Or at least, we’ll tell you whatever they’re about to tell us, and it appears more than likely that it’ll have something to do with phones, contact lists, and a mysterious connection to Firefox, iPhone, Google Chrome OS, and two of the most rock and roll developers in the world: Joe Hewitt and Matthew Papakipos. We’ll be at a special Mobile Event at Facebook HQ on November 3rd and we’ll be able to tell you all about it. Until then, speculation below!
Informed speculation time! That’s almost the best kind, right? Let’s take a quick walk back to mid September, where our pals at TechCrunch were tipped by an anonymous source that Facebook was building a phone. This was the same sort of situation that went down less than a year ago when the world received secret news that Google was building a phone. I think you know how that turned out.
It is sais that Joe Hewitt and Matthew Papakipos, both of them high level employees at Facebook, are said to be secretly working on this project, and that because of their fabulous super powers in mobile OS, they’re going to rock it really hard. Both of them have a whoa-is-who list of accomplishments that’d make them powerhouse additions to any developer team for a phone.
Papakipos was leading the Google Chrome OS project for a while until he quit that project in June 2010. He quit and joined the Facebook team instead. Hewitt, on the other hand, helped create the Firefox browser and worked on “web-based operating system” Parakey before it was acquired by Facebook in 2007. Hewitt is also responsible for designing all of Facebook’s iPhone web apps and native apps, but quit that particular job late 2009.
So boom, baby. How realistic is this? Very. The other thing is that this doesn’t necessarily have to be a phone. It could be a giant addition to Facebook in the form of an app that works everywhere, including your desktop, working as a big fat list of your friends with whom you can now not only message and post on walls for free, you can now call. Face to face, Facebook. That’s my informed guess for the day.
One more addition from the streets is that there’s a man named Li Ka-Shing possibly in on this equation. This man is a very big investor who very recently was said to be putting money in a pot with some other folks going toward a phone project with INQ and Spotify. Li Ka-Shing is also a bigtime investor in Facebook. Is a phone developed between INQ and Facebook in the works? Spot gets the square.
Again let me remind you to be around here on SlashGear all day November 3rd. We’ll be at the Facebook Mobile meeting at Facebook headquarters, and you can bet we’ll be relaying the info they give to us quick as a bunny!
[Via TechCrunch]
A league source, speaking on the condition of anonymity, spoke on the record about the difference between good agents and bad agents. The difference, he said, is that all agents can negotiate a contract. Most times, it is the easiest part of their job.
The hardest part of an agent's job?
Saying no.
Some agents can't do it. If the expected high draft pick wants a Maserati now, how do you say no when another super agent will say yes. You'll lose the client, the exposure and the commission.
The source says, "The 'good agent' is someone that cares about the success of the player on and off the field. A lot of players have agents who are enablers, which can only hurt the player. Some agents are afraid of standing up to their client."
But Zuckerman knows that the on-the-field stuff is what matters most: "Kurt Warner isn't on 'Dancing With The Stars' because he's a good dancer, but because he's a Super Bowl MVP."
"If you're not picked and you're not in the NFL, you're not going to be in anyone's rap video."
In his estimation, too many young players are swayed by talk of off-the-field glitz and glamor. He's more than willing to help his clients after their football career is over, but it is that football career that opens up the opportunities to Hollywood, coaching or business.
Oversight Needed, But By Whom?
Zuckerman understands the fact that the business has some dirt gathering in the corners that needs to be cleaned up and not just swept under another rug. He says it is in the best interest of agents that the business of sports agency is cleaned up.
As a top company, Priority Sports would be that much more successful if the playing field were leveled with rules governing the conduct of sports agents and a better enforcement of those rules.
But who is going to do that enforcing?
Already, individual states have laws governing the conduct of sports agents—especially as it pertains to contact with amateur athletes.
Don't think that the states have pure intentions, either. A state like Texas, California or Florida indirectly profits off the success of the colleges within their borders.
NCAA schools (and coaches) profit directly off the players on their campus. So, while they want players to stay out of the NFL, it isn't exactly with pure motives (see the Cam Newton allegations).
Zuckerman believes that the sports agency world eventually needs to govern itself. The NFLPA, in his estimation, does a great job looking out for NFL players, but college players aren't in the NFL yet, and might never be.
The NFL and NFLPA, naturally, don't care if so-and-so is a high draft pick, because if he isn't, someone else will be.
First, he wonders if a solution might be found with the Securities and Exchange Commission (known by everyone but Southern football fans as the SEC). The SEC manages financial transactions of all kinds and has rules and regulations about all types of big business.
Sports marketing, if you haven't noticed, has become a multimillion-dollar operation.
What's more, the SEC would have power to investigate, subpoena and punish in ways that the NFL, NFLPA and the NCAA simply can't.
In the Meantime, Things Aren't As Bad As They Seem
When Sports Illustrated came out with the Josh Luchs story, it made the sports marketing world (especially as it pertains to the NFL and the NFL draft) seem like the wild wild west.
