to happen is going to happen, and
it's okay, these are life changing moments. Any of these
contracts that Aj mentioned, it's literally changes like lives. And
so you're not dealing with necessarily an unemotional object, Like
(35:30):
you're dealing with a human who, on one hand, life
is about to change based on how you handle their business.
You handle it poorly, then their life maybe not change,
doesn't change. If you handle it well, then their life
changes even better. Right, And so you can imagine starting
at six am, getting through Super Bowl. It was about
(35:50):
five minutes. It's funny. One of the guys in our
office who was sitting next to me, the usher halftime
show was going on, and he took a video of
the halftime show and then he panned the camera to
me looking at Deshaun's contract on my phone, you know.
And and so there was about five minutes left in
the third quarter, and finally I said to UCLA, like
(36:11):
we had a very principled stance of where what we
wanted to accomplish, and Deshaun was freaking out. I just
finally said to UCLA, like, you need to get here
or else we're going to transfer every player in the
transfer portal tomorrow, you know. And and they did, and
they took care of him, and you know, Deshaun was elated.
And we left the stadium. When I left the stadium,
(36:32):
we had a phone call where it was just like,
this is the coolest thing that's ever happened, you know,
and again, not the biggest deal. It's not a record
breaking contract, but it's a life changing contract for a
dear friend who got me my start in this industry.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
Yep, you went from washing his jock shop to getting
him his dream dream job. Yes, quite a transition.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
So, like I said, in the next episode, we're going
to go through the whole to store, which is amazing.
But I think one reason that we wanted to do
this pot the Athlete's First Family podcast is we want
to share some of the lessons that we've learned the
last twenty five years. A lot of people want to
become sports agents, want to get in our industry. Maybe
they are our industry and that's trying to get to
a new level. But I think it's a good way
to kind of close the podcast just by talking about
(37:15):
what we learned from from your story. And you know,
I can I can go first that like, listen to
your story and I lived it with you. But it's
just fascinating here again from your perspective, and what I
learned is just it's all about the relationships. You know,
we have a sing in athletes First that if you
do the right things for the right people, for the
right reasons, everything's going to work out all right, you know,
And obviously that's been challenged a couple of times, but
(37:37):
you know, listening to your story, like you know, you
were not in a power position as a student manager
or as an intern, but you did everything you could
to put the athletes first, the clients first, and take
care of Deshaun, take care of John Lynch. And that's
but for those relationships, we're not here today. And I
don't mean just you, but athletes First is nowhere close
to where we are today. If you had to come
(37:57):
along based on those relationships, well, I think the lesson
I take away from today is like, no matter where
you are, no matter what position you have, like, you
got to treat people the right way. You gotta service them,
you gotta be there for them, you gotta earn their trust.
And if you just do the right things for right
people the right reasons, like you're gonna be fine and
people gonna take care of you in ways that you
don't expect. And so it's not you don't treat people
(38:19):
that way, so you get something back. You treat people
that way because that's a way to treat them, and
then you know, karma, the universe, whatever it is, gonna
provide for you. So and you know, shoot, our relationship
means the world to me, to my family. You know,
listen to your story and kind of reliving it with
you is like very emotionally. You talk about happy tears,
sad tears. But I'm so grateful for you and everything
you've done for athletes first and my family, and I'm
(38:42):
very grateful for our relationships. So thank you for that
and for today. And that's my lesson. Did you learn anything?
Speaker 3 (38:48):
Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna take his take away a
step further and say, you know that the relationship was
it was great, It was the foundation. It's what cracked
the door open for you to get into the industry
by by the sound of it, but really what kept
you in the industry and what made you a star
in the industry is that when when the door was
cracked open, you made sure that Murph was unable to
close it and literally unable to lock you out as
(39:11):
an unpaid intern. You you know, you went above and
beyond with fake accents and whatever it took to to
land a Campbell soup deal for for a client that
you know, you weren't necessarily working for him. You were
working to try and get yourself a job. And everything
that you did, with the hard work and sacrifices and
not getting your year end bonus, uh, was what led
(39:33):
to you becoming and being able to grow in this
industry and become the star that you are in the industry.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
So that's what I would say.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
My takeaway was internship bonus. It wasn't your end bonus.
An internship and internship, which we don't know if it.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
I never got one of those of my life either. Yeah, no,
it didn't happen. Well, I mean I appreciate that. And
you know, I think this industry is very unique. It's
there's nothing like it. And we balanced this, We teeter
on this, this relationship with all of our clients between friend, therapist,
financial consultant, lawyer, you know. I mean, it's we wear
(40:07):
a lot of hats with each individual client.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
And so.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
You know, the biggest thing that I think that I
can say about you know, being here at athletes First
is that we live the mantra. I mean, we we do.
We we always put the athletes first. And there have
been times on our journey everyone looks at us now
where the largest football agency on the planet, and we've
done over one point five billion dollars worth of deals
(40:31):
this year and you know this, that and the other.
But we didn't always start that way. And I tell people, like,
you know, you watch a player get drafted on draft
day and they get drafted in the first round, and
again the misconception is they just woke up that morning
and a team called their name and there was no
work that went into it. They don't see, you know,
the early morning hours and the blood and the sweat
(40:52):
and the tears and the you know, the pain and
the all the things that they go through in order
to earn that moment. And the same is true about
athletes first. Like right now, like, yes, we've reached unparalleled
levels of success. We have so much to offer our
clients that other people fathom or can't even fathom. And
I say, we're the agency that you know, the conglomerates
(41:14):
want to buy and the small agencies want to be.
But it didn't happen overnight, and it came through being
principled to the belief that if you put the athletes first,
everything's going to be okay. And I mean there was
times I just mentioned this to Drew Bledsoe the other day,
like when I wasn't making much money and I did
one hundred thousand dollars Pepsi deal for him, and he
just said no because he just didn't like Pepsi or whatever.
(41:37):
Like he was just like, Noah, I'm good. And to
me like that commission would have meant so much. But
I never even thought twice about it, because it was
he was the client and he was the athlete, and
he comes first, and whatever his reason is is good
enough for me. And so there are times where we
have to try to advise our clients as best as possible,
but they're the captains of their ship. And we've built
(41:58):
this business by truly putting the athletes first. And you know,
I think that it's it's the reason why our employees
don't leave. It's the reason why we are so loyal
to each other. We're loyal to the clients that we represent.
