For my final capstone project, I have decided to pursue and research the sports agent industry and find out who the top agents and agencies are for professional athletes. Sports Agents are the backbone for any professional athlete looking to make it big not only on the field but also in the financial realm. They often work long hours trying to negotiate contracts with teams and GM's so that their client can get the possible deal. You may have a good grasp of the day to day duties of a sports agent if you have watched Jerry McGuire and how stressful the job can be for both the agent and the athlete. .
In this research I have looked at the past on how sports agents first became a factor, then I looked at the present day, and finally conclude with the future and what to expect for sports agents as they continue to represent clients. Some of the research also entails the top agents and agencies that exist and why they are so successful at representing the top athletes around the world. When glancing back into the past about sports agents it can be traced not too far back into time, right around the 1920's when professional sports began to take off and a lot more of the athletes were getting paid more money. Red Grange was the first athlete to use an agent in order to negotiate his contract with several NFL teams back in 1925. He made around 20,000 that year and that may not be a lot today but back then, he was pretty much set financially for a while. After hearing about what Red Grange had done, many more athletes around the nation and even the world began hiring agents of their own in order to get a maximized deal for their contract from the team that they played for.
Fly ahead to the 1960's and we can see that Mark McCormack had begun working with one of the best golfers of all time that goes by the name of Arnold Palmer. After getting Palmer to be his client McCormack then started his own agency in IMG which stands for International Management group.