20 Questions: Leigh Steinberg

Leigh Steinberg, former student-body president at the University of California at Berkeley and outspoken activist in protests against the draft and the Vietnam war in the Sixties, is the country's hottest sports agent, having negotiated more than $100,000,000 in contracts for his clients, mostly professional football players. At the same time, he has revolutionized the concept of being an agent for athletes. While he negotiated the largest contract in sports history--$40,000,000 for four years for Steve Young from the Los Angeles Express--he has also offered to take less money for clients if team owners would lower ticket prices. How does a former Berkeley radical reconcile his leftist politics with the cynical world of pro sports? Playboy sent Victoria and David Sheff to find out.

1.

[Q] Playboy: How did a nice guy like you get into a business like this?

[A] Steinberg: By accident. I certainly never planned to be a sports agent. I was always a sports fan--I grew up rooting for the Dodgers, the Rams, the Lakers and UCLA--but I was more interested in politics. I went to law school and was thinking of taking a job in the Alameda County district attorney's office when Steve Bartkowski called me.

[A] While I was working my way through law school at Berkeley, I was a dorm counselor at Norton Hall when they moved the football team into it. My job was to make sure there was at least one wall left standing by the end of the year. Steve was one of my students.

[A] I graduated in 1974 and traveled all over the world during that summer. When I got back to California, Bartkowski was the first player picked in the N.F.L. draft. He had an attorney, but he wasn't happy with him. He looked at a few people and it came down, fundamentally, to the question of trust. He called me because of that.

2.

[Q] Playboy: Describe your initiation into the world of sports negotiating.

[A] Steinberg: You have to understand that the Bay Area is not like the rest of the country. Bartkowski and I were in an environment where if you walked up to someone and said, "The basketball team just won the play-offs," he'd say, "That's great, if you're into that aggressive type of behavior." On the other hand, if you told him, "I just walked down by Strawberry Creek and had a long, introspective search and found myself," he'd throw his arms around you and say, "That's wonderful!"

[A] So Steve and I got off the plane in Atlanta at night, prepared to sign his contract the next day. But we simply weren't prepared for what was waiting for us. There were klieg lights flashing in the sky. We were whisked off the plane and reporters crowded around us. The next thing we heard was "We interrupt The Tonight Show to bring you a special news bulletin: Steve Bartkowski and his attorney have just arrived at the Atlanta airport. We switch you live for an in-depth interview." It was a level of adulation I had never seen before--and it was stunning. I realized the immense impact that athletes have on people's behavior.

3.

[Q] Playboy: What made you decide to become a full-time negotiator?

[A] Steinberg: We were sitting at a table, having negotiated a massive contract, and I had the feeling that everyone's interests had been represented except the fans' and, therefore, the long-term interests of the sport. I decided I didn't want to have the highest-priced players in a dying sport.

[A] I knew that it was becoming increasingly difficult for a family to go to a game. If somebody has never played sports himself nor seen them played live, it's hard to see how he can sustain interest in them. There's a very tender bond between fans and their sports idols. If we price fans out of the games, we're killing the sport.

[A] This is happening at a time when sports are thriving. In football, players' contracts went up about 26 percent from 1982 to 1983. A couple of years ago, players were averaging $80,000 a year, when basketball players were averaging $240,000 and baseball players $225,000. Now the football average is $126,000. Football teams do have larger rosters, but they also have vastly larger revenues. They can afford to make the games more accessible to their fans.

4.

[Q] Playboy: What's causing the dramatic increases in salaries?

[A] Steinberg: Several factors. The United States Football League is definitely the most important. Previously, the N.F.L. could draft a college senior and hold those draft rights until the following year. His only choices were to join the team that drafted him, miss a year of his career or go to Canada. Canadian teams do not have the revenues of N.F.L. teams, so they weren't able to compete, except in the cases of a few quarterbacks.

[A] The draft gives all the power to the teams. It's an outrageous infringement of players' rights. No one tells a journalism major that he has to write for the Schenectady Times.

5.

[Q] Playboy: But hasn't the free-agent system opened up economic bargaining in sports?