And ten years after, you know, John Lynch, you know,
played in the NFL, we're still great friends. You know,
(42:19):
Clay Matthews hasn't played in five years. And I can
tell you the two of us kids were sick last
week because we talked and we're friends, you know, and
so it means something, you know, and if you don't
get them the results, then that none of that other
stuff really matters. And we've been fortunate that we've been
able to do that as well.
Speaker 1 (42:36):
I'd say rip Max, but yeah, No, I think the
other part of the message and the other reason I
want to do this podcast with everybody's to send message
that like, hey, like you said your your your dad
was a fisherman, your mom was a waitress.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
You know.
Speaker 1 (42:47):
I grew up in Boston, no contact. I couldn't play sports.
I had no contact with sports or whatnot.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
But you don't.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
You don't need anything to become a sports agent. You
just needed, like you said, value the relationships. Once you
get through the door, crush it and then you know,
stick to your philosophies and you'll be okay. Like any
people can get to where we are, you just have
to put the work in, you know, and you.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
Can't be afraid to ask for help. I mean, that's
the other part of it that I think is again
makes us different, is that all of our agents, we're
all friends, and we all know one has an ego
like it's it's funny, like, you know, Dave Mulligetta, who
I'm sure will be on this podcast, who's the best
agent in the game. If I called him and said,
you know, I need you to be at a meeting
with me tomorrow, he'd be like, all right, I got you,
(43:28):
you know, And any one of them, anyone in our office,
would like it's it's we all, we all row the
boat together and we're just so far ahead of our
competition because of it.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
Better Together, that's another philosophy. Was supposed to introduce that
on this podcast, but better together philosophy. So Ryan, thank
you for your time. We're gonna come back to the
next episode and do the whole Tool story, which is
even more amazing. This story and uh, you know, tour
in his whole family just great parts of the athletes
first family. So thank you for being here. We look
forward to the next episode and hearing more.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
Of your story. Appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
Thank you, Jay, thank you
John Lynch, of course, who's a good friend of yours
and I today was a safety in Tampa Bay, doing
really well, great player, but he wanted more marketing, as
every single player ever represented does, right and so you
set your set out to get him some marketing deals.
And the one deal that you got him got you
a full time offered Athletes First and the reason we're
(00:21):
here today but tell that story is unbelievable. Welcome to
our next episode of the Athletes First Family podcast quarterback series.
I'm Brian Murphy, CEO of Athletes First, joined as always
by my co host AJ Stevens, one of the top
negotiators in our industry and the VP of Athletes First
(00:43):
Client Strategy Department, AJ.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Welcome, Thanks Merph.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
On this podcast we discuss athletes for success in representing
NFL quarterbacks. We tell some of the stories that has
brought us that success and for our new listeners, Athletes
First currently represents one point four billion dollars of active
NFL contracts for quarterbacks and today we have one of
those agents that did one of the monster deals for
(01:08):
the Miami Dolphins quarterback Toua and Ryan Williams.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Welcome, Thank you, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Welcome Ryan. Ryan is one of my closest friends and
equity partner and athletes. First we began to been together
about twenty four years and today's episode, we're gonna hear
an unbelievable great story. We're gonna hear a story of
how Ryan went from being a student manager at UCLA
to his current position as one of the top agents
in the NFL and the only super agent in the
NFL who also has reached the pinnacle of client marketing
(01:39):
in terms of endorsements and that type of revenue generation.
So it's gonna be a great story. It is a
great story.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
You ready to go, I'm ready do it.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Awesome, awesome, Well, let's start at the beginning. We met
first when you were a student at UCLA student manager.
I wanted to jump into that.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Yeah, So you know, I like to tell people that
I got my start in this industry washing jockstraps, which
is actually what I did when I was a student
at UCLA. I was just looking for looking for something
more through my college experience, and there was an opening
to work in the equipment room. And I felt like
(02:18):
coming out of high school where I played football and
baseball and was involved in a lot of things. It
would be a cool experience. And so I was an
equipment manager that involved me washing clothes, putting towels in lockers,
handling the gear for all the players, being at practice,
and really just being involved with the team. And so
(02:38):
while I was there, I became close friends with our
running back to Shan Foster, who went on to have
a pretty successful NFL career. And when he signed with
Athletes First, the company had just just been started, and
I asked him to get me an internship and he did.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Sounds like the perfect preparation to be a sports agent,
know to washing all the job chaps and whatnot. But
so what year was that.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
That was two thousand and two. Yeah, So two thousand
and two, April of two, Deshaun had just gotten drafted
and I had the best, I think, the the easiest
interview known to man. I went to his draft party
and you know Murph. I saw Murph and Murph said,
(03:24):
you're you know, you're Ryan Williams. Deshaun told me that
we should consider you for an internship. I said yeah,
and he said, I hear you're a bartender. I said,
I am. He said, you're hired. So our internship process
has gotten a lot more technical since that point. But
I'm very grateful that I only had to answer one
question correctly and the answer was yes or no.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
There's more questions, but you got that one right. So
we just stopped there. So tell us a little bit
about your internship and what you did that summer.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Yeah, so we had a we had an incredible internship class. Myself,
Cameron Hawn who who is currently at Athletes First had
an unbelievable career as an agent. Sean Kiernan, who represents coaches,
GMS and some players, he was in that internship class,
and the three of us are here at Athletes First
twenty some years later. But you know, it was a
(04:14):
lot of it was you know, the time, the company
was small, as you know, there was six employees and
about twenty five clients, and we're in the middle of
a big lawsuit with SMD at the time, and so
we just did whatever we could do to sort of
stand out. And whether it was doing copies or or
(04:35):
you know, pulling contract details or running to pick up
phones because someone needed a new phone, I mean really
doing anything. And I tell people like in this industry,
although then, you know, I was young, didn't really know
any different. I tell people now, like you never stopped
being an intern when you're a sports agent, like all
(04:56):
the menial tasks that you had back then, you still do.