Reality isn't as exciting.
First, the climate has changed substantially since Luchs started paying amateur players because he couldn't do his job any other way.
When Luchs began, a person didn't even need a college degree to become an agent. Knowing a player or having an "in" was enough to get an agent certified and doing business. Now, an agent needs a post-graduate degree—at least a master's—before even thinking about certification.
Now, since that rule took effect, many older agents were grandfathered in without advanced degrees; plus, it isn't as if an MBA or a JD is proof someone is doing things the right way. But it at least weeds out guys like Luchs who learned business in a back room rather than a classroom.
The NFLPA has, right now, the most stringent requirements in the sporting world for agents dealing with their players.
A union source agrees with Zuckerman that the problem with the NFLPA policing agents is often because of a lack of resources and manpower, rather than indifference to the problem.
That source also points out that rumors are constantly flying in the sports world. Lesser agents and firms often lose out to bigger and better agents and want to believe it was because of unethical behavior and not just their own shortcomings.
In this country, in that business, you can't prosecute on rumor alone.
"We've been very proactive in disciplining agents when we have all the information. We've never been hesitant with discipline. it's very difficult to get the information that will hold up in front of the arbitrator."
Even when the info is there, it isn't a quick process. It is due process.The agent has the right to appeal and suspensions can't be enforced during the appeals process.
Sometimes an agent is handed to you on a silver platter. If proof is offered in the form of receipts, call logs, transcripts, taped conversations, bank reports, etc., it is easy to suspend an agent.
Sometimes an agent hands himself over. It was a no-brainer to punish Luchs after the SI story. It wasn't revenge for making someone look bad, as some have postulated. It was an agent telling the public he violated the rules, an admission of guilt.
The union source also pointed to a program run by the NFLPA called "Pipeline to the Pros." The initiative sends union reps to college campuses (when invited) to discuss ways a player can protect himself—not only from agents, but also from every other hand looking to slime its way into the wallets of eventual superstars.
Most importantly, "Pipeline to the Pros" tries to convince college athletes to stay and get their degrees. While college coaches have a pretty clear bias when they tell their underclassmen to stick around, the NFLPA is an unbiased observer making the case that the average NFL player plays fewer than three years, meaning that a degree is more important than most top college football players realize.
Sometimes the Good Guys Don't Finish Last
Priority Sports didn't get to be where they are with handouts, free cars and bending the rules every chance they got.
Priority Sports is at the top of the agent food chain because quality clients and quality agents are a great match. Priority is a quality agency on a mission to find and represent quality clients.
Zuckerman points to his partner Rick Smith and their agency's work in places like Tonga, Samoa and Hawaii.
"We fell in 'like' with the quality of person, the family values, the work ethic, the integrity..."
When you do right by people in a close-knit community, the family remembers and does right by you.
Tyson Alualu was a top pick this year as a defensive lineman out of Cal. He was drafted higher than projected, in part because of the training he did preparing for workouts at Priority's training facilities—among the best in the business.
While Tyson was playing for Saint Louis High School in Honolulu, Hawaii, Priority Sports was making Saint Louis alumnus Olin Kreutz one of the highest-paid linemen in football.
In the same way, Priority doesn't need to give handouts to the families in Samoa (who could probably use them more than some of the rich American kids who are taking them) or build an elaborate training center in Tonga. Because Priority operates with integrity, clients come running every year.
Priority client Issac Sopoaga is a defensive lineman for the San Francisco 49ers, and goes back to Samoa every year to talk about the academic and athletic opportunities on the mainland. No one tells him to name-drop or suggest an agency, but Samoan kids who look up to Sopoaga will know where to turn once they need representation.
Even in the world of high-priced sports agents, effort and integrity can be rewarded just as much as a cutthroat lack of ethics.
Michael Schottey is the managing editor of the College Writing Internship at Bleacher Report and an NFL Featured Columnist. Michael has covered the NFL professionally in a number of media markets in print, radio and online media. He is a member of the Pro Football Writers of America.
eric seiger
A bad <b>news</b> week for AGW proponents | Watts Up With That?
This is the latest bad news for the company touted by Mr. Schwarzenegger and President Barack Obama as one of the green industry's supposed shining lights. – Editorial, The Orange County Register, 11 November 2010 ...
Joe Lieberman Could Face Bad <b>News</b> On Guaranteed Ballot Line
Add the Connecticut for Lieberman party as one of the losers in last week's election: the party's candidate for US, Senate, John Mertens, apparently failed to get at least 1 percent of the vote, which would mean the loss of its ...