[A] Steinberg: In football, the team retains the right of first refusal, even though the player has already gone through his contract. He has to take the best other offer he can find back to the team for which he's been playing, and if it chooses to, it can match it and he has to stay. So the initial drafting team can keep him forever.

[A] The N.B.A. has a similar matching situation. In baseball, after six years, a player is allowed to be a free agent. But in football, the second deterrent to player movement is that the team signing the free agent must compensate the team that gives him up. Let's say Bartkowski plays through his contract and works out a deal with the San Francisco 49ers. First, he has to take the contract back to the Falcons, and they can match it and keep him. Second, if they choose not to match the offer, the 49ers have to pay compensation to them on the basis of draft choices. In the case of the quarterback, at the figures they're talking about, that would be two first-round players. No team will give that up. So the bottom line is that no one signs free agents.

6.

[Q] Playboy: The draft was supposed to encourage a balance of the best players on all teams. Without it, wouldn't all of the players flock to the big-money teams or to cities with warm weather?

[A] Steinberg: Only one quarterback can start for a team and only three are carried on the roster, so it's unlikely that 12 quarterbacks would end up on one team. Also, there are many people who grew up in places like Minnesota, who like hunting and fishing or want to live in a nonurban environment. No, the chief effect of the draft has been to keep players' salaries down.

[A] Incidentally, all drafts are found unconstitutional when they're challenged in court. They are allowed back only when the players' union agrees to such drafts during collective bargaining. The players have never had the power or the focus to get rid of the draft.

7.

[Q] Playboy: The players' union claims that teams in the N.F.L. have no economic incentive to compete for players because they receive such a high guaranteed revenue from television and they sell out their stadium whether they're winning or losing. How do you respond to that?

[A] Steinberg: Warren Moon was the only true free agent the league has ever seen. He came from Canada, so no team had right of first refusal and no compensation had to be paid by the signing team. Fourteen teams wanted him. Football is an immensely successful business. In the mid-Seventies, Tampa Bay and Seattle were sold for about $16,500,000 each. Ten years later, the Cowboys and the Broncos were sold for $80,000,000 and $70,000,000 respectively. In ten years, the value of a franchise in the N.F.L. had quadrupled or even quintupled.

[A] In 1976, the national-television contract gave each team $2,142,000 as its share of the TV revenue. This year, each team will receive $14,000,000 as its share of the contract. In two years, they'll receive $17,000,000. The point is that each team will receive more in one year in TV revenue than it cost to purchase an entire franchise ten years ago. With cable and pay TV, the N.F.L. has projections that show that the share may rise to $30,000,000 a year by 1990. The teams can afford to compete. I don't feel undue sympathy for the owners.

8.

[Q] Playboy: Did Steve Young have second thoughts about playing in the United States Football League?

[A] Steinberg: Steve grew up dreaming of playing in the N.F.L. Roger Staubach was his hero. That was a hard dream for him to surrender. But the L.A. Express owners had gone about building their team sensibly. They bought high-round draft picks. They put together a strong front line. Sid Gillman, the architect of the modern passing game, would be coaching Steve. So when the Express went to Steve, it was selling a football proposition. Obviously, the dollars stunned everyone--$40,000,000 over four years--but he made his choice from a football standpoint. He talked with Joe Namath and others who had trail-blazed the American Football League, which was a similar situation. He realized he could be a pioneer in a new league with the best coaching possible. He made the remark after he was signed that all he wanted to do was fix up his '65 Oldsmobile and be able to take his girlfriend out to dinner once a week. It's true. He is a remarkably unaffected young man and, frankly, somewhat oblivious to money.

9.

[Q] Playboy: Is Young or anybody else worth that much money?

[A] Steinberg: The money was worth it to the Express and the U.S.F.L. for a lot of reasons. The old A.F.L. was able to force a merger with the N.F.L. by signing the top box-office marquee players--mostly quarterbacks. They're the players who draw fans into the stands. Also, Steve is almost symbolic of the fight between the U.S.F.L. and the N.F.L. He's a clean-cut, young, nice-looking, articulate, all-American quarterback who set every record--traditionally, an N.F.L. type. By signing him, not only did the U.S.F.L. add a superlative quarterback and upgrade one team, it made a giant step in changing the entire league's image.