I tell our interns every year, you know, make sure
the refrigerator is stopped, because if you don't, then I am.
And I'm an equity partner and I shouldn't be responsible
for that, but I will. And so a lot of
that fabric of the internship program and the fabric of
(05:17):
what it really takes to be a sports agent was
built back then watching you guys do it, and you know,
just just being involved in being in the mix out
of necessity.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
And that was our first intern class. It wasn't really planned,
like Deshaun Foster said, we should hire you as an intern,
and Chris Redman, my first client back in the day
of the Ravensrom Louisville, told me that I should hire
his best friend Cameron Hanna as an intern. I don't
know where Sean came from, but like you said, you'
all three here now, and so the internship ended. I
(05:47):
don't think you got internship bonus, is what I hear.
But then what happened next? So the internship banded, you
go back to UCLA and then.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
What So the internship program ended and I actually went
to Europe to study Shakespeare for three months, return returned
back to to the UK. I did not I went
to the UK. I did not get an interurn bonus.
I'm the only intern in the history of athletes first
to not get an internship bonus. And so, uh, I
(06:13):
studied Shakespeare. I came back from that program. I had
a couple classes left to graduate, and uh, I just
decided to show up. So I just came back to
the office and you know, I'll never forget you, kind
of saying like, what are you doing here? And I
was like, I'm interning, and you know, he said, well,
we don't really need you, and I was like, yeah,
you do. You know, you need someone to get you
lunches and you know, do all the tasks that no
(06:35):
one wants to do. And so I just kind of
showed up and just never left.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Yeah. No, I remember you walking in. I'm like, what's
what's going on here? You know what I mean, We've
very happy to see you. And like the lack of
bonus wasn't because of ability. It was just we didn't
we didn't have to. We'd have to bet you guys
back then. But then I remember sitting down with you
and saying, listen right like, you're awesome. You part of
athletes First family. Like you said, we only had six
or seven employees, and we do, like need some help
(06:59):
in the marketing world. We don't. We don't have a
lot of We have no marketing associates. And you know,
you have some clients, including the starting safety for Tampa
Bay at the time, who would like to have some
more marketing. So I'll tell you what, if you work
for free and do marketing deals, I'll give you a
piece of every commission you bring in. And you must
have thought that was a good deal because you started
(07:20):
to work right away.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Yeah, I mean I I I tell people now like
I I was compelled to chase something here at Athletes
First and graduating from UCLA. I had opportunities to go
get a real job and you know, actually make money
and use my degree. But I chose instead to chase
(07:41):
this dream and to pursue sort of the vision that
you guys had and try to try to help build
you know, what you guys set out to build when
you started athletes first. And so I was living in
San Diego, sleeping on my parents' couch, driving up here
an hour each way, making no money, driving a nineteen
(08:02):
ninety five Ford Explore. My mom was a waitress, my
dad was a fisherman, so I didn't really have like
a safety net. And so but I just felt like
if I were if I were to keep going, I'd
either figure it out or I'd figure out that this
was never gonna work and I could always find a job.
And I used to tell people back then, like, if
(08:23):
I graduated from UCLA with the UCLA degree and spend
a year of my life postgraduate just just trying to
make this dream come true and it doesn't work, I'd
better be smart enough to figure out how to get
myself a job, you know. And and so that's what
I did. And I didn't really know what I was
doing from a marketing standpoint. You have to understand, back then,
(08:46):
the level of sophistication of the Internet and the resources
available to us weren't as accessible as they are now.
And so I literally was just trying to figure it out.
And I you know, you guys, and I'll never forget
and Carson Palmer signed with us that year. My job
(09:06):
that Super Bowl in San Diego was to take Carson
Palmer around and basically be his driver for Dave and
for Carson and and when you guys rewarded me with
a ticket to the game to the Super Bowl, which
I considered selling as I was walking in because two
grand sounded like a good deal at the time. And
leaving that game, I just kind of felt inspired. And
(09:29):
John Lynch won the Super Bowl with Tampa Bay Buccaneers,
and so I felt like, hey, I'll take a go
at the super Bowl winner and try and do as
many deals as I can for him. And that was
kind of what I did. I just put my head
down and tried to do marketing deals as best I could.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Real quick before I jump in because you did one
marketing deal you did in particular for John Lynch is
like a legendary story, like it's you can't even make
it up. But one thing you mentioned col Times was
that this was a dream job for you. And back
in the day sports agents weren't is prevalent. They you know,
a lot of people didn't really think it was a
career or whatnot. But like, was this your dream job
was it being a sports agent?
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Yeah. So when I was in high school, my junior
year of high school, Jerry Maguire came out and I
had a VHS tape of it, and I would watch
it every single night before i'd go to bed, whether
it was five minutes, ten minutes, thirty minutes, whatever, I
would just put it on. Start, play stop, play stop,
play stop. And so I had always been I had
(10:27):
always thought this was something that I wanted to do.
And then when I worked for the football team at UCLA,
I got to see how a lot of agents work,
but I also got to see how the players were
and I felt like as an equipment manager, I was
always someone of service. I was someone who was helping
them be great at their sport. And I was always
there whatever they needed, if they needed a ride somewhere,
(10:47):
if they needed whatever they needed. I was just I
made myself available to them. And I looked at the
sports agent profession as an extension of that. Uh. And
you know, and these guys were like my friends, they
were like my buddies. And you know the coolest part
about it was the athletes didn't treat me as less
than when I was an equipment manager. They treated me
(11:08):
as like one of the guys, and I think it's important.
I think that speaks a lot to the locker room culture,
the misconception sometimes that people have. Obviously, you're gonna have
some players that have egos or what have you. But
for the most part, you know, the locker room is
such an interesting place where so many people from so
many different walks of life are coming together for one
common goal, different socioeconomic upbringings, different races, different religions, different everything,
(11:34):
and you're all working together to achieve one goal. And so,
you know, when I left UCLA, it was like I
was going to try to hitch my wagon to a
sports agent star somewhere, and it just so happened that
through that internship, the foundation of athletes first was rooted
in the name the athletes first, which is what we
learned in the equipment room. The athletes always come first.
