He was effectively bought out as part of this transaction. The shares were held in trust This article is more than 10 years old. Andrew 'Chubby' Chandler relinquished control of most of management firm ISM the day before his players began winning major tournaments. Photograph: Christopher Thomond. Reuse this content.
Eddie has completely revitalised the British boxing scene and what Barry has done with the darts is staggering.
They would be the closest to McCormack. How important would you say that the role of the agent or manager is in modern sport? The difference being that a manager manages and mentors, whereas an agent just gets them commercial deals. Sure we get deals but we do so much more. He mentors them. I think that we are very important to some people. When I played I wanted a manager because I wanted to say that I had a manager, and there are people nowadays who want a manager for the status as opposed to actually needing a manager.
I am very careful when young people come to see me now because some of them just want cash or invitations but forget that it is actually them playing that makes them successful in the end. I never say no to a chat but when you realise that all they want is to see how much money we will give them I am less interested — I always go low to ensure that we are not the ones that discover! We are lucky enough that enough good players come to me and you can detect those, and work your way forward with them.
What are the mistakes that you feel that have shaped you for the better over your career? Number one, because of the way it all started with Darren and Lee, I took on too much responsibility. So I think that you disperse the load a little bit more because at one stage we were doing absolutely everything and you are not qualified to do it all. When you start out you want to keep a hold of everything but that is not a good idea, so we now have specialist people that look after the money like Arena.
Delegate that and focus on the bits that you are really good at. What I am good are deals, career and schedule. You were a former European Tour golfer and you also use a former player in Neil Fairbrother on the cricketing side. Do you feel that former sportsmen are able to offer a better perspective to their stars than other agents? You can look it in different ways. An accountant has the right experience for some parts of the job, the lawyer has the right experience for some parts of the job, the golfer or the cricketer has the right experience for parts some of the job.
My guess is that the right experience for the job comes from the past player more than the other two. Do you approach each sport differently or do you have a tried and tested formula, especially on the sponsorship front? I have better sponsorship salespeople now than I have ever had. We try to be as creative as possible when we are doing a sponsorship presentation.
We are doing alright at the moment and we are making good inroads in a lot of places with a lot of bigger brands. You try and work out what everybody wants and then you try and be creative within that framework.
The great thing about Darren is that he is an unbelievable corporate animal. Because of that skill and the profile that he got following the Ryder Cup, he is still in demand — his deals are still running and new ones are coming along. He is actually going to the Masters on a corporate basis and not playing the tournament — he has three or four gigs and will make a nice amount for the week. You have a wide range of stars in various sports.
How do you keep the existing clients happy and attract new ones in? Some leave and others stay. You get a gut feel that you tend to get right most of the time. Sometimes I get it wrong — I got one wrong this year, in fact — and at the time you feel it but there is nothing you can do about it. You just know where you should be and you know how much of an arm to put around people and how much of a kick up the arse you need to give. Hopefully you get it right most of the time.
Looking back on my time, I would say that I got it right more than I got it wrong. You represent jockey Harry Bentley, and you and Lee Westwood own horses together. What are your plans in horse racing? It is just ownership. We are proper mug owners. We have been very lucky in that we have had 26 winners in Along with owning the horses, going racing is my hobby and I have made an effort to go as much as I can over the last year. You are heavily involved in the running of the Turkish Airlines Open in Belek.
How did that come about and what goes into running it? We run it with the Turkish Golf Federation, which is fairly small because of the low participation in the country. It started with a phone call from David Clare who worked over in Turkey and said that they want to have a tournament. I went over to Turkey two days later. I managed to jam the tournament into the middle of both the PGA Tour and European Tour schedules but I got eight of the top 11 to play.
We actually ran it, unusually, on a Tuesday to Friday. We got it done and had Rory there and Tiger there. So we stuck it in there and that is when it became a man field. You have shared many picture perfect moments with your clients. Meeting with the oddsmakers at the betting parlors would surely be a part of the research required. I can see a PGA tour player ranked any where from…oh to trying this approach because anyone can have a great week over the contract term.
So finally, is it that one approach is better than the other? Or is it simply just different? Mainly because Corporate America has been in an economic crunch granted as has corporates world wide. Your comments are thoughtful and well-taken. For sure Rory is now in a position to command tremendous fees for his endorsement. But I do suspect that how the US nurture players, both as amateurs and on the PGA TOUR, sets up psychological expectations whose effects are manifested when players compete under the toughest conditions.
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