[MUSIC] Welcome back we have with us today Jeff Schwartz. Welcome Jeff, thanks for being with us. >> Thank you. Thanks for having me. We're here to talk about the explosive growth of your wonderful agency, Excel Sports. Please take us back to the beginning, how did it start? And give us some of the background that leads you to where you are as the preeminent certainly NBA agent, and now baseball and golf, with Mark Steinberg and Casey Close. Take us through beginning middle, end. Great story for our students to hear. >> Absolutely. So I started at Excel in 2002. I had been working in Hollywood at a large entertainment company running the sports there and I decided that I really wanted to create something in the vision that I had. So opened Excel with about four clients, three basketball players and one tennis player, because I had worked in tennis for many years. But really wanted to focus Excel on basketball. So between 2002 and 2011, for about nine years, I kept my head down and I recruited and represented basketball players solely. In the very beginning, it was really hard for me because every time I tried to go sign a basketball player, another agent would say he's a tennis agent. He doesn't know anything about basketball. >> [LAUGH] >> So for me, it was really just continuing to put one foot in front of the other. And my biggest break came was in the beginning when I first opened up my company, I was able to sign three marquee names, Jason [INAUDIBLE], Paul Pierce, and Lamar Odom. And those three guys really gave a lot of credibility to be able sign the next guys that I [INAUDIBLE]. Excuse me. They gave me a lot of credibility to sign the next guys. So from that point forward he was he signed guys and and I continue to do that and about basketball. And then in 2011 I got the opportunity to bring two friends of mine in Casey Close and Mark Steinberg, and get into two other sports, baseball and golf. >> We're talking about building a career in the long trajectory. You're, if I may, a super agent at this point and more dollars under management than any other NBA agency. Can we just focus on Paul Pierce? We talk about earlier on extending that brand throughout a long career and how you've done that for Paul? Let's just stay with him for a minute if you would please? >> No problem. Look, part of what I think about when I'm representing, whether we're staring with them, if they're 18 years old, if they're 21 years old or 24 years old. Whatever that might be. What I'm going to do, think long term to build their brand. I always think about it. I'd rather pass on short term dollars for someone, and think about what's gonna be the right moves for them to grow their brand and create something for them, that when they're done playing, their post careers is as dignified as their playing career. And I always try to keep that in mind. So Paul, he had a number of opportunities to move out of Boston when they weren't, when they were kind of in the doghouse, when they were one of the worst teams in the NBA. For him and for me it was, let's dick it out with the Celtics because we know they're gonna turn it around. And for your legacy and your ability to build your brand, being on the same team for your whole career is something very special that only a handful of players in any sport are able to do. And I think for him it paid dividends off the court staying with the Celtics. Obviously they added Kevin Garnet and Ray Allen and they won the Championship, and then for the next five years they were one of the elites and got to the finals. But [INAUDIBLE]. Having that following and that legacy in Boston allowed us to do a lot of other things in the Boston community, in New England, but also nationally. >> And we talk about, just to stay with Paul, the crisis situation. You become a crisis manager, you become the 911 call when he had the terrible stabbing incident. >> Absolutely. So, I can't remember exactly what year that was, but I wanna say it was around 2002 or 2003. I remember the phone ringing off the hook. I was living in Los Angeles at the time. And I woke up and I actually turned the television on before I returned [INAUDIBLE] because the phone woke me out of my sleep. I turned the TV on. I saw on the ticker, Paul Pierce stabbed. I don't think it said fatally, but it's something close to that. So, I'm on the phone and found out that the night before he'd been in a night club and hit over the head with a champagne bottle and then stabbed, I think eight times. It was so bad the homicide detectives were there. They luckily took him to the closest hospital, which was Tufts New England Medical Hospital, which was very near the club he was in. And, luckily for him, he had this thick leather jacket on, that actually probably saved him. He was at the hospital, and they performed which back then, this was still on the cutting edge, minimally invasive surgery. So they went in through his belly button, sewed him up, took care of him and miraculously he missed none of the