(11:56):
And you know, I just felt like it was sort
of like, it's either going to be this or it's
going to be nothing. It's going to be this, or
I'm gonna go to law school and just be a
lawyer and so be it.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
I think one of the great things of the avante
relationships we do with our clients, you know, the athletes,
is you know, earning their trust and showing them that
they can trust us in a world that they don't
trust a lot of people and a lot of people
just want want want from them, and our job is
to give, give, give to them. And so speaking of
Jerey Maguire like this, that was a great story fictional,
but your story you're about to tell is real and
(12:29):
it's crazy. So your interning for athletes first, maybe you
know you're doing a good job. But John Lynch, of course,
who was a good friend of yours and I today,
was a safety in Tampa Bay, doing really well, great player,
but he wanted more marketing, as every single player ever
represented does, right, And so you set your set out
to get him some marketing deals. And the one deal
(12:51):
that you got him got you a full time offered
athletes first, and the reason we're here today. But tell
that story. It is unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Yeah, So you know, I didn't really know much and
at the time, the Campbell's Chunky Soup commercials were the
most famous commercials players and their moms and so John
won the Super Bowl and I just kind of put
it in my head like, hey, he deserves that commercial.
If I'm going to take a swing, let's take a
big one. And again I mentioned the sophistication of the
(13:18):
resources wasn't what it is today. So it wasn't so
easy to just go online and find out who the
director of marketing at Campbell's Chunky Soup was or who
the ad agency was. And so you know, I had
to I had to do a lot of, frankly, like
a lot of like idiotic investigation to try to like
figure out how to get to the right person to
(13:40):
hopefully be able to pitch John and his mom in
a way that might register. And so I had made
thirty seven cold calls to various people throughout Campbell's Chunky Soup.
People in like the warehouse probably got a phone call
a message from me, and nothing was nothing was working.
And so I I then thought to myself, if I
(14:01):
can find out the ad agency that produces the spot,
maybe I can go that route. And so I learned
that you know why and are young and Rubacan had
had had the business. And so I called the receptionist
and I just said, frankly, like you know, hey, can
you put me in touch with the person that's in
charge of this commercial. And she was like, I can't
give you that information. So she hung up and I
(14:23):
hung up, and I felt like, okay, that was rude.
And so I was like, but I didn't even get
like that person's there, like they exist behind that curtain,
like I have to try to get to that person.
And so I called back and I faked in a
British accent coming off my Shakespeare studies, and I basically
said that I was I was giving I needed to
(14:43):
give creative director credit to the person that created the
spot for a for a class. And so the person
on the phone said, oh, yeah, it's Eric Klickman, and
I was like, okay, I hung up and I called
back and I in a very strong voice, I said
Eric Klickman, please, and she put me right through. And
so and now this happened over the course for probably
(15:04):
like three hours. Like I timed it differently, So I
tried to let it the dust set a little bit,
and Eric Glickman answered the phone, and you know, I'll
never forget I went into just a full send pitch,
like just I like I took out a water hose
and was trying to make him drink from it and
or a fire hose, and and he screamed at me
(15:25):
and like kind of yelled at me and was like,
how'd you get my name? How do you know me?
You can't call me, you can't talk to me, and
then he like hung up on me. And I was like, Oh,
that sucked, you know, And so I felt like I
was I was there. I was like there. And I
drove home San Diego that night, and I thought to myself,
like hed even really listened, like he didn't get I didn't.
I didn't really hammer it home, you know. And I
(15:45):
had I had always thought like, okay, let's try to
be creative. Let's figure out a different way. So I
drove home, I went to Starbucks, which was my normal routine.
I'd drive home and then I'd go to Starbucks. And
I created this Microsoft word got Awful past. It was terrible.
It was like this is before Photoshop, before Canva, before
(16:06):
all these cool tools that everybody has now. And the
title of it was more than just a safety which
is terrible in and of itself. But I put this
thing together and I I came to the office the
next day, I printed it out, I bound it, and
I FedEx overnighted it to Eric Liickman. And I didn't
tell you guys, because I was so afraid of, like
(16:26):
you guys, seeing me come close and then failing and
being like, oh, he's just a failure, Like I'd rather
you just not even know. And so I sent it.
Now I had told some of my buddies how Eric
Liickman had had, you know, read me the Riot Act
a little bit and had gotten into me. And so
a couple of weeks later, sitting in the office and
call comes in. It's like, Ryan, Eric Liickman's on the
(16:48):
phone for you. I was like, this is one of
my buddies screwing with me, And so I picked up
the phone. I'm like, what what do you want? You know?
And he's like, seriously, that's how you answer the phone.
And I was like, oh my gosh, it's actually you,
you know, And and we talked and I still had
no idea what I was doing. I didn't, you know.
I was trying to make it up as I as
I went along. I hadn't even met John Lynch at
the time, I'd never met his mom. So he's asking
(17:10):
me questions about them. I'm like, yeah, they're best friends.
Like I'm like, please, I hope they're best friends. And
you know, the call went well, it was a good call,
but again I still didn't want to declare my failure,
so I didn't say anything within the office. I just
kind of kept it to myself. And then you know,
Eric Clichman said, you know, you might be hearing from
(17:30):
Jacqueline Picoerello and Campbells Chunky Soup. And a week later
she called and we talked in same similar situation where
I was trying to negotiate this thing in a vacuum,
having never really negotiated a big deal in my life
and I'll never forget. She was like, you know, this
is the deal and we're going to do Most Favored
Nations and I was like, oh, no, we need we
need fifty thousand more or whatever it was. She's like,
(17:53):
did you not hear it's most Favored Nations and we
already have Michael Strahan and Donovan McNabb and I was like, no, no,
we need fifty thousand dollars. She's like, most favorite Nations.
I'm like, in my head, I'm like, I have no
fucking clue what most Favorite Nations is like I'm like
a okay, yeah, fifty thousand dollars more and so lo
and behold she ended up moving and then everybody got
moved up to wherever we were. And that was the start.
