Leigh Steinberg
Ep. 50 – A legendary sports agent reflects on an extraordinary career and overcoming seemingly insurmountable personal challenges / Leigh Steinberg, CEO, Steinberg Sports & Entertainment. Early in his career, legendary sports agent Leigh Steinberg had a crisis of conscience. His clients were suffering from multiple concussions and doctors didn't fully understand the long-term impact of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). There was one particular moment that was a turning point for Steinberg. "When we would go to doctors back in that period, no doctor could really tell us how many hits were too many and what the longterm consequences were." So Steinberg decided to make annual brain health seminars a mandatory part of his core practice. He’s had 16 to date, focused on awareness, prevention, and cure. Steinberg has asked himself whether he’s an enabler of this problem, given his continued representation of athletes, but he believes he is bringing value by working to solve this problem. Educating his players about the dangers of concussion is just one way Steinberg has mentored 300+ athletes during a 46-year+ career as CEO of Steinberg Sports & Entertainment. He’s represented some of the biggest names in football, baseball, basketball, boxing and Olympic sports securing more than $3 billion for his pro athletes and directing more than $750 million to charities around the world. Steinberg also requires all of his athletes to create structured plans to consistently give back to their communities as a way of life. Steinberg's blue chip clients include the number one overall pick in the NFL draft for an unprecedented eight times in conjunction with 64 total first round picks. He has represented notable athletes, such as Troy Aikman, Steve Young, Patrick Mahomes, Oscar De La Hoya, and Lennox Lewis, as well as multiple Olympians and professional teams. Steinberg also helps his clients identify their post-retirement second careers and requires them to give back to their communities. The inspiration for Tom Cruise in the Cameron Crowe written and directed movie Jerry Maguire (co-starring Cuba Gooding Jr., in an iconic Oscar-winning supporting actor role), Steinberg has overcome tremendous personal adversity including bankruptcy, a decade-long bout of alcoholism, and run-ins with the law. He says he has since recovered from his financial and emotional crises, been sober for more than ten years, and speaks openly of his alcoholism as a way to help others. “Look, to confront the cravings that come with addiction, it really is necessary in most people's lives to hit bottom, whatever you perceive that bottom is,” says Steinberg. “Your life is so unacceptable that you cannot continue like that.” Steinberg is focused on helping athletes engage in the Black Lives Matter conversations and adapting to COVID-19, especially coming to terms with the prospect of playing and winning in empty stadiums. “In football, for example, we had a draft that cut off the scouting process at a certain point. So it required adaptation and using Zoom to interact with teams, or in the case of a client, we had Tua Tagovailoa taping a workout in a pro passing day that would normally have been done in-person. And the first key and priority is safety, obviously. And none of us really know how the pandemic will play out over time, so we're trying to be sensitive to that,” Steinberg says. “And so for the first time, we're going to have baseball and basketball and hockey with no fans. So that will be different. First of all, it has an economic impact because gate is a large part of the gross revenue. And second of all, we don't know, since performance seems to be tied into home field advantage and stadia filled with screaming fans, we don't know what effect it'll have on the quality of the play.” Read the Transcript Download the PDF Chitra Ragavan: Leigh Steinberg was about a decade into his career as a sports agent when he ha...