Michael Phelps Sticks Around for Game, Not Fame:
Commentary by Scott Soshnick
Sept. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Every professional athlete should hear Michael Phelps recount the first business meeting with his agent.
Athletes usually ask how their representative is going to make them filthy rich. Besides the usual rigmarole like salary and bonuses, the elite athlete thinks even bigger these days. They want global sponsorships, equity-based endorsements, a reality television series and, for the iconic few, maybe even an iPhone application like the one Notre Dame football just introduced.
The request from Phelps, a teenager at the time, was altogether different. His agent, Peter Carlisle of Octagon, opened their meeting with a straightforward question. What, Carlisle wanted to know, did Phelps want his agent to accomplish on his behalf.
The swimmer’s answer centered on doing big things for the sport, not amassing big dollars for himself.
“I want to change the sport of swimming,” was the response from Phelps, whose eight gold medals became the defining athletic accomplishment of the Beijing Olympics. “I want to take it to a new level.”
We’re inundated by athletes paying lip service these days, using terms like “grow the game” when, in reality, their focus remains on simply getting paid even more.
This isn’t to suggest that Phelps is a charity. His fame isn’t free. He’s got a number of endorsements with companies such as Swatch Group AG’s Omega brand, the Subway sandwich chain and Warnaco Inc.’s Speedo, which earlier this week signed swimming’s 24-year-old golden boy through 2013.
“I’ve had countless opportunities,” Phelps said.
Swimming Mission
What he’s done with those opportunities on behalf of his sport is what separates Phelps from the others.
Phelps has made it his mission for swimming to assume a place alongside other, more popular, sports in the fans’ consciousness. And not just every four years, either, when the Olympics dominate the airwaves.
“I have no idea where we can go from here,” Phelps said of swimming’s popularity, “but I know that we can go higher.”
Ask Phelps for the specifics of his endorsement riches and he responds with a shrug of indifference. Those particular numbers don’t excite him.
If you’re trying to shake Phelps from his monotone default setting I suggest asking about the statistic released by USA Swimming, the sport’s governing body, which earlier this month said participation is up 11 percent in the past year, the largest single-year membership gain in history.
‘Got That Number’
“I got that number the other day and was really happy,” Phelps said. “That’s huge for the sport. It’s exciting to see the sport grow as much as it has.”
Phelps has already accomplished what before Beijing would have been deemed impossible. He made swimming a topic of conversation among American sports fans during a non-Olympic year. Back in July, during the World Championships, Phelps’s coach, Bob Bowman, grabbed headlines, back pages and column inches by saying his star attraction might remove himself from future competitions unless FINA, swimming’s international governing organization, took immediate steps to ban record- shattering swimsuits.
Just like that, the pundits in the U.S., including the high-volume crowd on ESPN, were devoting their time to a sport that historically has been ignored.
More Air Time
It was Phelps who insisted on leveraging his personal relationship with Dick Ebersol, chairman of NBC Sports, which shows the Olympics in the U.S., in order to get more swimming events on television.
He figures people can’t fall in love with what they can’t see. Ebersol obliged because if Phelps is there the eyeballs will follow.
He’s a one-man show.
Phelps, after Beijing, has all the fame and fortune any athlete requires. His decision to participate in one more Olympics was fueled, in part, by the knowledge that his presence keeps swimming in the spotlight.
Let’s face it, the masses aren’t tuning in to watch Ian Crocker, Ryan Lochte or Cullen Jones.
Try to name another athlete, especially a megastar, who cares as much about the future of his sport as Phelps. You can’t. That person doesn’t exist.
It’s amusing that only now, amid recession-related worry, professional sports teams have hatched a bevy of fan-friendly initiatives. Only now are most owners and players thinking about ways to keep the paying customers happy.
Many don’t even know where to start.
Might I suggest a chat with Carlisle and Phelps, who never seems to tire of telling the story of what an up-and-coming teenager wanted from his agent.
(Scott Soshnick is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)
To contact the writer of this column: Scott Soshnick in New York at ssoshnick@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: September 10, 2009 21:00 EDT |