(18:15):
That was, That was And then I came in and
I never forget. I came into the office and I
had the contract and I was like, you know, woul
John Lynch do a Campbell's Chunky Soup deal? And you
guys were like like yeah, like kind of like snicker,
like yeah, of course you would like. And I was like, well,
here it is. And I was like, wait, is this real?
You know how this happened? And one of the crazy
(18:35):
parts of the story is there was a seasoned marketing agent.
This is this this like ghost to speak to how
terrible art industry is. There was a season marketing agent
who was trying to get hired by athletes first, or
trying to basically make his name known at athletes first.
And a few weeks after this had happened, he tried
(18:56):
to take credit for the deal, like he literally was like,
you know, told Dave, well, yeah, I got that deal
for John Lynch. I'm like, I promise you that's not
how this went down, you know, but it just it
was it was an opportunistic opportunity for him to try
to like you know, puff his chest up, and ultimately
the deal happened.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
It's crazy, and I had to put it for this
is two thousand and two, two thou and three, and
like in a time twenty years plus years ago, like
safeties weren't really you know, involved with marketing deals like
Campbell Soup wasn't like one of newm It was a big,
huge deal and they just come out with it, I
think a couple of years before, like you said. The
other people were involved were like star stars, and John
Lynch was a great player, Hall of Fame player, but
(19:37):
at the time like he was a safe to tamp
Bay just wanted the super Bowl, so that was a
little bit helpful. But this was as big as marketing
deal we had done other than like probably Carson Palmer's
you know, memorabilia or trading card deals. And and you
did it with zero, zero training, zero legal background, which
you don't need except for you fair NAS's clubs a
little bit helpful, right, and it was just as mind
blowing and and never never should have been done, right,
(20:00):
I mean, and most people would have given up after
the first call, the first yelling. When you talk to him,
the long conversation, he said, what you might hear from
someone else. Did he know you had called him earlier?
Speaker 2 (20:10):
You know, yeah, he will. He acknowledged it later. And
the funniest thing is is we we ended up doing
that same commercial ten years later with Clay Matthews and
Eric Lickman was again on set. He was he was
he was the create creative director behind it. But he
he like alluded to it like he had known. But
you have to think, like a lot of times, the
(20:31):
you have to think a lot of times, like for
for that guy in his position, like that's it's not
that big of a deal to it, right, Like he's
it's it's like his day to day, you know. So
it was massive to me and massive to you, to us,
but for him that was just his day to day,
Like that was just what it was.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Yeah, okay, great, So then we're going to get into obviously,
we would get to your unbelievable work as a as
an agent served by the agent, all the massive deals
you've negotiated. But what makes you different than every other agent?
I would say that in the history of our industry
is not only you are super agent in terms of contracts,
but you built athletes First entire marketing department. I would say,
(21:08):
no one in the industry has as munch marketing and
endorsement expertise as you do, let alone any serviyed agents,
right and so, and you kind of talked about one
unique deal you've done that never should have been done, unprecedented.
But over the next ten fifteen years, you literally built
up our marketing department to where it is today, which
is the largest in the industry. And you've done some
(21:30):
pretty creative deals. So you want to talk about a couple.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Of those, Yeah, I mean, and all of this starts with, like,
first of all, the belief of the people at athletes First,
Like they trusted me. You guys trusted me. And you know,
I often tell people that, like one of the beautiful
things of athletes First is that like you and Dave
have always empowered the youth to go be great, Like
(21:54):
it hasn't been. Hey, let me take credit for the
work that you did. It was never that. It was
you have an idea, you want to pursue it, Like, Okay,
what resources do you need? What help do you need
to go make it come to fruition. And back then,
you know, we were six employees with twenty five clients,
and there was a dream and a vision, and you know,
we were all working hard, wearing a lot of different hats.
(22:14):
And so every time I've had a creative idea, it's
been met with optimism instead of doubt. And I think
that's a very important lesson in this industry because you
can look at things very linearly, and if you look
at things very linearly, your representation of your clients is
going to be very linearly or linear. For us, it's
(22:36):
always been broad like, yeah, the line exists, the contracts
are the first and the foremost, but everything on the
periphery matters as well. And so one of the first
creative deals I ever did was I was fortunate enough
to sign Clay Matthews in two thousand and nine. And
you'll see this now. So when you watch the draft
(22:57):
these days, you'll see like players have raised canes on
the raising canes on the table, or you know, there's
all these brand activations. Well, the first one to ever
have it have it was Clay Matthews, and in two
thousand and nine he was coming into the draft, Clay
was a walk on at USC and I came up
with this idea. I was close with the founders of
(23:18):
Muscle Milk, and I came up with this idea where
Clay was gonna have the cameras on him on Day
one of the draft. We thought he was gonna be
a first round pick, and I said to Clay, like, hey,
what if I could sell your shirt? And he was like,
what do you mean? I said, what if I can
get a brand to sponsor your draft day shirt? And
he's like, I mean sounds like free money to me. Cool,
let's do it. And so we made a shirt that
(23:40):
just simply said walk on, and then underneath it it
was muscle Milk. And there was muscle milk all over
his house, you know, and his family, everyone in the
family wore them. And it's kind of like a statement
piece like, hey, I'm a first round pick, but I
was a walk on, like I didn't start here. And
it went crazy. It went viral. Obviously, he gets drafted,
first interview does on ESPN He's wearing a wall on
(24:00):
shirt with muscle Milk. Muscle Milk was so excited about it,
so grateful. Clay became a brand ambassador for THEIRS for
a number of years, and so that was kind of
like the start, and we always tried to push the
envelope with it. At a player a few years later,
Charles Harris, and he was invited to the draft and
(24:22):
he couldn't go because his mom has MS, and so
he was going to watch from home and the cameras
were going to be there, and so I called a
friend of mine, Troy Link, he owns a company called
Jaqueline Speech Turkey, and I said Troy, like, this is
the craziest idea. It's either going to be really really
awesome it's gonna be really really dumb. And he's like,
what is it. I said, well, your mascot is a Sasquatch,
(24:43):
and I have a player who can't go to the draft.
