David Meltzer on Famous Clients, Wooing College Athletes, & Making Money

Sports executive and business coach David Meltzer joins The Bag to discuss the rise of players establishing their own brand, the differences in wooing potential recruits at universities and agencies, and starting over with a new business philosophy after going bankruptSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Never, No, Never Big. Hey guys, welcome to another episode
of Sports Illustrated and I Heart Radio is The Bag

(00:21):
with Me, Lindy McCormick and my co host Sean Jennings.
The Bag sits at the intersection of sports and business,
delving into the headlines and behind the scenes of athletes, entrepreneurship,
and enterprise. Earlier today, Rashan and I spoke to a
dear friend of ours, David Beltzer. We all met on
the set of a show called Entrepreneur Elevator Pitch, and
with all of his business wisdom and experience negotiating the

(00:43):
biggest sports contracts and history as the CEO of Lee
Steinberg's agency, we knew he was the perfect guest to
talk to about the recent massive signings. We also talked
to Dave about the future of the n C Double A,
NFL contracts and his thoughts on the movie Jerry McGuire,
which is at actually based on his agency. We hope
you enjoy. How true was this film to real life? Yeah?

(01:07):
First of all, I love Jerry McGuire because it's not
even a sports film. Uh, people think I'll tell He'll
tell me. Oh my god, that's my favorite sports movie.
I'm like, first of all, it has a sports backdrop,
I mean, Rudy, maybe even closer to a sports film Hoosiers,
a sports film, you know, the Jackie Robinson story. But

(01:27):
it's a love story. That's why it's so popular. It's
a love story with the backdrop of sports. Um. But
the genre, the energy, the theme of the movie of
creating social change, of a paradigm shift in a very
scarce industry with a scarce profession of being a sports
agent is directly aligned with Lee Steinberg. He went to Berkeley,

(01:49):
he went undergrad and the law school. He's one of
the guys that debated Ronald Reagan. He wanted to change
the world by using sports as a catalyst, by using
celebrities and athletes like Rashad so that when a vander
Holyfield did a p s A, a public service announcement
about real men don't hit women, it meant something. If

(02:11):
Dave Meltzer got on a commercial and said that, people
will be like, who the Hell's that? But when a
vander Holyfield, the world champion, gets on a commercial and
sends a message to the world that this is not okay,
coming from where he has come from and what he does,
the whole world listens. So the movie is aligned with
the energy and philosophy, the paradigm shift of a scarce

(02:33):
profession to create social change, not just make a lot
of money in sports. You know what to set to
set like a parameter just for for viewers and just myself. Actually,
I'm curious to why do you Why is it that
you believe and this could be true, Um, that somebody's
more inclined to listen to a public figure athlete versus

(02:55):
a successful, wealthy businessman, Well only because of community. Um,
As you know, awareness has a lot to do with it.
If Kim Kardashian holds up a bottle of fragrance because
she has the awareness and community of people who know
who she is and trust who she is, regardless of

(03:18):
whether I warrant the trust or credibility because of my
business expertise, that this fragrance may provide the most value.
And I could easily, you know, sit in a room
with Kim Kardashian explain to Kim and everybody that's around us,
why I have a better or more suitable reason to
promote a fragrance with more credibility than her. She'll sell

(03:40):
more fragrance than I will, the same way that Evany
holy Field will sell the idea being the world champion
boxer that we shouldn't hit somebody than David Meltzer. Now,
I would say that Evander Holyfield probably has more experience
in hitting people, so he may have more credibility and
why not to hit people than I do, Because don't
think I've besides on the football field ever hit somebody,

(04:03):
especially like the Vander. But you know, I think understanding
audience and understanding the idea of influence on your community.
There's a difference between followers and ambassadors, and there's a
reason that a world champion boxer is the most famous
person on earth. At times, Mike Tyson, Muhammad Ali easily
were the most famous people on earth, most recognizable people.

