The professional sports industry is highly lucrative. It is not only the teams and franchises that rake in vast sums of money but the elite-level sports stars too. Sports teams are nothing without their prized assets, the athletes and players, so it is only fair those players are compensated accordingly. Most sports stars lack the business acumen to find themselves the best deals because they dedicate their lives to being the best athlete they can be. This is where agencies come into play, representing their clients and ensuring they receive the best deals possible.
Almost anyone can become a sports agent, but few make it to the very top. The sports agency world is dominated by a handful of companies, entities that are so large and powerful that they dictate the landscape. These sports agency giants help athletes and players get their dream move to another club or team, all while ensuring they are paid handsomely for their skills and marketability. If you look at any of the players turning out for the teams listed on sites offering legal online betting in Florida, you can bet your bottom dollar that they are represented by one of the following trio of sports agencies.
Creative Artists Agency (CAA)
Creative Artists Agency (CAA) was founded in 1975 in Beverly Hills, California, but only began branching out into sports around 2006. Despite only being in the sports field for 17 years, CAA is the world’s biggest and most powerful sports agency. CAA has a plethora of agents working on its behalf, with prominent stars in the world of the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, and soccer.
Among its 2,900 clients are the likes of Phoenix Suns shooting guard Devin Booker, Los Angeles Rams Super Bowl-winning quarterback Matthew Stafford, Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker T.J. Watt, and soccer stars Raphael Varane, James Maddison, and Kyle Walker.
A recent study by Forbes revealed CAA has a staggering $17.8 billion in contracts and earned $971 million in commissions in 2022, ranking them at number one by some distance. CAA grew more potent in 2022 after acquiring ICM Partners for $750 million; ICM Partners’ ICM Stellar Sports division is the number one soccer agency on the planet.
Wasserman
Casey Wasserman founded the Wasserman Media Group in 1998 and continues serving as the company’s chief executive. Four years after its founding, Wasserman delved into the lucrative sporting world. It has since grown to become the world’s second-most powerful sports agency, with $9.5 billion worth of contracts and $733 million in commissions last year.
Wasserman has fingers in many pies, with clients from the worlds of baseball, basketball, football, hockey, golf, athletics, rugby, and soccer. Edmonton Oilers Connor McDavid is just one of Wasserman’s high-profile clients. The agency helped negotiate a $100 million contract extension for McDavid in July 2017. It was instrumental in Klay Thompson of the Golden State Warriors putting pen to paper on a five-year $190 million contract in July 2019.
WME Sports
William Moris Endeavor Entertainment, or WME for short, negotiated more than $6.4 billion in contracts and enjoyed $588 million in commissions from its sports agency. The company’s sports division was long the dominant force in tennis, having acquired IMG for $2.4 billion in December 2018.WME counted the likes of Novak Djokovic, Maria Sharapova, Serena Williams, and Venus Williams among its elite-level clients.
The company owns several sports organizations, including the Professional Bull Riders, the eSports ELeague, nine Minor League Baseball teams, and the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). The UFC’s parent company, Zuffa, LLC, sold to a group that WME led for more than $4 billion in 2016, the largest-ever acquisition in the sports industry at the time.
Kingston is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his in-depth and engaging writing on sports. He currently works as a writer at 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the sports industry.