I think it'd be really really cool if we put
the actual Sasquatch behind him during the draft. And so
he gets the phone call that he's getting drafted, and
the cameras go to him on ESPN NFL network and
there's a literal Sasquad sitting behind him. Like everyone will
be like what is this? This is crazy? And Charles
(25:06):
wore a jackline speech Turkey like t shirt to like
kind of put it, put it out there, and so
sure enough it did and it went viral. The next
day on Sports Center, Darren Ravel did a whole piece
on it, you know, another two and a half minute
segment on this draft day, you know, ambushing the draft
and sort of you know, taking it to a new level,
(25:27):
and it was it was fun. The next year of
the NFL like sent out a thing saying like if
players did this, then they wouldn't cut the cameras to them,
and they kind of like tried to like shut us down.
In the twenty twenty draft with Tua, I'll never forget,
they sent out this big memo. It was the Zoom
Draft and so they sent out this big memo like
if players intend on ambushing, we're not going to cut
(25:48):
to you, what have you. And so we one of
the other people in the office was like, hey, Hulu
wants to do something on draft day, like an ambush
activatation and like, but this memo says players can't do anything,
and I was like, their parents can, and so to
his mom and dad wore a Hulu like shirt on
(26:10):
Draft Day and they got paid. And so I've always
just tried to think about things a little bit differently,
like think about, oh, this would be funny if we
could actually pull this off. And and we've pulled it off.
But again it goes back to the support, like these
are ideas that like some places would say, no, you
can't do that, like that, that's not how it should go.
And thankfully at Athletes first, it's like, no, we want
(26:30):
we want to encourage that way of thinking. And it's
and it's now that we have twenty five salespeople and
you know, they're far more creative than I ever was,
Like we're doing deals like this all the time, and
it just becomes it becomes part of the foundation of
the company. How creative can you get? Let's think about
something else that's cool. Let's think about something that's fun,
and the brands love it.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Yeah. No, and I think we have a great sales
team now, a great creative team. But it helps Athletes
first to be able to point back to those instances
where you disrupted the industry, you did something that's never
been done before, right, and and then that's that's our standard,
Like we don't want to do what other people are doing.
We want to we want to you know, disrupt everything
and be trail blazers, you know, and you also have
(27:10):
to be willing to fail, right, and we're not going
to do a podcast and all the creative ideas that
we failed on, right, but it's uh there there. We
need to be at one hundred percent. But that's okay
because as long as you put in the athletes first
and you're trying to do, you know, really push the
envelope and do great things, sometimes you can swing a miss,
but that's fine too. You mentioned TUA, and I think
it's important to move to that your experience as an
(27:31):
agent because again despite building up the top marketing industry
uh in the an agency, in the department in the industry,
and also launching this great concept which you talked about
another podcast called gold Farm along with Scotti, Uh, you've
been an agent. You've been a top top agent. So
agent I wanted to give us some of the highlights of
his his agent career.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
Yeah, So, I mean we're going to talk about obviously
Ryan getting his foot in the door from from an
internship level.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
You build up this marketing.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
Department, you do a great job of that. You're one
of the best marketing agents in the industry, and then
you must have had an itch to scratch on becoming
a certified agent.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
So what year did.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
You become an agent? Take the exam and go through that.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Yeah, so you know you hit the nail on the head.
There was an itch there prior in twenty thirteen or
twenty twelve, somewhere around there, the NFLPA changed the regulations
where you had to be certified individually in order to
represent players. Previous to that, it was sort of like
an umbrella. So I could work as an agent underneath
Da've done certification and so I became an official agent
(28:35):
in twenty thirteen. But previous to the rule change, we'd
all sort of been working as agents in the under
Dave's umbrella. Got it?
Speaker 3 (28:43):
So under Dave's umbrellas, when you have your first first
round pick. Yeah, two thousand and eight, you have your
first first round pick, Keith Rivers. He goes ninth overall.
You follow that up a few years later and you
get your first record breaking contract that you negotiate. So
twenty thirteen, which you say is your first year that
you were a certified agent operating on your own, you
have Clay Matthews negotiate the largest linebacker contract in NFL history.
(29:09):
He also became the highest paid defensive player in Packer's history,
obviously a legendary organization there. Twenty sixteen. A couple of
years later, you again reset a market with Josh Norman.
I'm sure there's a good story behind that one, as
he was let walk from the Carolina Panthers, goes to
Washington signs the biggest deal for a cornerback in NFL history.
(29:31):
To me, the biggest part about that deal is that
he was the highest paid cornerback from twenty sixteen all
the way until twenty nineteen. That's something that you just
don't see very often anymore because it's always just the
next player up is going to reset that market. So
the fact that you were able to forecast that market
and really set the standard for multiple years, I think
was a huge accomplishment. And then two years later you
(29:54):
get another Matthews. Jake Matthews is up for a deal
as the Falcons left tackle and he gets the largest
extension for a left tackle in NFL history at the time.
So another another big deal. So it's not like the
two a deal was Ryan's first float into breaking records,
but we get to twenty twenty four and you do
have your your best year on record so far. Do
(30:17):
you have the Brandon Ayuke deal, the Tua deal, and
a couple of other deals. You have a first round pick,
and you have four hundred and fifty million dollars in
negotiating contracts all done in twenty twenty four. Brandon Ayuk negotiation,
we could probably make a whole podcast about that one
with the twists and turns and everything that that took
(30:37):
throughout the offseason this year. And really the reason we're
here is to talk about the Tua deal and you know,
the biggest contract that you've ever negotiated.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
It was the biggest four year.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
Contract in NFL history when it was done, So hats
hats off to you on that huge accomplishment.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Lots of success over the years and a lot and
you just talked about the record break deals. Obviously there's
other types of deals that are just as historical and
monumental for the player themselves. Right, But the next episode
we're going to jump into the whole tour relationship and negotiation.
But real quick on this offseason, you know, like you said,
we don't want to go through the whole Brandon Ayuk
(31:16):
negotiation is somewhat complicated, but just touch upon Like two
of the deals you did this offseason were Brandon Ayuk,
which you negotiated the team negotiate ed by you with
John Lynch, you know, the same John Lynch who was
in your wedding and who got the Campel soup deal right.