(04:26):
So when they hold up something or they make a statement,
it has more impact than people far more credible than
they are. That's why someone like Donald Trump can be president. Right.
He may not be the most credible president in history
or the most qualified, but he was the most well
known person that held the community and was able to

(04:47):
deliver a message that had more impact. You named a
lot of names there for you personally who were some
of the most memorable clients you worked with. You know,
probably not the ones you think about it. I've see
there's the big three that Lee represented that everybody knows,
Troy Aikman, Steve Young, and Warren Moon obviously my business partner, uh,

(05:09):
But you know some of the other ones that are
really interesting. Ricky Williams, who also had a great impact
because I think he had made some decisions like Rashad
that were out of the scope and scale of the
norm of the NFL. But there's also a guy named
Myron Roll who is one of my favorites. Myron Roll

(05:31):
was a kid. He was the number one high school
recruit and went to Florida State, graduated in three years
from Florida State, became a Rhodes scholar, and decided to
go to Oxford to get his Rhodes scholarship over being
in the league and in the and he ended up
not being a great NFL star. He had a cup
of coffee in the NFL, played for some practice squads,

(05:53):
was drafted in the sixth round. But today he is
a brain surgeon who has graduate waited at Harvard Med School.
He will have more impact from what he learned on
the field with his academic accolades and academic capabilities than
any other athlete that I've ever represented. He will probably

(06:15):
run for president someday and be one of the greatest
presidents that will see because of not only his intellectual
and emotional capability, but all the leadership lessons that he
learned on the football field that Rashad will tell you
you can't teach in a classroom. And if I can

(06:35):
get more people like Rashad to utilize the skills, knowledge
and desire that they learned on the field to complement
the extraordinary capabilities they have off the field, they can
be more like a true leader like Myron Roll. And
of course you know we've represented Sabathia, Ramirez, e Vander
Lennox Lewis two billion of management when two billion of

(06:57):
management today maybe four clients, but way back then, two
billion of management was more clients than anybody else, had
more well known clients than anyone right along those same lines.
When you look at these massive contracts today, are you
surprised at all the guaranteed money or did you see

(07:19):
the business headed that way years ago? Oh? I absolutely
saw the business moving that way because I knew the dollar.
I was on the business side of things, so I
knew the dollars that were being made off the field.
And there sooner or later the NFL p A would
start to represent their players well enough that they could
start getting their fair share of what they were earning.

(07:42):
And so I knew without a doubt the same way
I know today that there's gonna be a pendulum swing
the other way. Lindsay, by the way, I will tell
you right now, Um the individual I p that has
been allowed and given away because of the accelerated change.
So Rashad when he finished the game, he would go onto,
you know, the press conference. He wasn't capable of saying, Hey,

(08:05):
I'm not you want to come listen to me, Come
onto my podcast in fifteen minutes, I'll give you the interview.
And then he has a whole different sponsor behind him
on the step and repeat. The team may be sponsored
by Toyota, but he has Honda behind him, and he's
making of the Honda money and he's leveraging the team,
the organization, the NFL, the community that they built. That's

(08:26):
gonna swing the other way now as well, because when
a young athlete signs those big contracts. He's gonna have
to give away his touchdown dance, He's gonna have to
give away all his personal likeness, he's gonna have to
give away all of his podcast, his books, everything's gonna
go to that team. If they're gonna pay this kind
of money, they're not gonna let the player leverage all
that they've bought and and have the rights too. So

(08:48):
I was gonna ask what that being said. Uh, NFL players, Now,
like you said, we have have leverage, have leverage to
be able to pull audiences, eyeballs, um expectations, just to
be able to talk. Right. We control our own media.
And with that, do you believe that the NFL may
try to um over time bark down on that? Oh yeah,

(09:12):
for sure. You know, we saw just the start of
it last year when people were setting the stage outside
of the stage that was provided for them and leveraging
the audience not just of the team, league and organization,
but of the networks. Right, they would absolutely raise awareness
to other platforms, personal platforms while they were being paid

