Rich Paul packed out the room in a panel prior to the Atlanta Hawks‘ HBCU Night game on Feb. 23 against the Toronto Raptors. The Klutch Sports founder brought his Lucky Me: A Memoir of Changing the Odds book to the discussion and signed every single copy. Attendees included students from every HBCU in Atlanta and power entrepreneurs like Nehemiah Davis, Donni Wiggins, Pinky Cole, and Derrick Hayes.
Despite having one of the 10 most affluent sports agencies in the world, Paul said he still faces challenges in business.
“We’ve come a long way in our industry,” Paul said. “There’s people who came before me who had it a lot harder than I did. I really hit at the right spot when the business has changed for the better. But I’ll be honest with you: we still have so far to go because I still go in rooms, even as accomplished as I am, and for whatever reason, people are just not comfortable with allowing me to work a job alongside them or with them representing their son — whether it’s because they don’t like the fact that I wear earrings, [a] LeBron issue, or just traumatized from being okay with being represented by somebody who looks like them.”
Paul then said the issue goes deeper than his job as an agent.
“We come from an environment where everybody’s always trying to count how much money you’re making off of them,” Paul said. “Whether you’re washing cars, cutting the yard, or doing a substantial job. To me, it comes from a lack of experience at a young age. A lot international players will come over here, they’re well-traveled in terms of their company and etiquette from a business perspective and understand how business actually works. We spend more time trying to talk somebody out of charging us than we do actually valuing the work they [did] and paying them for the work [they] did.”
The CEO then gave a deeper look into the reality of his current career status.
“You would think there’s a line down the street of athletes who want to be represented by Rich Paul and us,” he said, “by the grace of God, we got here, but it was extremely challenging.”
An agent who faced the “Rich Paul Rule,” which was going to require all NBA agents to have a degree, said he would look to people who have worked in the service industry over someone with experience at similar companies when hiring at Klutch Sports.
“We’re in a service industry,” he said. “Go work at Applebee’s for two years or a year and a half. You’ll be much further ahead than if you went to Penn to be in our business. There’s no textbook that shows you how to deal with somebody.”