[A] The high figure was also justified because Los Angeles, as are Chicago and New York, is crucial to the league's television contract. It's very important to have high profiles in those major markets. Although he was signed by one team and one man, it was almost a league effort to sign Steve. The league decided that it needed the top quarterback.

10.

[Q] Playboy: How would you assess the U.S.F.L.'s future?

[A] Steinberg: It has a lot of things going for it. Its playing season is a major advantage. There are only so many Battles of the Celebrity Stewardesses that one can watch during the spring. It's a junk-sport time otherwise. On the other hand, the U.S.F.L. is probably responsible for the breakup of more marriages than anything else. I thought it was cruel and unusual punishment to extend the sports season to last year round. And, seriously, unlike the ill-fated World Football League, the U.S.F.L. has the television contract, which has already been renewed for next year, and it's already way ahead of the old A.F.L. after the same amount of time.

11.

[Q] Playboy: Since Bartkowski, how have you chosen your clients?

[A] Steinberg: With any potential client, I first try to get a sense of what his values are. I want to know his priorities: How does he rate short-term dollars, long-term dollars, family, geographical location, interest in starting, quality of coaching, second-career possibilities, endorsements? I don't take him if money is all he is interested in. I won't accept a client unless he is willing to use his high athletic profile to trigger a higher quality of life off the field. I also believe the athlete should retrace his steps. He should go back to the high school, collegiate and professional communities that helped shape him and reward those individuals and institutions that helped him. Thirty-two of my athletes have set up scholarships at their high schools. They repay their scholarships to their universities.

[A] I ask each athlete to find something especially troubling about the world to work on that will give him a good feeling. For each athlete it's different. Rolf Benirschke, the field-goal kicker for the Chargers, gives $50 for every field goal he kicks to the fund for endangered species at the San Diego Zoo. We then organize that community by forming a board of directors from economic, political, educational and media figures to push the program. We take posters with pledge cards all over the city. A kid can contribute a nickel a field goal. A corporation can contribute $1000 a field goal.

12.

[Q] Playboy: Doesn't that create a lot of pressure for a player to have a good year?

[A] Steinberg: Benirschke missed three field goals in one game and somebody said, "How many species have died now, Rolf?"

[A] I try to get athletes to understand that they live in a world surrounded by adulation--money, women who like them because they are athletes. They need to understand that living in a family and in a community where people care for and nourish one another provides the values that will stand the test of time and transcend an athletic experience. If they don't, they're setting themselves up for a terrible letdown after sports end.

13.

[Q] Playboy: Who can be an agent?

[A] Steinberg: In the N.F.L., there is a new accreditation procedure, but there is actually nothing required. The Hillside Strangler could be an agent. Although there are a lot of ethical people in the business, agentry has been fraught with abuses. It's against N.C.A.A. regulation, but agents will go to college campuses and talk with players who are still undergraduates and sign them to representation contracts after offering them money and cars. The regulation is that a player is not supposed to have an agent until his eligibility is up. But it wouldn't surprise me that as many as 50 percent of those going into the most recent draft had signed with agents early.

[A] A bright but unsophisticated athlete is regularly approached by hundreds of (continued on page 197)Leigh Steinberg(continued from page 130) agents. He is offered many inducements at a time when he has a standard of living that is worse than that of students who are not athletes. Athletes on full scholarship are not allowed to work during the school year, so they have no way to supplement their income. If an athlete comes from a less than well-to-do family, the scholarship check is not enough to do more than pay for room, board and subsistence living. If he comes from a disadvantaged family, he may be sending some of his scholarship money home. In other words, the inducement of a car or an apartment with your own room is very attractive. Athletes are almost set up to be bribed, in a sense. There was one case in which a player had signed with six agents and had taken money from each one of them.

