- 2 days ago
Andrew Brandt has gone through it all during his incredible career in sports. His new book reveals the secrets to success that he followed to dominate his competition.
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00:00Thanks so much, and it's really fitting to do my first media about the book on publish day with Washington,
00:08D.C., where I grew up, where I wrote about my early life, where I wrote about my formative years
00:13in getting into sports, my first job with ProServe, and working for David Falk, which led to so many different
00:20stops along the way that I chronicle in this new book, and I'm really excited for it. Hope everyone gets
00:26a chance to read it.
00:27So talk about, yeah, working with David. David's a good friend of ours, comes on the show occasionally. I mean,
00:33I think he's hilarious. Tells great stories. What was it like working with David? What'd you learn from David?
00:41Yeah, it was my first job. He was my first mentor. It was my first exposure to being an agent.
00:46I was a kid, like a lot of people listening, that thought, is there a way to marry my interest
00:51in sports and being a lawyer with sport together?
00:54And I was able to do it with David. This was a unique situation. He had so many clients and
01:00didn't have a lot of help. And I got to work, you know, when I say work with Michael Jordan,
01:05I certainly wasn't Michael Jordan's agent.
01:07But I watched David in his relentless negotiation. Even one situation I talk about in the book, where we're negotiating,
01:14I think, with the Spurs, and we weren't getting anywhere. And David said something I could never say myself, but
01:21he did it. He's like, listen, we can't get this deal done.
01:24And I'm not sure Michael's going to be, you know, available that night. The Bulls play here.
01:31You know, they're one sellout of the year when the Bulls came to town. And I'm like, wow, did he
01:37really say that?
01:38That's a leverage play.
01:38That is a good one. I like that.
01:40He had extreme leverage plays. On the good side of that, we used Michael's leverage.
01:45Like, we got Nike deals for all these players that would never get Nike deals without the agent that represented
01:52Michael Jordan.
01:53There are ways that he used leverage that I could never do. There are ways that I would be a
01:58little softer.
01:59But I learned so much from David, who was my first mentor.
02:02And the other thing is he was so dominant in the NBA, we had some football clients.
02:08And I'm like, no one's paying attention to them.
02:10So I raised my hand. I'm, you know, I'm a tiny little guy. I'm like, I never played football, but
02:15I'll do it.
02:17And that's the way you sort of navigate sports. Like, hey, there's a need. I'm going to be a football
02:22agent.
02:23And soon enough, we had a guy named Boomer Esiason.
02:26And I'm working with Boomer Esiason, all the Maryland guys.
02:30And then we go on from there.
02:32So over my time with David, I went, we went from two, three, fives to 15 NFL clients,
02:38which launched me into the next phase of my career and working in the NFL.
02:42So the subtitle of your book, Smarter About Sports, is my life navigating athletes, agents, media, and the business of
02:48the NFL.
02:50Who was it harder to navigate with?
02:52Other agents, media, or the players themselves?
02:56Well, it's interesting because my background as an agent was invaluable to getting into the team side.
03:03And I was negotiating where I knew what they were going to say.
03:06They knew what I was going to say.
03:07We could get to yes pretty quickly.
03:09You know, there was one situation when the Packers, when I was there 10 years,
03:13players were looking at me at the beginning and saying, hey, this guy's pretty cool.
03:17He used to be an agent, young guy.
03:19Let's negotiate without an agent.
03:22And I thought, okay, that's cool.
03:24So they'd come to my office, and I tell you guys, that was not, I repeat, not a good experience.
03:31Because players, they see it very simply.
03:33You know, Dallas or Detroit or Washington paid this guy X.
03:37I'm better than him.
03:38Pay me more than X.
03:40And I'd say things like, well, he's a year from free agency or two years from free agency.
03:44That quarterback makes $5 million.
03:46Our quarterback makes $30 million.
03:48And they didn't want to hear that.
03:50And these negotiations are raw, emotional.
03:53You know, I learned it's better to have an agent from a team negotiator point of view.
03:57So did you advise those guys before you even sat down when they were like, I'm going to represent myself?
04:03Did you ever say to them and frame it like, this is probably not going to go well for you.
04:07This is a bad idea.
04:09You should probably retain an agent to do this for you.
04:14Well, it was more like, I think everyone but one of them, and I'll keep their names private, and I
04:20do in the book, was more like they had someone to talk to between sessions.
04:25But, yeah, I mean, I said, listen, this is how it works.
04:29And I didn't understand that the gravity of telling someone their human worth was not what it is.
04:37I mean, the theme throughout the book is, hey, I've been called, you know, I've been called a cap guru.
04:42I've been called a numbers guru.
04:43The numbers are the numbers.
04:44Calculators can handle that.