Fox <b>News</b> Anchor Loses It On Live TV | PerezHilton.com
Whoa! Get a hold of yourself! Megyn Kelly of Fox News lost it on live TV when she started laughing uncontrollably after doing a story about a North Carolina woman who was brought back to life after...
eric seiger
Or at least, we’ll tell you whatever they’re about to tell us, and it appears more than likely that it’ll have something to do with phones, contact lists, and a mysterious connection to Firefox, iPhone, Google Chrome OS, and two of the most rock and roll developers in the world: Joe Hewitt and Matthew Papakipos. We’ll be at a special Mobile Event at Facebook HQ on November 3rd and we’ll be able to tell you all about it. Until then, speculation below!
Informed speculation time! That’s almost the best kind, right? Let’s take a quick walk back to mid September, where our pals at TechCrunch were tipped by an anonymous source that Facebook was building a phone. This was the same sort of situation that went down less than a year ago when the world received secret news that Google was building a phone. I think you know how that turned out.
It is sais that Joe Hewitt and Matthew Papakipos, both of them high level employees at Facebook, are said to be secretly working on this project, and that because of their fabulous super powers in mobile OS, they’re going to rock it really hard. Both of them have a whoa-is-who list of accomplishments that’d make them powerhouse additions to any developer team for a phone.
Papakipos was leading the Google Chrome OS project for a while until he quit that project in June 2010. He quit and joined the Facebook team instead. Hewitt, on the other hand, helped create the Firefox browser and worked on “web-based operating system” Parakey before it was acquired by Facebook in 2007. Hewitt is also responsible for designing all of Facebook’s iPhone web apps and native apps, but quit that particular job late 2009.
So boom, baby. How realistic is this? Very. The other thing is that this doesn’t necessarily have to be a phone. It could be a giant addition to Facebook in the form of an app that works everywhere, including your desktop, working as a big fat list of your friends with whom you can now not only message and post on walls for free, you can now call. Face to face, Facebook. That’s my informed guess for the day.
One more addition from the streets is that there’s a man named Li Ka-Shing possibly in on this equation. This man is a very big investor who very recently was said to be putting money in a pot with some other folks going toward a phone project with INQ and Spotify. Li Ka-Shing is also a bigtime investor in Facebook. Is a phone developed between INQ and Facebook in the works? Spot gets the square.
Again let me remind you to be around here on SlashGear all day November 3rd. We’ll be at the Facebook Mobile meeting at Facebook headquarters, and you can bet we’ll be relaying the info they give to us quick as a bunny!
[Via TechCrunch]
A league source, speaking on the condition of anonymity, spoke on the record about the difference between good agents and bad agents. The difference, he said, is that all agents can negotiate a contract. Most times, it is the easiest part of their job.
The hardest part of an agent's job?
Saying no.
Some agents can't do it. If the expected high draft pick wants a Maserati now, how do you say no when another super agent will say yes. You'll lose the client, the exposure and the commission.
The source says, "The 'good agent' is someone that cares about the success of the player on and off the field. A lot of players have agents who are enablers, which can only hurt the player. Some agents are afraid of standing up to their client."
But Zuckerman knows that the on-the-field stuff is what matters most: "Kurt Warner isn't on 'Dancing With The Stars' because he's a good dancer, but because he's a Super Bowl MVP."
"If you're not picked and you're not in the NFL, you're not going to be in anyone's rap video."
In his estimation, too many young players are swayed by talk of off-the-field glitz and glamor. He's more than willing to help his clients after their football career is over, but it is that football career that opens up the opportunities to Hollywood, coaching or business.
Oversight Needed, But By Whom?
Zuckerman understands the fact that the business has some dirt gathering in the corners that needs to be cleaned up and not just swept under another rug. He says it is in the best interest of agents that the business of sports agency is cleaned up.
As a top company, Priority Sports would be that much more successful if the playing field were leveled with rules governing the conduct of sports agents and a better enforcement of those rules.
But who is going to do that enforcing?
Already, individual states have laws governing the conduct of sports agents—especially as it pertains to contact with amateur athletes.
Don't think that the states have pure intentions, either. A state like Texas, California or Florida indirectly profits off the success of the colleges within their borders.
NCAA schools (and coaches) profit directly off the players on their campus. So, while they want players to stay out of the NFL, it isn't exactly with pure motives (see the Cam Newton allegations).
Zuckerman believes that the sports agency world eventually needs to govern itself. The NFLPA, in his estimation, does a great job looking out for NFL players, but college players aren't in the NFL yet, and might never be.
The NFL and NFLPA, naturally, don't care if so-and-so is a high draft pick, because if he isn't, someone else will be.
First, he wonders if a solution might be found with the Securities and Exchange Commission (known by everyone but Southern football fans as the SEC). The SEC manages financial transactions of all kinds and has rules and regulations about all types of big business.
Sports marketing, if you haven't noticed, has become a multimillion-dollar operation.
What's more, the SEC would have power to investigate, subpoena and punish in ways that the NFL, NFLPA and the NCAA simply can't.
In the Meantime, Things Aren't As Bad As They Seem
When Sports Illustrated came out with the Josh Luchs story, it made the sports marketing world (especially as it pertains to the NFL and the NFL draft) seem like the wild wild west.
