Falk is a legend in the sports agent industry. At his height, he represented 40 of the game’s best players and coaches, including Michael Jordan, Allen Iverson, Patrick Ewing, Alonzo Mourning, and Mike Krzyzewski. In 1998, he sold his agency, FAME, for $82.9 million in cash and 1 million shares of stock to SFX. Soured by the state of the sports agent business, Falk has scaled way back today. Scott Miller’s article in the Washington Times is a fun, long, read, but in the end, it winds up here:
The man who built Michael Jordan, made record deals and represented some of the game’s biggest stars isn’t a superagent anymore. He isn’t the hard guy who prodded and twisted the arms of NBA executives until he got what he wanted. He isn’t the guy everyone loved to hate because he was too powerful or too manipulative or too cocky.
“He always talks about how he believes deep down he was always meant to be a teacher or a psychologist, and now at this stage in his career he’s really doing both of those things,” says Danielle Cantor, FAME’s vice president. “He genuinely loves what he does. Although many people out there say it’s because he needs to continue to feed his ego – and, yes, he does have a big ego; everyone knows that – deep down he genuinely loves what he does.”
Falk is in a different place now. The relationships he has created in his 35 years in the business are far more important than the size of his commission. He’s more of a teacher than an agent. He wants to rip that rearview mirror off his Ferrari and blaze a new trail.
And maybe he’ll reinvent the game again.
“I think I’m a compulsive perfectionist,” he says, smiling. “I want to do it better; I want to do it different.
“This isn’t a job for me; it’s not really even a career. This is my life.”
(Via TrueHoop)