(09:33):
by the other network, by the team, the league, the organization,
And we'll see more and more of that, and pretty
soon the team's leagues, organizations, companies, and networks are going
to get smart and they're gonna say, look, if we're
providing you all this money and a platform, you can't
cannibalize our audience in our platform by not participating in
this platform, or even worse, promoting everyone to come over

(09:56):
to your platform while we're paying you to be on
our platform. Right. Well, here's a situation that I'm curious
here your intake on it. Because the business side of
things when it comes to in the NFL and um players,
so they sell alcohol in the stadium, but no players

(10:17):
allowed to be sponsored by any alcohol company. Do you
see that? Rolling over to where you have the players
speak to the media, but the players are not allowed
to have their own media company. It could be negotiated
in the larger contracts with the larger audiences. Um. So

(10:40):
you know, if someone's gonna be paying a half a
billion dollars in a contract, um, they're obviously benefiting from
a bigger lion share of a network, agreement, of a sponsorship, etcetera.
So there'll be just more negotiations of the I P
the electoral property that exists within the individual. And so

(11:00):
the lawyers will have a little bit more of a
challenge to make sure they're protecting or carving out for
the athletes certain things that teams, leagues, organizations may not
think about. But on the other side, the lawyers for
the bigger entities are going to be a lot more
keen on figuring out how to monopolize or cannibalize more
of the intellectual property that exists within an individual's reach

(11:23):
today that wasn't available for guys like you, Richard, that
we could, you know, go ahead and have our own
literally Apple TV station. You can have your own network,
I mean literally reach billions of people yourself. So it's
going to be an evolution. And I will tell you
one uh, set career that's going to I think really

(11:45):
flourish is the I P lawyers in sports. Uh it's
already starting. But if I was a parent of someone
who wanted to be a lawyer, a practicing lawyer in
love sports, I would tell them to get involved in
intellectual property because you will be able, even more than
a sports agent, to be integrated and engaged in your

(12:05):
favorite sport with your favorite athletes, teams, leagues, or organizations,
which is really really the reason or passion that a
lot of people want to get into sports is so
they can just be on the field with the players,
or in the boardroom or and that's more available today
than ever for intellectual property attorneys than even agents. I've
heard you mentioned that you aren't sure that the n

(12:27):
c double A could survive all this new money and
the new changes. Do you still feel that way? I do, um,
and I think you see more of that today than ever.
Of why is because you have these power conferences that
have no value value given by the n c A.
In fact, they only are punished or limited by the

(12:49):
n c A. Now who benefits from the n c A.
Schools benefit, lower, lesser programs benefit for equity and inclusion,
all the things that the n c do that that
is right and fund with the manipulation sometimes and in
propagation of the big sports, basketball and football being the

(13:12):
two that are the biggest many makers that believe it
or not, the basketball and football. Uh, they're responsible for
nine of the sports income. So where the dollars go,
the business flows, and when we're getting these power conferences
that are only being limited by the n c A

(13:32):
in those two big sports, there's going to have to
be a new type of entity that takes into account,
and it might just be like the individual I P
we're talking about that conferences themselves now have their own rights,
their own negotiation, and even furthermore, certain schools will have
a bigger opportunity. It's really gonna hurt that and you

(13:55):
see it already in football. It really hurts the small schools.
There's more Division three, in Division two and one Double
A programs suffering because they're getting choked out of the dollars.
And then of course the lesser athletic programs are only
going to thrive at the bigger schools, at the bigger conferences,

(14:15):
and because the dollars are gonna flow there inequitably. So
the n c A a better figure out how they
can align with and work with, not against, or limit
the Power conferences, or that you'll you won't see them
in the next ten years. So essentially you're saying that
the Power Conferences, sec s, the you know um pact,

(14:36):
all of it. They have, they have the money, they
have the levers, they have the sponsors, they have the
donors to pay these high school students coming out the
smaller schools and their bank account is in his large
so it's gonna be harder for them to pay for
talent to come there, so will monopolize pretty much what
Alabama has been able to do for a while now