04:47It's really leverage and relationships, and you're dealing with the same people in sports over and over again.
04:54And ultimately, like, people like doing business with people who they like.
04:58So I learned that the hard way in my early years with the Packers.
05:03Talking to Andrew Brandt, the new book is called Smarter About Sports, My Life, Navigating Athletes, Agents, Media, and the
05:08Business of the NFL.
05:10So we've seen this in sports, not just the NFL, but I'm going to say the NBA, where you have
05:16these what seem like uber-involved parents, right?
05:20We heard this before with Jaden Daniels and his mom here in Washington, and you're hearing this about A.J.
05:25DeBonson, his dad, who operates as his agent manager.
05:29How do you deal with that?
05:32You know, one thing I tell people who want to be an agent is you're not just dealing with the
05:36player.
05:36In many circumstances, you're not dealing with the player at all.
05:40You know, you're dealing with the dad, the mom, the aunt, the uncle, the advisor, the AAU coach, the pastor,
05:47the brother, the sister, the stepbrother, the son.
05:50And that's what you sign up for.
05:52As an agent, you've got to understand the decision-making, and you've got to understand the family dynamics, and that's
06:00all part of it.
06:01And it's interesting because I talk in later chapters about now being an NIL consultant for a couple major colleges,
06:08and NIL agents, that's a whole new breed.
06:12And I'm going into talking with moms and dads and, again, pastors and AAU coaches doing the negotiation.
06:20So from an adversary's standpoint, I try to be as patient as possible.
06:27Like, listen, what do you need explained?
06:29Because when you come in there and say, hey, you don't understand it, that doesn't start the negotiation well.
06:35But that's a fact right now, right?
06:37Parents, people are involved that are not skilled at negotiating, not a background in law or business, and you've got
06:45to deal with that.
06:46Sometimes it's harder than dealing with an experienced agent.
06:50I want to ask you just about the NIL and how it ties in kind of with this new five
06:55-for-five model that they're going to go with here in the NCAA.
06:59I feel bad for graduated seniors, right?
07:03Kids that just graduated, they're getting aced out of this.
07:07You know, whereas, you know, if you just happen to be a year behind them, now you get an extra
07:10year of eligibility.
07:12They've been pondering this for months.
07:14It didn't come out, I guess, until some of these kids had already walked.
07:17I think there's a class action suit where a lot of these seniors are getting together and some attorneys and
07:21everything.
07:21They're going to try to see if they can't get these kids another year.
07:24I just, I feel terrible for them.
07:26Do you think they have any shot at this?
07:28You know, my saying, he followed me, is there will be lawyers.
07:32This was an obvious one.
07:34I mean, not only I knew that and you knew that, but the NCAA knew that.
07:38So they've obviously prepared for this unfortunate class of 2022 that is not getting the five-for-five, and they
07:47must have a strategy there.
07:48I'll just say this quickly.
07:49When I moved from pro to college in negotiating these deals, I was just flabbergasted because of what you're just
07:56talking about.
07:57The unregulated, unrestricted free agency through the transfer portal that these guys have is just startling to me.
08:06I'm used to long-term contracts.
08:09I'm used to doing deals where we get, you know, future years in exchange for a big bonus.
08:17College guys, Jesus, I try to do a two-year deal.
08:20They all say, why in the world would we do that?
08:23Right.
08:23We want optionality.
08:24We want free agency every year because free agency creates big numbers, and it's just frustrating dealing with that because
08:31no agent's going to do a long-term deal unless the second or third year is just an incredible number.
08:38So, Andrew, with your experience as both an agent for players and as a high-ranking NFL exec, how would
08:44you advise Brandon Iyuk in the wake of his fractured relationship right now with the Niners?
08:50And we've seen, you know, what he's been doing on social media over the last six or seven weeks.
08:55So if you were sitting down with Brandon Iyuk, how would you advise him to, you know, fix the relationship
09:01with the Niners so he can move on with his NFL career?
09:04I think one of the issues is it doesn't seem to have someone in that role.
09:07And obviously that person should, in my mind, say, hey, chill on the Instagram post.
09:14Let your representative navigate the situation first with the 49ers and then with other teams, including the commanders, because it's
09:23not going well.
09:24And who knows what the commanders are thinking, looking at this like, hey, do we want that?
09:28Do we want to bring that into our locker room?
09:30And Iyuk leveraged, did a great job in 2024, leveraging the hold in, where he was sort of in but
09:39not really practicing, into a great contract.
09:42And you know what I'd say about business of Sports Hall of Famers, $50 million in 2024 and 2025 for
09:51seven games.
09:52And, you know, like, are you kidding me?
09:55So now that's coming to pass where he's got the money and he's going to have to start over.
10:00I think the commanders or any team is fine taking on Iyuk.