And then also you negotiate a deal to make Deshaun
Foster the head coach of Uchile, which is just crazy
(31:37):
to me. So this year, how old are you right for?
Forty four years old? Kind of like a full cycle,
right with Deshaun coming back to Sean and John.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
The Deshaun contract was done in the stadium of the
Super Bowl that John Lynch's team was playing. Literally, I
was sitting in the seat that's creotiating Toshawn's contract to
kind of have this full circle.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Did How did that make you feel? Like, coming back
full circle with like, as you just said, with John Lynch,
uh in Ayuk and then Deshaun's own deal, Like I
had to be just surreal.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Yeah, I mean it's you know, it's this industry. UH
has has a tendency to bring a lot of tears yea.
You know there's there's players that get injured and lose
their their careers and you cry over it. There's draft
day phone calls that change people's lives in the entire
you know, room erupts in tears. I will say, like
(32:32):
when DeShawn called me. I was at the Super Bowl
the night before the Super Bowl, uh Saturday night, and
he called like four times. And I just recently helped
him become the running back coach of the Raiders. So
he left UCLA one with the Raiders, and I said
to the Raiders, I said, look, the only thing that
I just need to like say, is there's a chance
he gets to the UCLA head coaching job. And the
Raiders were awesome. They were like, we're never gonna block
(32:54):
him from that. If he has that opportunity by all means,
like like he can, we want him to take that.
And so the night before the Super Bowl, I get
a series of phone calls from DeShawn and I was
inside our athlete's first house like we have a you know,
the big party, and I text him, I say, are
you good? Because normally if a player calls twice in
a row, then it's it's like it's an emergency. And
(33:16):
so he's like, we need to talk, and so I
step outside. I'm like, what's up and he's like, UCLA
once make me the head coach. It's like, I need
you to negotiate the deal. And I don't do coaches.
I don't I don't represent coaches. And so I was like, Deshaun, like,
we have a whole coaching department, and he said, Ryan, no,
he said I need it. I need you to do it,
Like I just you can, you know, lean on one
of the lawyers in your office. And thankfully our general
(33:38):
counsel had worked on Chip Kelly's deal previous, so you know,
he had some information, but he didn't want anyone to
know and he didn't want anyone involved. And he's like,
they're going to call you tomorrow at six am to
start negotiating.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
Just a little background, like Athletes First has an entire
coaching department, front office department run by legendary Trace Armstrong,
and I've done hundreds and hundreds of deals, but this
was one that had to keep very confidential in the
inner circle.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
It was very quiet the way UCLA like kind of
handled their process, and so and Deshaun felt that that
Trace might represent someone else who was in the running
and so and again he didn't really know who TRACE's
clients were. He just figured coaching agent, I want my
own guy.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
And so.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
Literally I started at six am on Super Bowl Sunday.
I rode to the stadium with John Lynch's family and
the forty nine Ers family members, negotiating the contract in
the back of the bus. John Lynch's brother actually went
to UCLA and so it was very very hard to
like keep the secret from him. Then we went to
(34:46):
the tailgate party, which is what everyone goes to prior
to Super Bowl. Then I was literally pacing back and
forth on the phone there, and then I went into
the stadium and I was in the stadium literally negotiating
at my seat. And you know, in any of these negotiations,
there always comes there there. You know, the common misconception
is that the talent, whether it's a coach or a player,
(35:09):
is just sitting there like calm, like ready for like
whatever is going to happen is going to happen, and
it's okay, these are life changing moments. Any of these
contracts that Aj mentioned, it's literally changes like lives. And
so you're not dealing with necessarily an unemotional object, Like
(35:30):
you're dealing with a human who, on one hand, life
is about to change based on how you handle their business.
You handle it poorly, then their life maybe not change,
doesn't change. If you handle it well, then their life
changes even better. Right, And so you can imagine starting
at six am, getting through Super Bowl. It was about
(35:50):
five minutes. It's funny. One of the guys in our
office who was sitting next to me, the usher halftime
show was going on, and he took a video of
the halftime show and then he panned the camera to
me looking at Deshaun's contract on my phone, you know.
And and so there was about five minutes left in
the third quarter, and finally I said to UCLA, like
(36:11):
we had a very principled stance of where what we
wanted to accomplish, and Deshaun was freaking out. I just
finally said to UCLA, like, you need to get here
or else we're going to transfer every player in the
transfer portal tomorrow, you know. And and they did, and
they took care of him, and you know, Deshaun was elated.
And we left the stadium. When I left the stadium,
(36:32):
we had a phone call where it was just like,
this is the coolest thing that's ever happened, you know,
and again, not the biggest deal. It's not a record
breaking contract, but it's a life changing contract for a
dear friend who got me my start in this industry.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
Yep, you went from washing his jock shop to getting
him his dream dream job. Yes, quite a transition.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
So, like I said, in the next episode, we're going
to go through the whole to store, which is amazing.
But I think one reason that we wanted to do
this pot the Athlete's First Family podcast is we want
to share some of the lessons that we've learned the
last twenty five years. A lot of people want to
become sports agents, want to get in our industry. Maybe
they are our industry and that's trying to get to
a new level. But I think it's a good way
to kind of close the podcast just by talking about
(37:15):
what we learned from from your story. And you know,
I can I can go first that like, listen to
your story and I lived it with you. But it's
just fascinating here again from your perspective, and what I
learned is just it's all about the relationships. You know,
we have a sing in athletes First that if you
do the right things for the right people, for the
right reasons, everything's going to work out all right, you know,
And obviously that's been challenged a couple of times, but
(37:37):
you know, listening to your story, like you know, you
were not in a power position as a student manager
or as an intern, but you did everything you could
to put the athletes first, the clients first, and take
care of Deshaun, take care of John Lynch. And that's
but for those relationships, we're not here today. And I
don't mean just you, but athletes First is nowhere close
to where we are today. If you had to come
(37:57):
along based on those relationships, well, I think the lesson
I take away from today is like, no matter where
you are, no matter what position you have, like, you
got to treat people the right way. You gotta service them,
you gotta be there for them, you gotta earn their trust.