(14:57):
all other big schools are able to do. Well. Think
about the Think about the Live Tour in golf, right,
I mean talk about an exact example why the n
c A won't last. Look where they did an instant
to the p g A. Right, they just bought the business.
They gave two million dollars to Michelson. They bought the
top players in the world. They actually have, you know,

(15:19):
a political agenda of you know, creating a commonality with
the United States by taking their biggest golf stars, which
is the sport with the highest net wealth, the most
affluent people, and making their this connection by basically using
these guys to you know, promote maybe a political agenda

(15:40):
that's not aligned with America's agenda, especially when it comes
to equality and inclusion, which is not true right in
Saudi Arabia right now, It's just not something that's present
for whatever political or religious reasons are present. They bought that,
so if Lived Tour can buy the p g A.
The big power conferences in the big school within those

(16:01):
can definitely buy the best players the same way that
Live bought the best PGA players. Yeah. With that that,
I think I think it will create a UM, well,
it may even out the skill set playing field of
the powerhouses. Um. You know, and because there are a
lot of schools that have big money, but they follow
rules as much as they can, so they have been

(16:22):
paying players. We're gonna see some schools become the new
powerhouse because their bank account is larger. But watching some
of them teams down there in Texas and what should
they start doing because of their donors now? Um, But
on the other side, you know colleges, college, universities and universities, UM,
and a lot of high school kids play high school

(16:44):
sports with a desire to go play at the next level.
Do you think this could possibly open up more scholarships
for guys because the powerhouse players are all going to
the powerhouse teams, which now it's just a new level
of the almost like um, you know, you have you
have the NFL and then you have Arena football. Right,

(17:06):
all them playing the same game. One is getting paid
way more, uh, the other one is getting paid less.
So do you see the split of n C double
A basically powerhouse pay versus um your lower D two.
But they're still full scholarship players. Yeah, I do, And
I think we have to look at the sports too.
I think the n s A does a great job
of supporting all sports. Uh and football is the one

(17:29):
that that really is interesting because everybody can afford basketball.
I used to be friends with Smokey Gaines, who was
at the time coach at San Diego State. He was
an ex Harlem globetrotter, a Detroit guy, and I used
to joke around with him when he had Michael Cage
and Tony Gwyn on his team. They went to the
sweet sixteen and I said, Hey, I go smoking, you

(17:51):
might be the worst coach in the world. And I said,
he said, what are you talking about? David? His kids
were my friends with high school with them, Because what
are you talking about? David said, you are a well
known Detroit superstar. How can you not get five Detroit
guys to come out full scholarship to San Diego State
and play basketball? Like, how can you not? Because it's

(18:11):
only five guys, Richard, You and I know you need
to recruit a lot more than five guys on a
football team, you could probably recruit three of the best
guys in America to play basketball, and whether you're a
Division one, two or three, if you can get those
three guys, as we've seen in the n b A,
you definitely can make the Sweet sixteen, if not have
a great chance for the Final four or even to

(18:33):
win it all. So I think football is gonna be
the interesting thing because the biggest money maker. It's the
most expensive sport, though, and to utilize it in Division
one A, Double A, and two and three, it's gonna
be interesting because the power schools have no interest in
what the n c A does, but the lower schools
have a huge interest in what the n c A does.

(18:56):
And so if the n c A survives, it may
just be bifurcated or focused in on the lower schools
so that they have that system that's then funded and
then the power schools are funding themselves with their own deal.
Switching gears a little bit, You then went on to
co found sports on marketing. Can you explain what you

(19:16):
guys do? Yeah, so it's really what my dream was.
At least Steinberg I always said, because I'm a business person, right,
I said, the real money is in the Jerry McGuire,
and you know Lee would agree with me. I said,
Jerry McGuire used sports as a backdrop. You know. I
always said the way to make money is to take

(19:38):
advantage of the irrational attitudes of middle age rich people.
And sports is the number two way to take advantage
of the emotional, irrational middle age rich person. The number
one way is kids, right, Like a mom will start
herself to buy quarterback training. You know, Steve Clarkson lived
on this for years. People will pay anything to have

