Agent expressions explained

When working as an agent, one realises that there exists a different type of language, or at least some expressions that often needs to be explained. In order to shed some light on this subject I have made a little parleur:

Double potting:
Is an expression that comes in effect when the agent is selling a player to a team. He then charges the player an agent fee of example 5-10% and additional he charges the club, which the player has signed with a fee.

This is a common way for the agents to get more money, we did it as well in my previous agencies, most in EMG though. In my mind it is wrong to charge this fee from both sides and should not be legal. Either you work for the player or you work for the team.

However I do sometimes get teams to pay the players agent fee as there is a tax beneficiary part in that. More explained in agent tax (below).

Agent tax: 
When I sell a player to a team, I work for the player and he will pay an agent fee to me. However if I sell the player to a team in an European Union, I can ask the team if they will cover the agent fee. A good example is a player making € 40000 net a season on a 8 month contract (€5000 a month), would have to pay me € 2000 + Danish VAT of 25% (€ 500), equalling a fee of € 2500.

The player has to pay the VAT as I sell a service to a private person and not a company. But if the team pays the fee they can get the fee without tax, as they are a company. So in order for the player to save money he will now get this 2000 spread out over the 8 month of his contract, it will then be deducted from his salary with € 250 a month, giving him € 4750 a month. The team will then pay the € 2000 to me without tax.

1st and 2nd price:
When I have a player that want to move to a new league, I ask him to provide some info for me. An important factor is the players price, as he wants to make a lot of money... Lets face it, it's the truth! So I ask him for a minimum price, he then tells me a price of example € 30000 although I know he will accept € 25000. Sometimes some players do just not get the satisfactory offers they want and will have to accept second price, if they want a contract. I know that players if they desire to switch team enough will do it. However I try not to take advantage of this knowledge.

Team price:
When I put a player on my saleslist for teams, I do not write the asking price. I will in all times want to have the teams come up with a number they would be able to pay for the player. Some teams demand to know how much the player in question want, and I tell them a price well aware that it might be too high. However I need to get the negotiation in my end and get the teams to tell exactly what they can afford. If it is much lower than my player demands (even under 2nd price), I will tell them we need to move on to a new player. Now I know their budget and the type of player they want.

AC - Addendum Contract:
AC is an expression I heard when selling in Great Britain, where there is a salary cap. Here you gotta think in other ways in order to avoid the cap. So some players get a marketing fee, photo fee, could even be a benfit for the wife, like gym card, restaurant meals, ski pass etc. The AC is an important tool in crisis times, because players will be more willing to sign the contracts if they still feel they are being well taken care of in all ways, if the salary is low compared to their expectations.

Recruiting the dot:
This is something many new agents use when they recruit players. I have seen and heard many that promise players they can get them € 50000, when I have told them max € 40000. But when we reach august or september these guys are still free agents and stuck with a lousy agent. Sometimes these agents get lucky and sell a player at a high price, but when the player is not playing like a € 50000 player, this again reflects bad on the agent. So to the many players that get proposals from agents, be aware, be realistic and think before signing the dotted line.

Selling multiple:
Sometimes you as agent get a call or an email from a NHL player. "Hey, my name is xxx xxx I want to go to Europe, 100% sure, so can you help me". You then get the rush and hell yeah. However you as agent know that the player is being represented by several agents and the one agent that get him a deal, he will stay with.  when getting a client of high caliber, still sell him even though aware that he has other agents.

This was a walkthrough of some of the expressions you could run into in coming news.

My Career Part 2

After splitting up with Oliver, I now had to make the setup with Flemming a reality and we started a a company called Elite Management Group in start 2008. Flemming was a bit more experienced, than those I had previously worked with as he used to be tied with the Octagon group. He had his own agency as well as I did and had some good sales in Europe. However the last couple of years, he hadn't acted as agent, so I kinda gave him an open welcome and had a setup ready.

EMG was formed and we started our work, again I was to cover Scandinavia and Flemming would take the Central European market. It worked good we did make some very good sales and I learned a lot from Flemming. In 2009 our idea of expanding into other areas became a reality, since we got the agency for the brands Busch, Warrior and Salming in Denmark. 

In 2009 landed a deal with a Danish team, that wanted our help, it included selling equipment, participating in the build of the Elite team. I quickly went in charge of recruiting and got a really good and eager young coach, 4 North American players, 2 Dmen and 2 forwards. They got a young goalie and a bunch of talented young players, in reality it was a very nice team, a team I was overly proud of. However faith wanted things different and by the start of the season this team had to file bankrupt. 

It was a huge blow for our company as we had a large pile of bills for equipment and had to find new places for over 10 players and the coach... Not easy in mid september, when all EU teams are filled in all positions and injury free. 