Reality isn't as exciting.
First, the climate has changed substantially since Luchs started paying amateur players because he couldn't do his job any other way.
When Luchs began, a person didn't even need a college degree to become an agent. Knowing a player or having an "in" was enough to get an agent certified and doing business. Now, an agent needs a post-graduate degree—at least a master's—before even thinking about certification.
Now, since that rule took effect, many older agents were grandfathered in without advanced degrees; plus, it isn't as if an MBA or a JD is proof someone is doing things the right way. But it at least weeds out guys like Luchs who learned business in a back room rather than a classroom.
The NFLPA has, right now, the most stringent requirements in the sporting world for agents dealing with their players.
A union source agrees with Zuckerman that the problem with the NFLPA policing agents is often because of a lack of resources and manpower, rather than indifference to the problem.
That source also points out that rumors are constantly flying in the sports world. Lesser agents and firms often lose out to bigger and better agents and want to believe it was because of unethical behavior and not just their own shortcomings.
In this country, in that business, you can't prosecute on rumor alone.
"We've been very proactive in disciplining agents when we have all the information. We've never been hesitant with discipline. it's very difficult to get the information that will hold up in front of the arbitrator."
Even when the info is there, it isn't a quick process. It is due process.The agent has the right to appeal and suspensions can't be enforced during the appeals process.
Sometimes an agent is handed to you on a silver platter. If proof is offered in the form of receipts, call logs, transcripts, taped conversations, bank reports, etc., it is easy to suspend an agent.
Sometimes an agent hands himself over. It was a no-brainer to punish Luchs after the SI story. It wasn't revenge for making someone look bad, as some have postulated. It was an agent telling the public he violated the rules, an admission of guilt.
The union source also pointed to a program run by the NFLPA called "Pipeline to the Pros." The initiative sends union reps to college campuses (when invited) to discuss ways a player can protect himself—not only from agents, but also from every other hand looking to slime its way into the wallets of eventual superstars.
Most importantly, "Pipeline to the Pros" tries to convince college athletes to stay and get their degrees. While college coaches have a pretty clear bias when they tell their underclassmen to stick around, the NFLPA is an unbiased observer making the case that the average NFL player plays fewer than three years, meaning that a degree is more important than most top college football players realize.
Sometimes the Good Guys Don't Finish Last
Priority Sports didn't get to be where they are with handouts, free cars and bending the rules every chance they got.
Priority Sports is at the top of the agent food chain because quality clients and quality agents are a great match. Priority is a quality agency on a mission to find and represent quality clients.
Zuckerman points to his partner Rick Smith and their agency's work in places like Tonga, Samoa and Hawaii.
"We fell in 'like' with the quality of person, the family values, the work ethic, the integrity..."
When you do right by people in a close-knit community, the family remembers and does right by you.
Tyson Alualu was a top pick this year as a defensive lineman out of Cal. He was drafted higher than projected, in part because of the training he did preparing for workouts at Priority's training facilities—among the best in the business.
While Tyson was playing for Saint Louis High School in Honolulu, Hawaii, Priority Sports was making Saint Louis alumnus Olin Kreutz one of the highest-paid linemen in football.
In the same way, Priority doesn't need to give handouts to the families in Samoa (who could probably use them more than some of the rich American kids who are taking them) or build an elaborate training center in Tonga. Because Priority operates with integrity, clients come running every year.
Priority client Issac Sopoaga is a defensive lineman for the San Francisco 49ers, and goes back to Samoa every year to talk about the academic and athletic opportunities on the mainland. No one tells him to name-drop or suggest an agency, but Samoan kids who look up to Sopoaga will know where to turn once they need representation.
Even in the world of high-priced sports agents, effort and integrity can be rewarded just as much as a cutthroat lack of ethics.
Michael Schottey is the managing editor of the College Writing Internship at Bleacher Report and an NFL Featured Columnist. Michael has covered the NFL professionally in a number of media markets in print, radio and online media. He is a member of the Pro Football Writers of America.
eric seiger
A bad <b>news</b> week for AGW proponents | Watts Up With That?
This is the latest bad news for the company touted by Mr. Schwarzenegger and President Barack Obama as one of the green industry's supposed shining lights. – Editorial, The Orange County Register, 11 November 2010 ...
Joe Lieberman Could Face Bad <b>News</b> On Guaranteed Ballot Line
Add the Connecticut for Lieberman party as one of the losers in last week's election: the party's candidate for US, Senate, John Mertens, apparently failed to get at least 1 percent of the vote, which would mean the loss of its ...
Fox <b>News</b> Anchor Loses It On Live TV | PerezHilton.com
Whoa! Get a hold of yourself! Megyn Kelly of Fox News lost it on live TV when she started laughing uncontrollably after doing a story about a North Carolina woman who was brought back to life after...
eric seiger
eric seiger
eric seiger
A bad <b>news</b> week for AGW proponents | Watts Up With That?