(20:01):
them trained, you know, to play the piano, or they'll
give everything. So kids are number one, but sports is
number two. People will pay Rashad a thousand dollars to
sign a ball. That's not rational, but it's real. And
so for me, I wanted to build a business off
the irs. So I want to build a business off

(20:24):
the irrationality of middle aged rich people. So what did
I do. I had a great relationship pool of people
like Rashade, of huge athletes, entertainers and celebrities, and I
would invite them to the coolest sporting events that I
also had relationships at Super Bowl, Pro Bowl, Master's, Kentucky Derby, Breeders,

(20:46):
Cup and then the award shows like the sps, Emmys, Oscars,
and Grammys. So I would have the LEAs Steinberg Super
Bowl party and I'd invite the biggest stars in the
world that all would want to come. And then I
would by all the rich people, the irrational rich people,
and they would pay to come to the party because

(21:06):
Rashad was there, and they'd pay Rashad to go speak
and do endorsements and signed football's. But then because of
what my main purpose or mission was, I then would
do it for charity. Right, so our profit beyond being
able to sustain a business, our profit was created in
two ways, one by giving to charity, but two, because

(21:30):
we were held out, our brand would grow Sports one marketing.
Everybody after they left the party wanted to do business
with us, and so I used this bug light approach
UH to utilize sports one marketing UM. And so it's
really funny because some people you know that caught onto
the game that we're jealous. They say things about like

(21:50):
warn and I all those guys aren't in the sports business,
and I would laugh, I'm like, no, I never said
I was a sports agent. I never said I'm in
the I'm not running teams, bro, But I don't get
jealous because I make more money from you. I always
call myself and I won the Variety Magazine Sports Humanitarian
of the Year award, and I coined this phrase. Here's

(22:12):
what I am though, I'm the world's greatest philanthro pimp.
I have pimped out more more people like Rashad in
my life to help charity than any other person I know.
So I'm a philanthrop pimp. I'm proud of it. If
you think I'm in the sports world, that's terrific. I
know a lot about sports business, but my business is
really about philanthrop pimping, philanthro pimping. I haven't, but it

(22:39):
should be what is it? What was the what's the
thing called where they have all the street terms in
it that should be in there now, right, philanthrop urban diction. Yeah,
Dave Meltzer, I'm I'm like the shaft of philanthrop pipping
the the what are what are the areas of growth

(23:02):
that we're seeing now that you couldn't have predicted years ago? Gambling?
Oh my gosh, I mean, I just come from the
genre where they just like ruined Pete Rose career, like
all the conversation. I couldn't even when I was in
a stadium talked to front like even teasing, you know, saying, hey,
you know I got money on you know I got

(23:23):
money on Urban Meyer or you know, And today it's
like promoted. I'm like with my players, going, you're on
my fantasy team, man, don't screw up. You know, I
texted Austin Deckler because my son picked them first on
our fantasy team. For for like, this was not even fathomable.
They were so anti gambling. So I mean, it was

(23:44):
literally the taboo of all taboos. You couldn't even talk
about it a bet and now that's how they're funded.
It's crazy. And like gambling, if do you foresee UM
gambling every becoming an issue UM between you know, NFL

(24:05):
player fans, UM referees like so it gambling has influenced
UM and so with gambling continuing trying to be regulated,
do you foresee a big issue at some point? I do. Uh.
First of all, you you look at the security side
of it. There's gonna be breaches, and that's going to

(24:28):
create an issue because it's going to create doubt of
who knew and who was involved, and you know, all
of a sudden the spread was wrong and somebody didn't
score a touchdown or did The other danger is just
the prop bets as as you know, um in the
old days. I'll take, for for example, the Fridge, who
played for the Chicago Bears in case you didn't know,