season, was an all star, was one of the best players in the league. But from that moment, Paul got very interested in minimally invasive surgery and we struck a relationship with Tufts New England Medical Hospital where they liked him so much as a person, we turned a terrible moment into a situation where they decided to use him in advertising. And so Paul did some endorsements for them, mostly print, I think some local television. But we took it one step further. Where Paul just said that he was gonna help the hospital fund raise, and he's the chairman of a fundraising effort for a new wing that they wanted to raise in the hospital. They raised all of this money and now if you go by the Tufts New England Medical, it's called the Paul Pierce Minimally Invasive Surgical wing. And so we turned that bad situation to actually something positive for Paul. >> I remember you told me once, Paul Pierce said, I'll know you love me if when I call you at 4:30, you call me back. And if you don't, then I'm going to the next agent down the line Is that what you mean about making each client your only client, or feel like it? >> Absolutely. Yeah, Paul? Paul's a, Paul's a real jokester, and >> [LAUGH] >> Let's see, Paul has been with me for 15, almost 16 years. First half of our life together, he literally would call me at about 4 in the morning to see if I'd answer the phone. >> [LAUGH] >> Most times I'd be sound asleep, and I'd call him back at 8 in the morning, and he'd say, too late, I'm dead. >> [LAUGH] >> And he'd hang up on me. >> [LAUGH] And I say when I talked to him later in the day I'd say, why do you do that? I just wanna make sure that you're working. I want you to know that I, 24 hours a day you have to be working for me. >> [LAUGH] Well let's stay with best way. So many, you have the marquee list, let's stay with Blake Griffin and the famous Kia endorsement, product endorsement deal. How that came about. >> It's actually a funny one. There's a woman in my office named Jamie Messler who heads up all our marketing for the company, she's our CMO. And about, this would be three years ago now, Blake called her and said you know, I'm going to do the slam dunk contest and I think [INAUDIBLE] bring over a car, and Jamie thought he was joking, but he sounded serious. So she hung up the phone and she said well let me think if I could get a sponsor involved in this situation. So Kia, being one of the NBA's large, you know, global partners. She called Kia and said I got this idea, Blake Griffin's gonna do the slam dunk contest. How would you like yours to be the car on the court that he jumps over? >> [LAUGH] >> So, they actually went back, talked about it and said, what a great idea, we love it. The only problem is that slam dunk contest is put on by Sprite. It's Sprite's night at All Star Weekend. So we had to do a lot of negotiating between the NBA, Sprite and Kia to get The NBA and Sprite to allow Kia to be on the floor. And if you look back at that commercial now, you'll see or that night, Kia is on the side of the door. Excuse me Sprite's on the side of the door on the car. >> [LAUGH] >> So the whole idea was Blake would do it, we'd film it, they'd film it and we'd see how well it came out. Well everything lined up and went perfectly. Blake jumped over the car, the way they filmed it was fantastic. And from that moment on, that one dunk led Kia to say, you know what we'd like to use him in some more advertising. And first it went from a domestic deal to a multi-year global deal with Kia and the greatest thing about that is it's very authentic to Blake's personality. Blake believe himself to be a comedian is actually pretty funny he has great comedic timing. So he works with them, and works with their writers and the director to come up with the concepts and the evolution of the commercial. So it's been a fantastic relationship. >> You know we talk about overexposing perhaps. I don't want to name names, but some people, it seems like they have every category. With a Blake Griffin, just stay with him. Do you bring him deals, and he says, oh, that's not authentic, I don't want to be in that category. >> Absolutely, Blake is very particular about what he wants to do. And as his career has advanced, he's less interested in doing things that are not authentic to him. So more deals pass by him than deals he accepts. And in fact, I'd say he's probably not really doing any more endorsements than he currently has. I'm sure there will be something again that comes along and he'll be excited about it. But yes and for me I always was think about with guys [INAUDIBLE] overexposed I do want them to have proper interviews to do television, social media, digital content, print. But I also wanna be very careful on what we have them do. And I wanted make sure that it is something that they are interested in doing because I think it's hard to fake it. I think you can tell if somebody wants to be involved in something, or somebody does not want to be involved in something. [SOUND]
