Everybody strives to get the top jobs in the sports media industry, but they might not always be ready for it. It’s okay to dream big, but sometimes a person needs someone in their corner to tell them they aren’t ready for the job just yet. It can be a tough thing for a person’s agent to do sometimes, but somebody has to do it.
On the latest episode of the Sports Business Radio podcast, the CEO of The Montag Group, Sandy Montag, was the featured guest and he talked about how the hardest thing to do when representing a client is managing their expectations.
“The hardest thing in client management and client representation is managing expectations. You’re really going to get into trouble if you just yes all of your clients. I always believe you have to be open and honest. There are times when a client would come to me and say I want you to get me the host of the Today Show and there’s no way that that person is going to get a job like that. There have been a lot of difficult conversations where you say no, we don’t believe you will be able to get that. That’s not realistic. It’s hard to represent someone if you are not on the same page and if you don’t have the same beliefs and sets of goals/expectations.”
Montag has had some famous clients in his agency such as the late John Madden, Jim Nantz, Bob Costas, and Scott Van Pelt among others. All he knows is the client wants the truth from him, no matter how tough the truth that might be.
“My clients want the truth from me. They want to know if they aren’t doing a good job at something or if they think they may be up for a job that may come open and they aren’t going to be on the list. It’s really important to have that relationship where you can not be intimidated and just can have an open, honest dialogue with your clients about expectations.”
As for the future of the media industry, Montag is seeing how much the A broadcaster can get because of how they can relate to their audience and that the alternate broadcast can be a new way to look at games:
“If you look at the amount of money though in media and you have Amazon, Apple, Netflix. I think the amount of money that is going into media is finally really transcending into what A broadcasters can get and I think networks are realizing people are tuning in to games and you really want people who you can relate to. It’s just interesting the last couple of years where salaries have gone.”
“I just think with people’s attention span today, the alternative broadcast is really an interesting way to look at games. I think it was interesting that ESPN would have two different broadcasts for the same game. The way they looked at it, if you can have the total audience between ESPN and ESPN2 for the same game, then it’s a win for Disney.”