(24:49):
and one of the greatest football teams. And I'm not
a Bears fan, but it's probably one of the greatest
teams ever to be put on a field. There was
a prop bet that the Fridge would score a touchdown
in the Super Bowl, and you can make a lot
of money on that bet. Well, now, the information so
far out there that there's no doubt that a coach,
an offensive coordinator, a running back coach, or even the

(25:12):
player has so much access to the information and the availability,
and make that bet that even without a conspiracy, the
Fridge could be like, you know, to his sister, Hey,
I really want to touch down. I'm gonna beg to
make a touchdown. You know, bet on me put a
thousand dollars at five one that I'm gonna score a
touchdown and then the game's a blowout in the Fridge

(25:34):
is begging because he knows he has leverage on the
team because he's a fridge. He's, oh, coach, just give
me one run from the two years, give it to me,
give it to me. Well that's actually illegal, but now
it's actually able, you know, to be known that that happened.
Because there's so much awareness to what's going on, they
could track everything. So absolutely there's gonna be issues. There's

(25:56):
gonna be security breaches. It can change in a lot
of money. He's moving, um. And the reason there's gonna
be a lot of issues is it's so trackable that
more people are gonna be caught. You were talking about
schools paying Look, you and I both saw it. I've
been on airplanes and guys have had duffel bags of cash. Right,
I'm like, why are you going? Why are you going?

(26:16):
You know, I'm recruiting the guy to play in the
pros and this guy is going to talk to somebody else.
We're on the same private jet and I'm like, why
you got a bag of cash right to go to like,
you know, Norfolk, some small town. Right, they had nothing
to bring a whole bag of cash to that small
town except for the kid who's the number one recruit, right,

(26:39):
And you've seen it. The thing is it's so apparent
and aware today that the issues have always been there.
They're just gonna catch more people. Yeah, they do anything
to get some athletes. Man, I tell you you're going
somebod these school visits, um, you know, taking it, taking
a player out, um, you know, seeing the nightlife and

(27:00):
having a good time. And oh, here's a couple of
bucks on the ground. For some reason, I can't give
it to you directly, but I've seen talk about hard
to catch, right, I've seen just a little bagg and
I'm like, you're giving drugs of that kid, right? Oh no,
just I got a two carrot diamond in there. Oh
so you just gave him fifty grand. That's hard to trace.
This is old school stuff. And my favorite guy thos

(27:22):
Eric Dickerson, right because he's the only one that's come out,
and he talks about if you've ever seen it, it's
the life Eric Dickerson on the NFL network and he
talks about he took the trans am and then he
told Texas A and m uh, he said he'd give
back the car. You you went to SMU And he's like,
I ain't given him back the car. Who are you

(27:43):
gonna tell right, and he kept the trans am. He
didn't care. He's like, come on, who you can tell?
In the UT coach at the time told his mom, Hey,
if your son doesn't come to U t to Texas,
he'll never get a job in Texas. And his mom
the guy out of the house and said, I guess
I'll never work in Texas. What's the craziest thing you've seen? Personally?

(28:08):
Uh me personally to to get an athlete to come
to a university? Um, you know, I happened to um
see some stuff, So I won't I won't. I won't
say what university was that I lead the names out.
But um, there were there were lines of um of

(28:29):
of substance across the table for an athlete UM to
enjoy himself. Um. There was a plethora of females lined
up UM for them to choose from. And there was
a bag full of what only could assume some bucks

(28:49):
as some cash. And that player didn't even choose the university.
So it goes to show you you know, sometimes these
tactics work. Sometimes they but you've run a great risk
of legality. Um, that will put you in a in
a bad situation. Yeah, but I will say, oh sorry,

(29:10):
I've just much rather see the kid that used to
get paid cash actually have to work for it by
making an appearance at the car dealership or you know,
putting his face on an endorsement and legally making the
money for being an entrepreneur and being a brand. I
think that's awesome and I think it just legitimizes the
ability to pay kids. And with that, man, do you

(29:33):
see the way things are moving um talking about from
the collegiate level, from high school to college. Kids are
very impressionable. Um. Colleges are trying their hardest to bring
these athletes in. Now it puts a heavy responsibility on parenting.