This is the latest bad news for the company touted by Mr. Schwarzenegger and President Barack Obama as one of the green industry's supposed shining lights. – Editorial, The Orange County Register, 11 November 2010 ...
Joe Lieberman Could Face Bad <b>News</b> On Guaranteed Ballot Line
Add the Connecticut for Lieberman party as one of the losers in last week's election: the party's candidate for US, Senate, John Mertens, apparently failed to get at least 1 percent of the vote, which would mean the loss of its ...
Fox <b>News</b> Anchor Loses It On Live TV | PerezHilton.com
Whoa! Get a hold of yourself! Megyn Kelly of Fox News lost it on live TV when she started laughing uncontrollably after doing a story about a North Carolina woman who was brought back to life after...
eric seiger
Or at least, we’ll tell you whatever they’re about to tell us, and it appears more than likely that it’ll have something to do with phones, contact lists, and a mysterious connection to Firefox, iPhone, Google Chrome OS, and two of the most rock and roll developers in the world: Joe Hewitt and Matthew Papakipos. We’ll be at a special Mobile Event at Facebook HQ on November 3rd and we’ll be able to tell you all about it. Until then, speculation below!
Informed speculation time! That’s almost the best kind, right? Let’s take a quick walk back to mid September, where our pals at TechCrunch were tipped by an anonymous source that Facebook was building a phone. This was the same sort of situation that went down less than a year ago when the world received secret news that Google was building a phone. I think you know how that turned out.
It is sais that Joe Hewitt and Matthew Papakipos, both of them high level employees at Facebook, are said to be secretly working on this project, and that because of their fabulous super powers in mobile OS, they’re going to rock it really hard. Both of them have a whoa-is-who list of accomplishments that’d make them powerhouse additions to any developer team for a phone.
Papakipos was leading the Google Chrome OS project for a while until he quit that project in June 2010. He quit and joined the Facebook team instead. Hewitt, on the other hand, helped create the Firefox browser and worked on “web-based operating system” Parakey before it was acquired by Facebook in 2007. Hewitt is also responsible for designing all of Facebook’s iPhone web apps and native apps, but quit that particular job late 2009.
So boom, baby. How realistic is this? Very. The other thing is that this doesn’t necessarily have to be a phone. It could be a giant addition to Facebook in the form of an app that works everywhere, including your desktop, working as a big fat list of your friends with whom you can now not only message and post on walls for free, you can now call. Face to face, Facebook. That’s my informed guess for the day.
One more addition from the streets is that there’s a man named Li Ka-Shing possibly in on this equation. This man is a very big investor who very recently was said to be putting money in a pot with some other folks going toward a phone project with INQ and Spotify. Li Ka-Shing is also a bigtime investor in Facebook. Is a phone developed between INQ and Facebook in the works? Spot gets the square.
Again let me remind you to be around here on SlashGear all day November 3rd. We’ll be at the Facebook Mobile meeting at Facebook headquarters, and you can bet we’ll be relaying the info they give to us quick as a bunny!
[Via TechCrunch]
A league source, speaking on the condition of anonymity, spoke on the record about the difference between good agents and bad agents. The difference, he said, is that all agents can negotiate a contract. Most times, it is the easiest part of their job.
The hardest part of an agent's job?
Saying no.
Some agents can't do it. If the expected high draft pick wants a Maserati now, how do you say no when another super agent will say yes. You'll lose the client, the exposure and the commission.
The source says, "The 'good agent' is someone that cares about the success of the player on and off the field. A lot of players have agents who are enablers, which can only hurt the player. Some agents are afraid of standing up to their client."
But Zuckerman knows that the on-the-field stuff is what matters most: "Kurt Warner isn't on 'Dancing With The Stars' because he's a good dancer, but because he's a Super Bowl MVP."
"If you're not picked and you're not in the NFL, you're not going to be in anyone's rap video."
In his estimation, too many young players are swayed by talk of off-the-field glitz and glamor. He's more than willing to help his clients after their football career is over, but it is that football career that opens up the opportunities to Hollywood, coaching or business.
Oversight Needed, But By Whom?
Zuckerman understands the fact that the business has some dirt gathering in the corners that needs to be cleaned up and not just swept under another rug. He says it is in the best interest of agents that the business of sports agency is cleaned up.
As a top company, Priority Sports would be that much more successful if the playing field were leveled with rules governing the conduct of sports agents and a better enforcement of those rules.
But who is going to do that enforcing?
Already, individual states have laws governing the conduct of sports agents—especially as it pertains to contact with amateur athletes.
Don't think that the states have pure intentions, either. A state like Texas, California or Florida indirectly profits off the success of the colleges within their borders.
NCAA schools (and coaches) profit directly off the players on their campus. So, while they want players to stay out of the NFL, it isn't exactly with pure motives (see the Cam Newton allegations).
