Heroes in Business - Chris Cabott, CEO Steinberg Sports and Entertainment $650Million in contracts, negotiated largest 450Million deal in sports history

Episode Date: October 29, 2021

Building trust by building relationships. Chris Cabott, CEO Steinberg Sports and Entertainment $650Million in contracts, negotiated largest deal in sports history (Patrick Mahomes $450Million contract) is interviewed by David Cogan founder of Eliances and famous celebrity host of the Eliances Heroes Show broadcast on am and fm network channels, online syndication and on over 100 TV channels.   Chat Directly., Hire Quickly., Hirect is the first chat-based hiring Chat and interview candidates anytime, anywhere. Download the

Welcome back to Alliances Heroes, where heroes in business align. To be part of our super community and find out more about Alliances, visit www.alliances.com. That's right, and welcome back, too, and thank you again for the feedback we continue to have. And thank you again for the feedback we continue to have. When I had John Paul DeGioia on the second time he came on again because he had so much to share. Yeah, he was the one that sold Patron. So check out past interviews by going to alliances.com. That's E-L-I-A-N-C-S.com.

The only place where entrepreneurs align. All right. I am very excited about our next interview. I definitely know his company well. We have with us Chris Cabot, the CEO of Steinberg Sports and Entertainment. You can reach him at steinbergsports.com. Chris, welcome to the show. Thank you. Great to be on here. All right. You got a lot of things going on with Steinberg Sports. I don't even know how to keep up with everything. First of all, what's been going on lately with the Patrick Mahomes thing? Talk to me about that. Patrick's a great young man, great athlete. We're excited to be in the

season and excited to keep working hard there and working through and, you know, God willing, continue to health and great performance. And we'll be working our way through the postseason. Now, now you, you helped negotiate that contract that was worth how much? I did negotiate it. And that was was I negotiated the contract that was total value up to 503 million dollars. OK, so you're negotiating this contract over 500 million dollars, the biggest contract. Like, how do you know, Chris, at what point when you're negotiating, whether it's this contract or any contract, when you know you're just you're at that limit, that like, that's it? I mean, how do you know? Like you just, what point is it?

Sure, that deal was negotiated over a period of 18 months. So we had a lot of progress, a lot of work and where it finished was substantially greater than where it started. And when we got to the finish line there, we were confident that that was the max value. So very proud of Patrick and proud of the result. I mean, because, you know, when you're negotiating back and forth,

the other party is also going through their mind going, you know, okay, do we push further or do we walk? All right. And we push, you know, and you want to be able to still come to some type of agreement and you ended up pulling it off. I mean, did you have sleepless nights? I wouldn't say sleepless nights.

We were prepared. Like I said, that was over a period of 18 months. A lot of preparation went into that. I think the more prepared you are, the more diligent you are, the more ready you are, the more confident you are, the less sleepless you are. So from that perspective, we were ready. Put a lot of hard work into it. But it's definitely a lot of work. There's no doubt about it. And anytime you have deals like that and things like that, there's, of course, a range of emotions, but we were ready to execute.

So what type of euphoria is going through you when that contract was signed? Just happy for the client. Just really happy. Great man, great family, earned everything, and excited for him. Absolutely exciting. So talk to me about the things that you're working on. I mean, what's the general roles and responsibilities, duties, daily duties of the CEO of Steinberg? You've got like one of the most fun jobs, at least from the outside perspective, that exists. Sure. It's a blessing. And for me, it's unique. I'm an agent. I'm an attorney by trade. I started a sports agency from scratch in 2008. And I was very blessed, very lucky to expand, start in Philadelphia with an amazing man my forever mentor lloyd remick who

was an entertainment attorney who's been involved in sports agency in the 80s and 90s had gotten away from it was more into music film and tv gave a very young raw version of me an opportunity when i was 23 years old and just worked and learned and in my early career representing talent entertainment i felt like god wanted me to work more proactively with talent, help make their God-given talents and dreams come true. And I expanded that into agency. Like I said, started in 2008, expanded to the West Coast in 2013, was blessed to have been introduced to Lee Steinberg, our chairman, and will forever be our chairman emeritus as well. He'll forever be our chairman emeritus as well. And, you know, started as a consultant, rose in leadership, became our lead agent,

then the COO, then the president and the CEO last July. And for me as CEO, it's a very unique position in that I'm not only the chief executive officer of the company and running the company and growing the company, expanding the company with a staff that's incredible. Our team is phenomenal. I truly, truly, truly believe we have the best team and staff in all of sports agency and all town representation in general. Good people, good heads, good hearts put others ahead of them. And we work really hard together as a team. We're a family. And I'm just very proud of our team

but then i also have a number of careers that i manage as an agent so for me kind of every day is a balance of running the company managing the the careers of the athletes that i represent and then obviously working with our staff and our team and then having a vision you know having a vision to the future and growth. So it's very rewarding. It's a great blessing. I have the opportunity to help others make a difference in their lives. And I'm extremely thankful for that every day. That's excellent. Excellent. Yeah. And we had Lee,

I interviewed Lee Steinberg too. So you're Paul, you're chairman. Chairman baby, chairman, chairman Steinberg, chairman emeritus forever for sure. Yeah, that's excellent. And I'm going to be asking you about NFTs. But before I do, thank you to our sponsor, Hirect.us. Chat directly, hire quickly. It's the first chat-based hiring app for startups. Make sure you go to Hirect.us, that H-I-R-E-C-T.us, because you're watching, listening to me, David

Kogan, host of the alliances hero show we have this Chris Cabot CEO of Steinberg Sports and Entertainment you can reach him at steinbergsports.com Chris what's going on with NFTs and Steinberg Sports sure sure well we've we've definitely been one of the leaders in the NFT space as it comes to athletes, sports, sports memorabilia, sports collectibles. I'm blessed. I'm lucky. And a gentleman named Sean Tracy, who runs the DOM agencies, but one of the premier NFT producers in the world over the last year. Sean and I go way back into the music industry. And he called me in the early part of 2020.

And he said to me um pardon me 2021 and he said to me that he was interested in in um you know talking to me about essentially a a digital art installation that would have different intellectual properties tied to it it would be auctioned and that was the first conversation I ever had with NFTs. And then we watched that happen on a project he was working on in music. And then we saw the NBA started with Top Shot. And then Matt Steinberg, our senior director of strategy in a staff meeting, he said, did you see what the NBA is doing with Top Shot? And when I looked at it, a light bulb went off. And that light bulb went off and thought, wow, we can do this with our guys. So we did the first ever sports memorabilia

NFT with Patrick, the Museum of Mahomes over Baker's Place. Did really well. Made a big time impact in the philanthropic scene, helped finish the Martin Luther King Park renovation and rebuild there in Kansas City that the 15 and the Homies Foundation did. And then we did the first ever digital rookie card NFT with Jerry Judy, did the first ever world championship celebration ring with Ronald Jones. So we have some more NFTs coming our way. We've been very lucky and blessed to work in the NIL space with some great athletes. And Malik Willis, obviously quarterback at Liberty. Spencer Rattler, quarterback at Oklahoma, certainly are some of the headliners in that space.

And then the agency also works with a number of other college athletes who are extremely talented as well. But we'll be doing some more NFTs in the NIL space, which is exciting. And then we're going to NFT with Nigel Sylvester, our BMX icon client that we're very honored to represent as well. That's amazing. Then what do you see happening with the physical trading cards? Is that going to be going, I don't know, I wouldn't say maybe away, but maybe less and more everything going towards the digital? Well, I think where we're at there is we're in a space where collectibles are only going to continue to rise. And I think it's our responsibility to marry the physical collectible with the digital collectible. So

when we do cards, when we do digital NFT cards, when we do digital NFT jerseys, there's always a physical replica that accompanies them. And I think that the trading collectible community really appreciates that because you have young traders that like the NFT. You have the traditional trader that likes the physical. Do I think the trading cards will go away? I don't because there's always going to be such a great segment for that. The other thing, too, is with physical product, physical collectibles, the condition drives the value where essentially all NFTs are perfectly minted.

So you don't have the disparity in quality that you have in the physical market. But the value of the digital NFT is that there's a resale component where the owner will perpetually receive a piece of any retail resale, which is exciting. Because essentially for athletes, it's the first time you've had an intellectual property that exceeds life on the field. That's amazing. And Chris, you've also, you know, you've landed major endorsements from like the biggest companies that exist, Amazon, Nissan, State Farm, Gillette and so on. When you're doing this type of negotiation, how do you build trust? I mean, you know, how are you building trust to get these type and land these huge, huge companies? Sure. I think you build trust by building relationships.

At the end of the day, there's always a human, right? There's always a human behind the large entity. And you build and you grow a relationship with that person. And something that I've always said with our clients is we build relationships. We don't do transactions. And when you understand adding value to both sides, usually you're able to come up with a favorable solution and a great deal. I mean, truly incredible. Do you have kids, Chris? Not yet. I was newly married on August 28th, 2021, to my amazing, incredible,

talented wife, Laura, who's quite the entrepreneur herself in the beauty industry, hair and makeup. She has an amazing eight chair salon in Kansas city and does a ton of celebrity styling you know throughout the country but a lot of times in los angeles but looking forward to that day of being a dad for sure excellent excellent and i'm sure that your kids will probably be involved in sports and somehow youngster were you involved in sports oh david i I was and I wasn't. We were so financially stricken growing up. We couldn't afford much of anything. I'm internally blessed. My father, Don Cabot, my mom, Sandra Cabot, we were rich in love and great in values. My mom and dad put their families ahead of their passion. But we were very financially stricken. Couldn't really afford much of anything. So the idea of pads or equipment or cleats was a totally foreign concept. But I ran.

I ran cross-country and track. I put my bony right leg in front of my bony left leg. And the harder I worked, the better I got. I found a pureness in that. And that was a lot of what led me to wanting to work with folks at God-given talent. So, Chris, when you were a named CEO, you know, and you're in your office, you close your door, you're sitting at the helm now, how does that feel? Like what's kind of going through your mind,

especially where you just said where you came from, and now you're like, I'm here, I've made it. I mean, I am the CEO of Steinberg Sports now. And you look back, reflect upon your parents and stuff. Do share. Sure. No, for sure. I mean, look, for me, it's about faith.

It's about God. This isn't about me. I'm a molecule in the universe, in God's universe, in God's plan. So I never lose sight of that. Appreciative and grateful. You know, very thankful to our board that, you know, put me in that position. Very thankful to Lee. At the end of the day, our chairman, Mr. Lee Steinberg, is the founder of the sports agent industry, is a pioneer, is a trailblazer, is an innovator in the concept of advocating for talent.

And I take that very serious. I am incredibly thankful to Lee for his faith in me. I think it takes a lot to essentially pass that torch to someone. And I'm very honored and thankful that it sits with me. What's great about being a CEO is having the opportunity to execute on a vision. And for me, executing a vision means providing the best opportunities possible for talented people and their families. So it's something I relish. It's something I enjoy. I'm appreciative. But when you talk about my parents, I mean, my mom and dad, this show is about heroes. My mom and dad are my heroes. Always will be,

always have been eternally thankful for them um and um and i'm just thankful i'm just really thankful and i appreciate people's trust that they put in me and the type of work again that you're doing and you know helping these players because you know if they didn't have representation i mean many of them would be crushed well i'll say this i the athlete representation industry was an industry of need it was not an industry of want there was literally a time and you know lee will tell you stories about um um you know there there was a time where athletes didn't have representation and essentially team and there weren't unions and teams and ownership could do whatever they wanted. And at the end of the day, I mean,

it's not like any team or owners or coaches are ever trying to hurt anybody or cause any harm intentionally or anything like that. But people have interests that people would be represented, you know, in those interests. And, you know, I, I know that the agent industry, the industry that our chairman, Mr. Steinberg, founded is an industry that helps people grow on and off the field, gives them the best they can receive as far as health care benefits, rehabilitation with injuries, things like that. And I'm just thankful to be someone who who advocates for others. And I'm just thankful to be someone who advocates for others. Well, truly incredible.

And again, thank you to our sponsor today, Hirect.us. That's H-I-R-E-C-T dot U-S. Chat directly, hire quickly for startups using the first chat-based hiring app for startups, hire act.us. Chris, I got to tell you what you're doing and helping others and helping athletes and looking out for opportunities to help them leverage their positions and negotiate the best for them. That's a hero. Chris Abbott, CEO of Steinberg Sports Entertainment. You can reach me at steinbergsports.com. This has been David Kogan with the Alliance's Hero Show.

Thank you, David.