Playing the Money Game

THE Hula Bowl, a post-season game between two teams of graduating college all stars, drew a near-capacity crowd last January despite miserable weather. "The reason," says Charles Barnes, president of Sports Headliners, Inc., "was that the stands were packed with agents."

Barnes should know. He is one of the hustling businessmen who have created a whole new industry out of representing professional athletes. Like the other agents, Barnes flew to Honolulu for the Hula Bowl to bargain for some of those "six-figure packages" performing on the field. He ended up with the grand prize: Heisman Trophy Winner O.J. Simpson. "Chuck," said O.J. to his new agent after the game, "I thought you were going to put on a uniform and go out there and play flanker so you could talk to me in the huddle."

Barnes, who had been stalking Simpson ever since he saw him play in junior college, would have tackled him in the end zone, if necessary. The stakes are worth it; today a superstar like Simpson is not merely an athlete but a corporation. Last month, Barnes opened negotiations with the Buffalo Bills, the team that drafted Simpson, by demanding a three-year $600,000 contract, plus "a very substantial fringe benefit"--most probably a cut of the team's profits. Barnes, cried Bills Owner Ralph Wilson, "wants more money for Simpson than Buffalo netted in its last three years of operation."

And that's just the half of it--or more precisely, the quarter of it. By cashing in on a select few of the hundreds of requests for movies, books, testimonials and guest appearances, Barnes figures that O.J. will soon be earning three times as much as he will playing football. This summer, for instance, TV viewers will see Simpson break into the clear in a new Chevy, the first of a series of commercials for which Chevrolet is paying him a reported $250,000.

Had Simpson happened along a decade or two earlier, he would have been lucky if he had bus fare to the stadium. Mel Hein recalls the days when, as an all-pro center for the New York Giants, he was knocking down all of $150 for a game. "1938 was my big year. I got $150 for endorsing Mayflower Doughnuts. When I won the Most Valuable Player award, some pipe company sent me a set of pipes. Free!"

Everybody Calling. By contrast, Lew Alcindor, the 7-ft. 1/2in. U.C.L.A. All America center, has already been offered a 40,000-acre ranch stocked with 3,500 head of cattle, if he will please, please play in the fledgling American Basketball Association; that's in addition to the $1,000,000 he is expected to receive when he joins the pros. During his career, Ben Hogan earned less than $300,000 on the links. This year Arnold Palmer Enterprises will meet a payroll of more than $1,000,000, covering his interests in such businesses as dry cleaning, insurance, sportswear, motels, men's cosmetics, real estate and power tools.

Not that International Management, Inc., the agency that handles Palmer as well as Jack Nicklaus, is greedy. Recently Mark McCormack, the 39-year-old attorney who built International into the nation's largest player management company, turned down a suggestion for a chain of Arnold Palmer art galleries. "It didn't seem to make sense for Palmer to represent himself as an expert on art." What did make sense was arranging singing lessons for Gary Player, presumably in preparation for the day when Ed Sullivan calls. Everybody is calling for Jean-Claude Killy. Since signing the Olympic ski champion ten months ago, International has won him a thumping $2,000,000 in endorsements.

When it comes to negotiating contracts, many team owners feel that an agent's work adds up to a minus. "We spend $200,000 a year in evaluating talents," says the Houston Oilers' Don Klosterman, "and some uninformed agent is going to tell us what a player's worth? They're just parasites, in it for a fast buck."

The Boston Patriots and the San Francisco 49ers refuse to even talk to the "muscle hustlers." "That is handling players as if they were chattels," complains Marty Blackman, a 30-year-old lawyer whose Pro Sports Inc. handles 100 athletes. Actor Jim Brown, who feels he was exploited when he was an all-pro fullback for the Cleveland Browns, agrees. Two years ago, he organized the United Athletic Association to represent black athletes. Among his first clients was Leroy Kelly, who succeeded Brown at Cleveland as the league's leading ground gainer. At the time, Kelly was making $21,000 a year; last year Brown's firm negotiated a new contract that will pay the running back $320,000 over four years.

Often the toughest negotiating for an agent is in trying to land a star client. Some enlist the help of teammates with the promise that the agency will make a sizable contribution to the player's alma mater. Other agents play the wine-and-dine game. Halfback Chris Gilbert of the University of Texas felt he was being red-dogged by agents all season long. "If you even sounded interested," he says, "they'd get you anything you wanted. Pro Sports threw a party in New York for the All America team, and there must have been 40 airline stewardesses there--two for each guy."

"All we really want to do," says Agent Arnold Pinkney, "is take these athletes and teach them how to spin their first big buck." When spun by Jim Hand Enterprises, the variations are seemingly endless. Hand's boys, traveling in his fleet of new Jaguars and Cadillacs, are constantly on the move. Deacon Jones is taking dancing lessons in preparation for his Las Vegas nightclub act. There are the Lance Alworth dry-cleaning shops. The Donny Anderson boys' camp. The Rick Barry syndicated sports column. And, named according to regional fan interest, the Lance Alworth, Donny Anderson and Rick Barry restaurants and motels.

"Our only problem," says Hand, 31, who takes a 50% cut of the profits, "is that our athletes simply do not have the time to do all the things we can drum up for them." They're too busy being athletes, of all things.

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