Zuckerman believes that the sports agency world eventually needs to govern itself. The NFLPA, in his estimation, does a great job looking out for NFL players, but college players aren't in the NFL yet, and might never be.
The NFL and NFLPA, naturally, don't care if so-and-so is a high draft pick, because if he isn't, someone else will be.
First, he wonders if a solution might be found with the Securities and Exchange Commission (known by everyone but Southern football fans as the SEC). The SEC manages financial transactions of all kinds and has rules and regulations about all types of big business.
Sports marketing, if you haven't noticed, has become a multimillion-dollar operation.
What's more, the SEC would have power to investigate, subpoena and punish in ways that the NFL, NFLPA and the NCAA simply can't.
In the Meantime, Things Aren't As Bad As They Seem
When Sports Illustrated came out with the Josh Luchs story, it made the sports marketing world (especially as it pertains to the NFL and the NFL draft) seem like the wild wild west.
Reality isn't as exciting.
First, the climate has changed substantially since Luchs started paying amateur players because he couldn't do his job any other way.
When Luchs began, a person didn't even need a college degree to become an agent. Knowing a player or having an "in" was enough to get an agent certified and doing business. Now, an agent needs a post-graduate degree—at least a master's—before even thinking about certification.
Now, since that rule took effect, many older agents were grandfathered in without advanced degrees; plus, it isn't as if an MBA or a JD is proof someone is doing things the right way. But it at least weeds out guys like Luchs who learned business in a back room rather than a classroom.
The NFLPA has, right now, the most stringent requirements in the sporting world for agents dealing with their players.
A union source agrees with Zuckerman that the problem with the NFLPA policing agents is often because of a lack of resources and manpower, rather than indifference to the problem.
That source also points out that rumors are constantly flying in the sports world. Lesser agents and firms often lose out to bigger and better agents and want to believe it was because of unethical behavior and not just their own shortcomings.
In this country, in that business, you can't prosecute on rumor alone.
"We've been very proactive in disciplining agents when we have all the information. We've never been hesitant with discipline. it's very difficult to get the information that will hold up in front of the arbitrator."
Even when the info is there, it isn't a quick process. It is due process.The agent has the right to appeal and suspensions can't be enforced during the appeals process.
Sometimes an agent is handed to you on a silver platter. If proof is offered in the form of receipts, call logs, transcripts, taped conversations, bank reports, etc., it is easy to suspend an agent.
Sometimes an agent hands himself over. It was a no-brainer to punish Luchs after the SI story. It wasn't revenge for making someone look bad, as some have postulated. It was an agent telling the public he violated the rules, an admission of guilt.
The union source also pointed to a program run by the NFLPA called "Pipeline to the Pros." The initiative sends union reps to college campuses (when invited) to discuss ways a player can protect himself—not only from agents, but also from every other hand looking to slime its way into the wallets of eventual superstars.
Most importantly, "Pipeline to the Pros" tries to convince college athletes to stay and get their degrees. While college coaches have a pretty clear bias when they tell their underclassmen to stick around, the NFLPA is an unbiased observer making the case that the average NFL player plays fewer than three years, meaning that a degree is more important than most top college football players realize.
Sometimes the Good Guys Don't Finish Last
Priority Sports didn't get to be where they are with handouts, free cars and bending the rules every chance they got.
Priority Sports is at the top of the agent food chain because quality clients and quality agents are a great match. Priority is a quality agency on a mission to find and represent quality clients.
Zuckerman points to his partner Rick Smith and their agency's work in places like Tonga, Samoa and Hawaii.
"We fell in 'like' with the quality of person, the family values, the work ethic, the integrity..."
When you do right by people in a close-knit community, the family remembers and does right by you.
Tyson Alualu was a top pick this year as a defensive lineman out of Cal. He was drafted higher than projected, in part because of the training he did preparing for workouts at Priority's training facilities—among the best in the business.
While Tyson was playing for Saint Louis High School in Honolulu, Hawaii, Priority Sports was making Saint Louis alumnus Olin Kreutz one of the highest-paid linemen in football.
In the same way, Priority doesn't need to give handouts to the families in Samoa (who could probably use them more than some of the rich American kids who are taking them) or build an elaborate training center in Tonga. Because Priority operates with integrity, clients come running every year.
Priority client Issac Sopoaga is a defensive lineman for the San Francisco 49ers, and goes back to Samoa every year to talk about the academic and athletic opportunities on the mainland. No one tells him to name-drop or suggest an agency, but Samoan kids who look up to Sopoaga will know where to turn once they need representation.
Even in the world of high-priced sports agents, effort and integrity can be rewarded just as much as a cutthroat lack of ethics.
Michael Schottey is the managing editor of the College Writing Internship at Bleacher Report and an NFL Featured Columnist. Michael has covered the NFL professionally in a number of media markets in print, radio and online media. He is a member of the Pro Football Writers of America.
