Starting your own sports agency is relatively simple. The first thing you need to do is to register your business with the township, city, county, or state that you live in. Normally, you can find information on how to register your business with your state’s secretary of state office. Depending on the jurisdiction where you want to register your business at, you may just need to register with the township, city, or county. Come up with a “business name” that you would like to use for your company. Secondly, you need to register in the states that you would like to work in as an athlete agent. Keep in mind that some states don’t regulate athlete agents while other states are part of the Uniform Athlete Agents Act.
For example, let’s say you live in Alabama and don’t plan on recruiting athletes from any other state. In this case, you would just have to register as an athlete agent with the state of Alabama. If you want to recruit in other states besides Alabama, then you would need to register as an athlete agent in those respective states. Additionally, you may not want to register in a particular state until you think you can sign a potential client from the respective state. The reason behind this philosophy is so that you don’t spend money on registration fees unless you absolutely have to!
Once you registered as an athlete agent in a state or various states, you need to become “certified.” Depending on the sport(s) you would like to work with as an athlete agent, you will need to register with the respective players’ associations. If you want to work with basketball players and represent players in the NBA, then you will need to contact the National Basketball Players’ Association and request an application for agent certification. Upon being certified with the NBPA, you are now allowed to represent players in the NBA and negotiate contracts with NBA teams.
Depending on how small or large your business is, you may work from home. Many agents work out of their home office. It is not necessary to get an office and create overhead.
In addition:
- Get a website, nice logo and domain name to launch the site on. You need a website!
- Set up all social media accounts. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. Be known in the industry, post on happenings around the league or leagues you want to represent athletes in.
- Business cards, they still work and are easy to hand out.