(29:54):
You're a child to be able to absorb all this
information because it's so easy to lie and manipulate a
child of you. Come here, we'll give you n f
t s, we'll give you some crypto dollars and all
to a child's like, wow, that sounds great. And Willie
set you up with a TikTok page. And now it's
fortunate universities to be heavy on TikTok, have a social

(30:15):
media team because the kids just wants himself to be
seen on the internet in very cool, fast ways, we
got modeling, we got all these things are being sold
to an athlete. So as a eighteen year old, all
of it sounds good, all of it sounds amazing. How
much more of an emphasis now is it on parenting
that child through all of these tough decisions? And also,

(30:39):
if it isn't apparent there, how much how much responsibility
falls on the student guidance counselors? Great question. I think
a lot of it has to fall on the school
and the guidance counselor because remember even the parents usually
are thirty six to forty years old, and you know,
coming from someone who's hyper educated and in the actual

(31:01):
I was really financially even though I had over a
hundred million dollars, I was financially illiterate, right. I was
being taken advantage of all all the time because I
didn't have someone that you know, it was in a
situation to teach me. And the only people that can
are really at the school. Because you know, whether you
have parents or grandparents, you know this stuff is new,

(31:23):
right and and you can be manipulated. I I talk
about trusting and vetting. You know, I'm the king of
asking uncomfortable questions to protect myself and others, because most
of the time people, especially the younger they are, even
if they have an inkling that there's some manipulation or
dishonesty going on, they're afraid to ask. They're afraid to

(31:44):
make an uncomfortable question to either see or show that
they don't know what they're doing, or because they don't
want to offend the other person by questioning the veracity
or credibility of what they say. And so there needs
to be some sort of internal representation and at the
school and accountability of the school UM that is not

(32:05):
individual or backed by a company or financial planning organization,
like there could be no vested interest other than that kid.
And I don't think that parents are even capable of
doing it, because a lot of times you and I
both know too, the parents have a vested interest and
they take advantage and manipulate their own child because good people,

(32:26):
when they're desperate, do really bad things, even to their
own children. And so I think that's a real great
area to start evolving and learning about, is how do
we create internal guidance within the organization to protect their
students UM And you know, it's a very difficult thing.
It's not going to be perfect, But I agree with you.

(32:48):
I don't think parents and grandparents are even capable, let
alone the eighteen year old. There has to be some
sort of system to protect them. You mentioned a hundred million.
That's mind blowing money to me. How did you make
that from sports agency and then starting your own marketing
company or how how did you build a net worth

(33:09):
of that caliber? Well, I lost it all because the
sports agency, because I already had it when I started
working with least Iberg. And then he gave me access
to things that even billionaires couldn't afford. And I started
buying the wrong things for the wrong reasons. I bought
things to impress people and to be happy. I bought
things to impress people I didn't even like, and made

(33:30):
really bad decisions. So UM, I made my money UM
number one in technology UM, and then in real estate.
So I got out of law school. I worked for
West Publishing. We merged with Thompson Mortors for three point
four billion. I then went up to the Silicon Valley,
made some really prudent investments in technology, and became CEO

(33:50):
of Samsung's phone division. Most people don't know my sports
career only happened because Lee was a visionary and he
wanted a CEO that not only had a law degree,
not only new sports because I had been a customer
of people likely for endorsements, speaking engagements, and signings, UH
sponsorship because I was CEO of Samsung's phone division. But

(34:13):
he wanted someone that new technology, and so technology was
actually the reason that I got hired to be the
CEO of the most notable sports agency UM. I already
had massed a great amount of wealth UM, but thanks
to Lee Steinberg, in that experience, I learned the true
value of money. I also learned the true value of faith,

(34:33):
which was even a greater lesson which has allowed me
over the last sixteen years to make even more money,
help even more people, and have even more fun. My
route to sports business is very traditional marketing at Auburn
internship at ESPN. But for those coming up who are
interested in getting into sports business, what are some paths
you recommend, especially for those who don't have access to

(34:56):
traditional routes or may not want to work for a
big corporation. Sports is so big there's only there's three routes.
Develop your skills and then see how they're aligning synergistic
or supplementary to sports. Develop your knowledge of what and
who is another great way to get into sports, and
then find out how it's synergistic, supplementary or aligned with sports.