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eric seiger
A bad <b>news</b> week for AGW proponents | Watts Up With That?
This is the latest bad news for the company touted by Mr. Schwarzenegger and President Barack Obama as one of the green industry's supposed shining lights. – Editorial, The Orange County Register, 11 November 2010 ...
Joe Lieberman Could Face Bad <b>News</b> On Guaranteed Ballot Line
Add the Connecticut for Lieberman party as one of the losers in last week's election: the party's candidate for US, Senate, John Mertens, apparently failed to get at least 1 percent of the vote, which would mean the loss of its ...
Fox <b>News</b> Anchor Loses It On Live TV | PerezHilton.com
Whoa! Get a hold of yourself! Megyn Kelly of Fox News lost it on live TV when she started laughing uncontrollably after doing a story about a North Carolina woman who was brought back to life after...
eric seiger
eric seiger
A bad <b>news</b> week for AGW proponents | Watts Up With That?
This is the latest bad news for the company touted by Mr. Schwarzenegger and President Barack Obama as one of the green industry's supposed shining lights. – Editorial, The Orange County Register, 11 November 2010 ...
Joe Lieberman Could Face Bad <b>News</b> On Guaranteed Ballot Line
Add the Connecticut for Lieberman party as one of the losers in last week's election: the party's candidate for US, Senate, John Mertens, apparently failed to get at least 1 percent of the vote, which would mean the loss of its ...
Fox <b>News</b> Anchor Loses It On Live TV | PerezHilton.com
Whoa! Get a hold of yourself! Megyn Kelly of Fox News lost it on live TV when she started laughing uncontrollably after doing a story about a North Carolina woman who was brought back to life after...
eric seiger
A bad <b>news</b> week for AGW proponents | Watts Up With That?
This is the latest bad news for the company touted by Mr. Schwarzenegger and President Barack Obama as one of the green industry's supposed shining lights. – Editorial, The Orange County Register, 11 November 2010 ...
Joe Lieberman Could Face Bad <b>News</b> On Guaranteed Ballot Line
Add the Connecticut for Lieberman party as one of the losers in last week's election: the party's candidate for US, Senate, John Mertens, apparently failed to get at least 1 percent of the vote, which would mean the loss of its ...
Fox <b>News</b> Anchor Loses It On Live TV | PerezHilton.com
Whoa! Get a hold of yourself! Megyn Kelly of Fox News lost it on live TV when she started laughing uncontrollably after doing a story about a North Carolina woman who was brought back to life after...
eric seiger
A bad <b>news</b> week for AGW proponents | Watts Up With That?
This is the latest bad news for the company touted by Mr. Schwarzenegger and President Barack Obama as one of the green industry's supposed shining lights. – Editorial, The Orange County Register, 11 November 2010 ...
Joe Lieberman Could Face Bad <b>News</b> On Guaranteed Ballot Line
Add the Connecticut for Lieberman party as one of the losers in last week's election: the party's candidate for US, Senate, John Mertens, apparently failed to get at least 1 percent of the vote, which would mean the loss of its ...
Fox <b>News</b> Anchor Loses It On Live TV | PerezHilton.com
Whoa! Get a hold of yourself! Megyn Kelly of Fox News lost it on live TV when she started laughing uncontrollably after doing a story about a North Carolina woman who was brought back to life after...
eric seiger eric seiger
eric seiger
eric seiger
eric seiger
A bad <b>news</b> week for AGW proponents | Watts Up With That?
This is the latest bad news for the company touted by Mr. Schwarzenegger and President Barack Obama as one of the green industry's supposed shining lights. – Editorial, The Orange County Register, 11 November 2010 ...
Joe Lieberman Could Face Bad <b>News</b> On Guaranteed Ballot Line
Add the Connecticut for Lieberman party as one of the losers in last week's election: the party's candidate for US, Senate, John Mertens, apparently failed to get at least 1 percent of the vote, which would mean the loss of its ...
Fox <b>News</b> Anchor Loses It On Live TV | PerezHilton.com
Whoa! Get a hold of yourself! Megyn Kelly of Fox News lost it on live TV when she started laughing uncontrollably after doing a story about a North Carolina woman who was brought back to life after...
So you want to make money online? You’re tired of your 9 to 5 job. You like the idea of setting your own hours. You may have heard that you can make a ton of money without a whole lot of effort. Whatever the reason, you know this is what you want to do.
Although the things you may have heard make it sound like the best thing you can ever do, many things are just myths. When deciding to find a way to make money online, you need to know the fact from fiction.
Don’t Quit Your Day Job
I’m sure you’ve heard that many times before, but it’s true. If you already have a job and you’re bringing in a steady income don’t quit, whatever you do, don’t do it. No matter what you’re promised. The money you bring in at your job will support you while you work to make money online. It can even be used as start up capital for certain business endeavors.
