Sports agent Leigh Steinberg’s annual Super Bowl Eve bash is approaching, and the calls are pouring in.
“Bill Nelson, the (Florida) senator, called today and wants to bring ‘no more’ than 10 senators,” Steinberg says. “Jessica Simpson and Nicholas Lachey, can they come? They’re friends of Ben (Roethlisberger, Steinberg’s NFL Rookie of the Year client).”
Politicians, rock stars, athletes, team owners, captains of industry, celebrities and anyone who pays several hundred dollars for a ticket online are set to be among the “2,500 of our closest friends” partying with Steinberg in Jacksonville, Fla.’s Times Union Performing Arts Center.
“The last three winners of ‘American Idol,'” Steinberg says, continuing to click off the expected attendees. “I’d like to get some of the ‘Desperate Housewives’ cast ”
In case there was any doubt, Steinberg is back,with an agency that again is on the rise and projects that include TV reality shows, an Olympic training facility in China and a Pakistani professional cricket league.
It’s been four years since the devastating breakup of Steinberg’s trendsetting Newport Beach agency, Steinberg Moorad & Dunn Inc., and more than two years since the resulting court showdown with former business partner David Dunn.
The trial ended in vindication for Steinberg, but at the price of humiliation over allegations,hotly denied,of his destructive behavior.
“We had some sort of greedy, self-serving attorneys who were trying to make a fast steal,” Steinberg says. “The jury told them what they thought of them.”
Like the “Jerry Maguire” movie character Steinberg helped to inspire, he has regrouped and rediscovered the joys of his job.
New Firm
His new firm,Steinberg, Tollner & Moon,has 13 workers handling about 50 clients. That’s only about a third as many as in the old days, when Jeff Moorad had the baseball players to go along with Steinberg and Dunn’s football stars and other athletes.
But Steinberg says he never wants to be that big again,”part of the fun is personal relationships, and we were so large.”
And, besides, Steinberg says he sees the game shifting from amassing clients to providing entertainment.
“Our business has moved to content supply for television, for movies, for the Internet,” Steinberg says.
Hence his discussions with TV executives about reality shows centered around the lives of superstars and agents. One idea is for Steinberg to play a Donald Trump type, with apprentices competing for a job in his agency.
Steinberg’s global ambitions are biggest in China. He has plans for a sports academy there. He counsels the Chinese Olympic Committee as it prepares to host the 2008 Games. And he lectures on sports marketing,Beijing University has asked him to write a textbook on the subject.
Last September, Steinberg helped put together an international benefit at the Great Wall featuring Alicia Keys, Boyz II Men, Cyndi Lauper and other performers.
“I’m Bill Graham,” Steinberg kids, in reference to the late music promoter.
He’s definitely Leigh Steinberg,he’s hawking the concert’s TV and DVD rights.
Steinberg first visited China in 2002 as part of the agent scramble to sign basketball sensation Yao Ming. Steinberg lost out, but saw other opportunities in a booming country he thinks is destined to become “the dominant world economic power.”
He also discovered that whatever problems he was having at home, in China his accomplishments preceded him:
“They all knew about ‘Jerry Maguire,'” he says. “The Internet is an interesting thing. They knew about my clients. They sell American DVDs on the street there. They do have an awareness of American sport and an appreciation for American business.”
Steinberg says he met the eclectic and well-connected Eugene Lou, a Chinese-American musical prodigy who grew up in China, taught music at University of Redlands and then returned to China to get in on the building boom. Steinberg says he also recruited a worker from China.
The result: Steinberg, Lee & Lou, with offices in the Forbidden City. They’re currently securing naming rights for stadiums, arenas and other venues, he says.
Back in the U.S., Steinberg’s activities include advising Jockeys Management Group, the marketing arm of leading horse jockeys, and working with the inventor of a long-distance golf driver.
“It has a real wallop,” Steinberg assures.
But his million-dollar baby is Roethlisberger, the quarterback sensation who won 13 straight games in guiding the Pittsburgh Steelers to the AFC championship game.
Steinberg’s agency beat out Dunn to sign the Miami of Ohio star. Steinberg says the courtship with the Roethlisberger family was a team effort involving each of his new partners,former NFL quarterback Warren Moon; former Cal quarterback Ryan Tollner; and Ryan’s cousin Bruce Tollner, son of longtime college and pro football coach Ted Tollner.
Steinberg says he soft-peddled Roethlisberger’s endorsements during the football season so the rookie could concentrate on mastering the pro game.
Still, Steinberg figures his client already has made about $700,000 from Pittsburgh-area sales of his T-shirts and Big Ben’s Beef Jerky, royalties from Campbell Soup Co. and Nike Inc., and a small share of his NFL-leading jersey sales.
“This off-season we’ll go ahead and entertain what we deflected during the season,” Steinberg says.
As he has done with every star client, Steinberg has Roethlisberger donating to image-burnishing causes. Roethlisberger has made donations to tsunami relief, as have Steinberg and his wife, Lucy.
But Roethlisberger also points up the changing times.
Steinberg got his start in 1975 by negotiating for his University of California, Berkeley, dorm mate, quarterback Steve Bartkowski. He eventually represented half of the starting quarterbacks in the NFL.
Now, Roethlisberger is Steinberg’s only starting quarterback, and he’s young enough to be his son.
“I’m probably not spending as many late nights on the party scene with this new group of players,” Steinberg says with a chuckle.
More Reserved
Indeed, the Super Bowl bash aside, Steinberg appears more reserved these days. Legendary for showing up at signings in jeans and flip-flops, Steinberg now is prone to wear a suit. (His casual dress was an issue at the Dunn trial.)
Given to weight fluctuations, he’s now almost gaunt, about 40 pounds below his heaviest. Steinberg says 25 to 30 of the lost pounds are good, resulting from his workouts with a personal trainer. The rest, he says, represents a “sympathy” weight loss,his father Warren died from cancer last year.
Steinberg is reflective when recounting the rise and fall of his old agency, which he sold in 1999 to Canadian Marty Weinberg’s financial planning company, Assante Corp.
Equity partners Steinberg and Moorad split a $100 million payday. They and Dunn continued to run the agency for Assante.
“It’s hard to know how critically important autonomy is until it’s lost,” Steinberg says.
Within two years, a disgruntled Dunn bolted, taking 50 athletes with him and prompting other clients to leave for other agencies.
A court battle ensued, with Steinberg alleging breach of contract and Dunn contending he escaped a hostile work environment caused by Steinberg’s drinking and boorish behavior.
The jury came down hard on Dunn, ordering him to pay owner Assante close to $45 million, including $22 million in punitive damages.
“It was not a fun time,” Steinberg says. “I had mentored younger attorneys and they were tempted by large dollars, but the court battle turned out very heavily in our favor.”
While Dunn has filed for bankruptcy, his Newport Beach agency Athletes First continues to command a star clientele, including the NFL’s top 2003 draftee, USC quarterback Carson Palmer, who was signed by the Cincinnati Bengals.
Moorad has switched jobs and now is chief executive of the Arizona Diamondbacks baseball team.
Moorad’s former practice, which has 40 ballplayers, including Manny Ramirez and Shawn Green, is run by lawyer Greg Genske. It recently changed its name to Legacy Sports Group (Steinberg says he finds the “LS” initials curious).
Steinberg repurchased his practice from Assante. He moved, but not far,from the eighth floor of 500 Newport Center Drive where Legacy remains, and into the 10th floor of nearby 660 Newport Center Drive.
You might call it a Hollywood ending.
“We have a very happy firm now, a happy time, great clients, and everything is rosy,” Steinberg says.