10:05The question is, what's the risk?
10:07And risk is determined by guaranteed money.
10:10And what else, if things go south, what else would you lose?
10:14So if someone signs him to a small, non-guaranteed contract, sure, there's no risk there.
10:20So you actually think that, yeah, I kind of agree with you, that despite everybody thinking that, you know, he's
10:26in bizarro world, if he could, I mean, not everybody is a choir boy, right, in the NFL?
10:32I mean, there are weird guys in the NFL.
10:33I don't necessarily think it's disqualifying.
10:38Yeah, I talk about that in the book.
10:40I mean, these are not kumbaya locker rooms.
10:42Like, people think, I mean, some of the best teams in every sport have conflict.
10:49And you're bringing guys together, you know, like I was in football locker rooms, you're bringing guys together with completely
10:55different backgrounds and coming from cities, coming from rural, coming from, you know, I put Aaron Rodgers and Brett Favre
11:06in a room for three years.
11:08You have this country, Mississippi, Southern Mississippi, and you have California cool.
11:15Like, nowhere in life would these two guys be in a room together for three years.
11:21And they were.
11:23And I and others at the Packers had to manage that, which was not easy.
11:29Yeah, do you have any good stories about the friction between those two that you want to air out on
11:36the air, or is that something you have to read the book for?
11:38No, I mean, they get it was frosty at the beginning, but my I'm proud that over the three years,
11:44they got closer.
11:45And even after Brett left, they got closer.
11:47But I think, you know, I've told the story of drafting, Aaron, where you're faced with, you know, long term,
11:54which we chose, versus short term needs, where a lot of teams would probably say, hey, we're not going to
12:00draft a play in the first round.
12:01It won't help us this year, next year, maybe never.
12:04But, you know, you don't draft for need because you draft for future needs, and that's always going to be
12:09important.
12:09But the moment he was drafted, you had Brett calling the coach, you had Brett's agent calling me, you had
12:15our draft room booing so loud, it shook our souls.
12:19You had F grades for media.
12:24I mean, no one was happy.
12:26But you sort of stand in the face of that when you make decisions for the long term, and that's
12:32a lesson for business, not just sports.
12:34Sometimes you have to look past the immediate need.
12:36Do you think that those three years or whatever while he was waiting, that that made him the player that
12:42he is?
12:42Or do you think if he had started as a rookie, he would have still been Aaron Rodgers?
12:46You never know.
12:47I mean, what we saw immediately was just these moving skills and ball skills that we hadn't seen before, and
12:54nothing against Brett.
12:56You know, I try to be very clear in the book, the strengths of Brett, the strengths of Aaron, working
13:03with him as people, getting to know them, rather than sort of putting them against each other.
13:09Because I think people don't need to know, like you mentioned, this stuff happens.
13:16You know, you've got to manage relationships.
13:18And I never underestimated the power of ego and insecurity in all my negotiations.
13:24That drives people.
13:26You know, are you treating them well?
13:28When I'm negotiating Brett's contract, it wasn't so much whether this number or that matter.
13:33He was like, hey, is this better than what, at that time, Troy Aikman or Steve McNair or Drew Bledsoe?
13:43You know, that's what people want to look at.
13:45The numbers are the numbers.
13:46But am I being treated as fairly as that guy?
13:49Andrew, we want to thank you for the time.
13:51We appreciate it.
13:52Best of luck with the book.
13:54People can check it out.
13:54It's available today.
13:55Smarter About Sports, My Life, Navigating Athletes, Agents, Media, and the Business of the NFL.
14:01People can go to smarteraboutsports.com for more information.
14:06What's your next stop on the media blitz, on the media tour?
14:10Doing a couple more radios, Jim Rome podcast in a couple hours.
14:14But Smarter About Sports, as you said, has its own website.
14:17But Amazon, of course.
14:18You can obviously go get it there, and it'll be on shelves, if not today, very soon.
14:23Very good.
14:24Well, thanks, Andrew.
14:25Thanks so much, man.
14:25We appreciate the time.
14:27Thanks, guys.
14:28Really appreciate it.
14:29Yep.
14:29That's Andrew Brandt.
14:30The book title is Smarter About Sports, and it is available today.
14:34Yeah, he's had quite the life, no doubt.
14:37Started out as an agent.
14:38He worked for David Falk.
14:39We're an NBA guy.
14:40NFL guy.
14:41He's become part of the front office of the Green Bay Packers.
14:46Iconic franchise.
14:47Then you move into the media business.
14:50Yep.
14:50He's done a lot.
14:51Done it all, man.
14:52All right.
14:52When we come back, we'll do EB's entertainment page.
14:54We'll do that next here on The Fan.
14:56We'll do it last then.
14:56We'll do it last day.
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