It Takes Money to Make Money
Yes, you’ve heard that one to. This is true and false at the same time.
If you’re completely new to making money online, you may want to invest in training material. You can learn practically everything you need to know for free using the web, but this is the case of time is money. It may take you a lot longer going the free route.
This is the reason people can sell countless numbers of how to guides to making money online, or charge for access to a database of sites that pay you for a particular service. They know some people don’t have the time to spend researching ways to make money and testing out those ways once they find them. So for a fee you can get access to year’s worth of knowledge and be on your way in less time than it took them.
So is there a way to make money without spending it? Sure there is. Writing articles is a perfect example. Plenty of sites will pay you for quality original content. Most of which have no upfront cost. Those that do may let you pay out of your earnings, so no money comes out of your pocket.
Some will pay more than others and some will have stricter guidelines on what you can submit. It all depends on the website. MPAM and Associated Content are two popular sites for submitting articles for pay.
You can also become an affiliate. An affiliate is someone who advertises someone else's products for a commission. Most affiliate programs are free to sign up with. You can then advertise that program in message boards or make a review in your blog.
Owning Your Own Website
If you want to be seen as a professional you must own your own website. Whether you own your own business or you’re marketing someone else’s you need a website. No one would take you seriously if they see you made your site using some free program.
Even if they did, usually free websites have pop up ads and banners. You definitely don’t want a bunch of advertising for other sites taking away your business.
Many features come with owning your own website as well. Bandwidth is a huge concern. If your site gets popular you don’t want your site getting shut down because you exceeded your limit. Free sites don’t give you nearly enough space. With your own domain you get you own personal email account. Besides looking more professional you don’t have to worry about spam filters. If a prospect is sending you an email you want to be sure you get it.
It’s not that expensive to have a website anyway. You can buy a domain for under $10 a year and hosting for under $5 a month. If you’re serious about making money, you can’t be cheap and you can’t be lazy.
Making Money Online is Hard Work
There are no ifs ands or buts about it. If you want to be successful in making money online you need to work hard. Ignore all the sites that promise you riches overnight, or that it takes no effort at all to produce huge sums of money.
If you write articles, you have to know how to write. Seems obvious doesn’t it? But many people believe that you can write a ton of articles in know time at all. While it’s possible to get to the point where you can write 20 to 30 articles in a day. I can guarantee it took some effort to get to that point. Nobody is born knowing how to write.
If you decide to sell your own products, you have to know exactly what it is you want to sell and how you’re going to do it. Simply finding a product is hard enough but once you do; getting it setup to sell, advertising the product, maintaining your site and dealing with customer support all takes a lot of work, especially if you do it yourself.
If you sell no product of your own and simply market other peoples products, expect to find a lot of competition. Nowadays everybody and their cousin are trying to make money online.
Expect to spend time advertising. Nobodies going to buy anything from you if they don’t know about it, and they won’t know about it if you don’t tell them. Spend time in message boards, submit to search engines and traffic generators. Publish articles to popular sites.
The Bottom Line
Whatever you do you have to work at it, and you won’t see success over night. One thing you need to realize is that no one is going to do the work for you. There are plenty of people that can help you. Some will even give you step-by-step instructions on what to do, but if you don’t actually do them you won’t get anywhere. If you’re going to succeed in making money online you have to commit to doing it.
A bad <b>news</b> week for AGW proponents | Watts Up With That?
This is the latest bad news for the company touted by Mr. Schwarzenegger and President Barack Obama as one of the green industry's supposed shining lights. – Editorial, The Orange County Register, 11 November 2010 ...
Joe Lieberman Could Face Bad <b>News</b> On Guaranteed Ballot Line
Add the Connecticut for Lieberman party as one of the losers in last week's election: the party's candidate for US, Senate, John Mertens, apparently failed to get at least 1 percent of the vote, which would mean the loss of its ...
Fox <b>News</b> Anchor Loses It On Live TV | PerezHilton.com
Whoa! Get a hold of yourself! Megyn Kelly of Fox News lost it on live TV when she started laughing uncontrollably after doing a story about a North Carolina woman who was brought back to life after...
eric seiger
A bad <b>news</b> week for AGW proponents | Watts Up With That?
This is the latest bad news for the company touted by Mr. Schwarzenegger and President Barack Obama as one of the green industry's supposed shining lights. – Editorial, The Orange County Register, 11 November 2010 ...
Joe Lieberman Could Face Bad <b>News</b> On Guaranteed Ballot Line
Add the Connecticut for Lieberman party as one of the losers in last week's election: the party's candidate for US, Senate, John Mertens, apparently failed to get at least 1 percent of the vote, which would mean the loss of its ...
Fox <b>News</b> Anchor Loses It On Live TV | PerezHilton.com
Whoa! Get a hold of yourself! Megyn Kelly of Fox News lost it on live TV when she started laughing uncontrollably after doing a story about a North Carolina woman who was brought back to life after...
eric seiger
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