This happening pretty much led me to a decision, I wanted out! Or I didn't want to sell equipment, I felt it was troublesome. We had no stock, we had troubles paying on time and our prices was too low. Flemming however felt this was his calling and decided that we should still do equipment, he could in other ways, have said; "I'll do it, goodbye". 

But we did part ways and is now working in seperate agencies. I am very happy to be free of ties to other agents, and feel ready once again to take charge of Europe. So if I am to put it short, the years with Oliver and Stan was very useful and we did a good job for many players. We stayed true to each other and kept a good relation with clients except at the very end.  The years with Flemming was very educational as we both had some good visions. However it got to be too tough, as he was very hard to work with, mostly it was his way or no way. 

Elite Agent Soren Schwartz is my new agency as of 1st January 2010. I will have a very limited number of clients mostly from North America, Latvia and Sweden. I have no plans on making partnerships, but want to pursue options on my own. 

If you as reader of this blog have any questions to my writing, thoughts or possible ideas feel free to leave a comment :-)

My Career Part 1

After a long row of years as an agent, I have now well over 200 negotiated deals on my resume. I have spent countless hours on sale and service of clients.

Many people ask me how I got started and that sounds exciting. Well being a hockey agent is nothing like the movie Jerry McGuire. I've decided to write a bit of history review from the day I started to present time.

My career actually started when I was attending a hockey game with my hometown team Rødovre in Denmark, where one my best friends was up in the red area, as "our" team was playing really bad. He said; "Damn, I wish somebody would just sell some good players to Rødovre". My friend however didn't realise he had just kicked me in the behind and started a journey for me. This was back in 2001-2002 season, so I spent the start of the year 2002 researching what was needed in order to make a hockey agency. After six months time, I opened my hockey agency, called Schwartz Hockey Management.

(Funny site: Try searching the Internet Archive Wayback Machine for Schwartz Hockey and you'll see how many different websites I have had).

From 1st of June 2002 to 31st of December 2007, I was the managing director of SHM as we shortened the company. I quickly got a German partner in the company, a fellow called Oliver Janz. He was gonna cover the Central European markets, so I could focus more on Scandinavia. So at the start of 2003 we was getting known as the rookies in the market. I am sure a lot of teams took advantage of us being new and really wanted the sales. So we lowered prices on players in order to get in and then if our clients played as we expected, a payraise wasn't hard to get.

In 2003 Oliver and I got contacted by a man called Stan Karbowiak from Canada. He wanted to help us in North America, a place we hadn't spent any time on. Stan got a job in SHM and the three of us made a good impact on the European market selling lots of players. We aimed at minor leagues in North America and the secondary leagues in Europe.

I had one of my first sales in Lubomir Pisar, which was a young and very talented goalie. He had just finished playing in WJC U20 and was at age 20 a regular goalie in the strong Slovak Extraliga. He was playing in Martin, and I remember speaking to two other players, that told me that Lubos was the real deal, a had a huge talent. Lubos was actually splitting the time between the pipes with Peter Budaj (now in Colorado NHL), and if hadn't been for an injury my bet would have been Lubos in NHL.

Anyways he was interested in a deal with my agency and I got him to Aalborg in the Danish Elite in the next season 2003-04. He played impressively and was a very cheap alternative for them. I will not say his salary, however he was one of the worst paid imports in the whole league. After his season in Aalborg, I got him a really good deal in Frederikshavn, where Lubos after a couple of seasons wanted to be on his own.

In total we sold around 10 players in the first season, and then spent a lot of time getting in touch with many many more players. So in 2003-04 we was close to 80 clients and sold a little of 50 clients that year. In 2004-05 we had a good year and our name was very solid in Europe. Teams and players knew they could trust us and we got the job done, so sales increased to 55. The following year was the best I have ever had, sales was now up at around 75 clients.

However all good things must have an end. We started to have some internal problems in SHM, that led to Stan  leaving the company in 2006. After that Oliver got seriously ill and had troubles leaving his apartment, let alone work on the agency. Our name lost a lot of credibility and when I was approached by another agent called Flemming Jensen, I saw no other alternative than to leave Oliver. It was a tough deicision but a decision I had to make in order to save myself and if I wanted to continue as agent.

More will follow in part 2.

Blog launch

I'm back, this time I want to dedicate some time to this blog and give my input to the funny, serious, disgusting and hilarious world of hockey from an agents point of view. You see when I started my blog in 2008, I was working in an agency called EMG, however this time is luckily over now and I can finally say that I'm a free bird again. Now I can do as I please and write what I want. I only have to answer to myself, so expect this blog will come to live again...