[A] Although an agent can't sign the player to a binding contract while that eligibility is there, there are undated contracts and offers to contract made. There are all sorts of ruses used to get around the rules. Somehow, magically, the day after the last game of the players' senior year, they're all represented.

14.

[Q] Playboy: How did you know you could be a successful negotiator?

[A] Steinberg: I viewed it as a political problem. It was simply a matter of balancing interests. What happens in the negotiating room is vastly overrated. Leverage and research are the keys: understanding the needs of a team and the strength and value of the player. If there's enough demand, teams have to get competitive. A negotiation doesn't have to be an entirely adversarial relationship. It is not the most relaxing way to spend time, however. I am cognizant of what time it is at any point in a negotiation, what the expression on the face of the person I'm dealing with is saying. I can sit in a room with 15 people and, at each point, tell who is bored and who is interested. It's as if time is elongated; each second is like a minute. It's very intense. They say there are no old negotiators.

[A] Negotiations take all forms. They can be phone calls going back and forth over many months. They can be one session. The smoke-filled room with two people hammering at each other is rare. That's the way I did Steve Young's negotiation, though. Don Klosterman, general manager of the Los Angeles Express, and I started at nine o'clock one morning and ended at seven o'clock the next morning.

[A] I've done a lot of negotiating in my Berkeley and Los Angeles homes. George Young, the general manager of the New York Giants, negotiated a series of contracts out on my deck in Berkeley. I put managers out there in what I call the general-manager's chair and try to roast them into submission. In one negotiation, one of my players joked that we held a general manager in the hot tub until he acceded to our ludicrous demands.

15.

[Q] Playboy: Are there owners who are notoriously difficult to negotiate with?

[A] Steinberg: Yes. And I won't name them. The Minnesota Vikings have always been the toughest team to deal with. In the old days, St. Louis was really tough to deal with in football, and people wanted to stay away from dealing with those cities. St. Louis seems to be changing. Once, a general manager turned a desk over in my direction. I ran one of my fastest 40s to get out of that room.

16.

[Q] Playboy: What did your parents do?

[A] Steinberg: My father could have made a fortune as a restaurateur. My grandpa helped form Hillcrest Country Club in Los Angeles. I grew up on the laps of Jack Benny, George Burns and Groucho Marx. But my dad turned away from all that and decided to teach. My parents drove old cars when they could have afforded fancy new ones. They kept us in a modest house, even though they could have afforded a much nicer one, because ours was in an integrated neighborhood and they wanted us to live with different types of people.

17.

[Q] Playboy: What's your cut of your clients' contracts?

[A] Steinberg: [Laughs] Usually, I take 90 to 95 percent of the revenue and solve his tax problems that way. No, it varies. Generally, it tends to be around five percent of moneys as they come to the client.

18.

[Q] Playboy: Would negotiating football contracts help you negotiate in world politics?

[A] Steinberg: By all means. It's the same principle. I don't think the Russians or the Chinese have anything on the St. Louis Cardinals. The Dodgers' Al Campanis and Bob Walker could settle the nuclear-arms race in five minutes if they negotiated with the Russians the way they do with me.

19.

[Q] Playboy: You were selected by Cosmopolitan as one of the nation's most eligible bachelors and mentioned in the San Francisco Chronicle as the sexiest bachelor in the Bay Area. How has that affected your life?

[A] Steinberg: All those things turn up tons of letters. I got 11,000 letters from the Cosmopolitan thing. The first impression I had was that these are all desperately sad people. I mean, I got underwear in the mail and nude pictures and all. To me, that's an indication that our society isn't set up for single people. One day, I found a woman in my hot tub. Another time, a woman came up to me and flashed. I get baked goods in the mail, marriage proposals. It's pretty funny. On the other hand, some of the letters are from women who sound interesting and intelligent.

20.

[Q] Playboy: If you could switch places with one of your clients for a day, with whom would it be?

[A] Steinberg: I'd like to be quarterback for a winning New York or Los Angeles football team. I'd also love to play with the Dodgers. I'd switch with their relief pitcher Tom Niedenfuer in an instant.

"One of my players joked that we held a general manager in the hot tub until he acceded to our demands."