And if you just do the right things for right
people the right reasons, like you're gonna be fine and
people gonna take care of you in ways that you
don't expect. And so it's not you don't treat people
(38:19):
that way, so you get something back. You treat people
that way because that's a way to treat them, and
then you know, karma, the universe, whatever it is, gonna
provide for you. So and you know, shoot, our relationship
means the world to me, to my family. You know,
listen to your story and kind of reliving it with
you is like very emotionally. You talk about happy tears,
sad tears. But I'm so grateful for you and everything
you've done for athletes first and my family, and I'm
(38:42):
very grateful for our relationships. So thank you for that
and for today. And that's my lesson. Did you learn anything?
Speaker 3 (38:48):
Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna take his take away a
step further and say, you know that the relationship was
it was great, It was the foundation. It's what cracked
the door open for you to get into the industry
by by the sound of it, but really what kept
you in the industry and what made you a star
in the industry is that when when the door was
cracked open, you made sure that Murph was unable to
close it and literally unable to lock you out as
(39:11):
an unpaid intern. You you know, you went above and
beyond with fake accents and whatever it took to to
land a Campbell soup deal for for a client that
you know, you weren't necessarily working for him. You were
working to try and get yourself a job. And everything
that you did, with the hard work and sacrifices and
not getting your year end bonus, uh, was what led
(39:33):
to you becoming and being able to grow in this
industry and become the star that you are in the industry.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
So that's what I would say.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
My takeaway was internship bonus. It wasn't your end bonus.
An internship and internship, which we don't know if it.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
I never got one of those of my life either. Yeah, no,
it didn't happen. Well, I mean I appreciate that. And
you know, I think this industry is very unique. It's
there's nothing like it. And we balanced this, We teeter
on this, this relationship with all of our clients between friend, therapist,
financial consultant, lawyer, you know. I mean, it's we wear
(40:07):
a lot of hats with each individual client.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
And so.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
You know, the biggest thing that I think that I
can say about you know, being here at athletes First
is that we live the mantra. I mean, we we do.
We we always put the athletes first. And there have
been times on our journey everyone looks at us now
where the largest football agency on the planet, and we've
done over one point five billion dollars worth of deals
(40:31):
this year and you know this, that and the other.
But we didn't always start that way. And I tell people, like,
you know, you watch a player get drafted on draft
day and they get drafted in the first round, and
again the misconception is they just woke up that morning
and a team called their name and there was no
work that went into it. They don't see, you know,
the early morning hours and the blood and the sweat
(40:52):
and the tears and the you know, the pain and
the all the things that they go through in order
to earn that moment. And the same is true about
athletes first. Like right now, like, yes, we've reached unparalleled
levels of success. We have so much to offer our
clients that other people fathom or can't even fathom. And
I say, we're the agency that you know, the conglomerates
(41:14):
want to buy and the small agencies want to be.
But it didn't happen overnight, and it came through being
principled to the belief that if you put the athletes first,
everything's going to be okay. And I mean there was
times I just mentioned this to Drew Bledsoe the other day,
like when I wasn't making much money and I did
one hundred thousand dollars Pepsi deal for him, and he
just said no because he just didn't like Pepsi or whatever.
(41:37):
Like he was just like, Noah, I'm good. And to
me like that commission would have meant so much. But
I never even thought twice about it, because it was
he was the client and he was the athlete, and
he comes first, and whatever his reason is is good
enough for me. And so there are times where we
have to try to advise our clients as best as possible,
but they're the captains of their ship. And we've built
(41:58):
this business by truly putting the athletes first. And you know,
I think that it's it's the reason why our employees
don't leave. It's the reason why we are so loyal
to each other. We're loyal to the clients that we represent.
And ten years after, you know, John Lynch, you know,
played in the NFL, we're still great friends. You know,
(42:19):
Clay Matthews hasn't played in five years. And I can
tell you the two of us kids were sick last
week because we talked and we're friends, you know, and
so it means something, you know, and if you don't
get them the results, then that none of that other
stuff really matters. And we've been fortunate that we've been
able to do that as well.
Speaker 1 (42:36):
I'd say rip Max, but yeah, No, I think the
other part of the message and the other reason I
want to do this podcast with everybody's to send message
that like, hey, like you said your your your dad
was a fisherman, your mom was a waitress.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
You know.
Speaker 1 (42:47):
I grew up in Boston, no contact. I couldn't play sports.
I had no contact with sports or whatnot.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
But you don't.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
You don't need anything to become a sports agent. You
just needed, like you said, value the relationships. Once you
get through the door, crush it and then you know,
stick to your philosophies and you'll be okay. Like any
people can get to where we are, you just have
to put the work in, you know, and you.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
Can't be afraid to ask for help. I mean, that's
the other part of it that I think is again
makes us different, is that all of our agents, we're
all friends, and we all know one has an ego
like it's it's funny, like, you know, Dave Mulligetta, who
I'm sure will be on this podcast, who's the best
agent in the game. If I called him and said,
you know, I need you to be at a meeting
with me tomorrow, he'd be like, all right, I got you,
(43:28):
you know, And any one of them, anyone in our office,
would like it's it's we all, we all row the
boat together and we're just so far ahead of our
competition because of it.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
Better Together, that's another philosophy. Was supposed to introduce that
on this podcast, but better together philosophy. So Ryan, thank
you for your time. We're gonna come back to the
next episode and do the whole Tool story, which is
even more amazing. This story and uh, you know, tour
in his whole family just great parts of the athletes
first family. So thank you for being here. We look
forward to the next episode and hearing more.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
Of your story. Appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
Thank you, Jay, thank you
Hosts And Creators
Brian Murphy
AJ Stevens
Popular Podcasts
Cold Case Files: Miami
Joyce Sapp, 76; Bryan Herrera, 16; and Laurance Webb, 32—three Miami residents whose lives were stolen in brutal, unsolved homicides. Cold Case Files: Miami follows award‑winning radio host and City of Miami Police reserve officer Enrique Santos as he partners with the department’s Cold Case Homicide Unit, determined family members, and the advocates who spend their lives fighting for justice for the victims who can no longer fight for themselves.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.