BLITZ Magazine Demo

I n retrospect, Steinberg should have expected such pageantry. He’d just helped Bartkowski sign a contract with the Falcons worth $600,000, the biggest in pro football history at that time. Still, it’s easy to understand Steinberg’s naiveté. It was the first deal he had ever negotiated. “I looked at him probably the way Dorothy looked at Todo when they got to Munchkin Land and said, ‘I guess we’re not in California anymore,’” Steinberg said with a laugh. Before Bartkowski—an old dorm mate of Steinberg’s from UC Berkeley—called him asking for representation, Steinberg had never given any serious thought to being a sports agent. He was a law school graduate with no experience, lying at home battling back a case of dysentery he’d caught courtesy of an ill-advised leap into the Nile while traveling the world after graduation. In fact, the concept of football agentry was only in its infancy at that time. Before 1977, players had no guaranteed right of representation. “At that time, most players were represented by their parents or themselves,” Steinberg said. “A GM could slam the phone down and say, ‘We don’t deal with agents.’” Steinberg recalled an anecdote about Jim Ringo and Vince Lombardi to illustrate the point. Ringo had called Lombardi to tell him he’d secured an agent, and Lombardi asked for a moment, during which he promptly picked up another phone and traded Ringo to Philadelphia. “It was a very hostile world to the concept of agentry,” Steinberg said. Since the day he secured Bartkowski’s deal, Steinberg has negotiated what he can only estimate as “multiple billions of dollars” worth of NFL contracts. He’s broken his own record for the biggest contract in NFL history on several occasions, represented the first pick in the draft eight different years, and written a best-selling book, Winning with Integrity. Steinberg has also served as a technical consultant on Hollywood projects like Any Given Sunday, HBO’s Arli$$, and is recognized by many as being the main inspiration for the Cameron Crowe film Jerry Maguire, though he balks at taking too much of the credit. “It’s Cameron’s movie,” Steinberg said. “He wrote it. I don’t think it’s right for someone to claim that they were Jerry Maguire.” But in many ways, Steinberg quite literally was Jerry Maguire. Crowe began shadowing Steinberg in 1993 to pick up atmosphere for the movie, following the agent to the draft and to league meetings. He watched Steinberg counsel, schmooze and negotiate. The film crew even 90 Full All Out BLITZ

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of BLITZ Magazine Demo

BLITZ Magazine Demo Publisher’s Letter Legends of the Fall: Jim Brown Pre-Game Safety Warning The History of Fantasy Football Phoenix Rising Miracle Worker The Real Jerry Maguire: How Leigh Steinberg Revolutionized the Role of Football Agents Who Is the Big Kid? Post Game

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.