(35:19):
And then there's just desire, right If you could align
your desire, you could start anywhere traditional or non traditional.
If you have a great desire to work within sports.
It's a multi trillion dollar industry. No matter whether you're
a facility manager and engineer, a digital marketer, an announcer
and athlete, a coach, a street sweeper, there's a job

(35:42):
in sports for you. It doesn't matter, but you need
to develop skills, knowledge, and desire or one specifically and
make sure it's aligned with synergistic or supplementary sports. I
just had the chief marketing officer of Pepsi UM on
my podcast, and you know, I told him, I said,
I'm trying to teach kids that, you know, working for

(36:02):
Pepsi maybe one of the greatest sports jobs in the world,
or for Visa or for American Express, because you know,
if you know why you want to work in sports,
if you want to hang out with athletes or be
around the game or whatever it is, well you're much
better off working for PEPSI and hosting a bunch of
rich people at the Super Bowl and going to the
halftime show. Then you know, running around small little towns

(36:26):
trying to recruit some athlete that may or may not
ever make it to the super Bowl. You know. So
people just have to realize its skills, knowledge and desire.
Stop watching the movies and romanticizing what a job in
sports looks like. Really develop yourself and then align it
with sports, and you'll be extremely happy, also passionate and profitable.

(36:47):
And what about for the people who have professional experience
but want to switch careers. So I always say that
the same thing whold truth is find someone that sits
in a situation that you want to be in. So
find someone that has or is where you want to be,
and then ask them for directions to ask them for help,
and then you're able and more capable of utilizing your skills,

(37:08):
knowledge and desire in a trajectory to the fastest route.
Besides that, when you ask someone for help, you become
an investment of that person, and they're more likely to
continue to help you because your success is now tied
to their advice, and so they open up their Kimona
of all their secrets, but they also opened up their
relationship capital, the spheres of influence, so they're more likely

(37:32):
to give you that recommendation, the opening door that you
need in order to prove yourself. That's just so, man,
we know, we know you are entrepreneur at hard. You
always have something going on. What's what's what's next? What's
next for you? Where? Where can we go watch your
next David Melser move Apple TV? Man, So I'm blessed.

(37:53):
I'm developing entrepreneurial content for Apple. I've you know, three
different shows that I'm doing now on Apple, uh you
know are looking for I really want to develop this
new show called Second Chance UM And it's basically it's
taking companies that either didn't succeed because they ran out
of money or maybe they were just too early, and

(38:16):
then get them capital and advice and then make the
show about showing that journey of giving an entrepreneur a
second chance. And then of course being an entrepreneur, I'm
gonna take a cut, right, I'm gonna take an equity
position in the company with the statistical success that I
know this entrepreneur is more seasoned and the timing is

(38:38):
right and he's capitalized correctly, So I just have created
a statistical success for me to make money, help people
and have fun and create a great TV show. Thank
you so much for coming on and doing this interview
with us. We've missed you so much since our Elevator
Pitch days with everybody. You made that experience such a
joy and we just love being around you anytime you guys,

(39:01):
we gotta do it in person though this virtual stuff
is getting old to me. I want to give you
both a big hug absolutely, And where can people find
you on social media if they want to follow? Well,
I like two ways. Either email me directly David first name,
David at d Meltzer first initial, last name dot com,
or just google me. I'm blessed to be everywhere, as
they say, so if you google David Meltzer, you'll find me.

(39:24):
Love it, love it. We appreciate you being on another
another episode of the Bag. Let's go out with the Bang.
Thank you, guys, Thank you, Thank you for listening to
Sports Illustrated and I Heart Radio is the Bag. For
more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast,