Negotiation Warriors
Negotiation Warriors, the podcast that features conversations with the greatest negotiators in professional sports.
Negotiation Warriors
Episode #011: Beyond the Contract (Peter Schaffer)
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🎙️ Negotiation Warriors – Episode #011: Beyond the Contract with Peter Schaffer
In Episode #011 of Negotiation Warriors, I sit down with veteran NFL agent and attorney Peter Schaffer, one of the most respected and accomplished player representatives in professional sports.
Over a career spanning four decades, Peter has represented some of the biggest names in football, including Hall of Famers Barry Sanders, Willie Roaf, Jerome Bettis, Steve Atwater, and Joe Thomas. Beyond negotiating contracts, Peter has built a reputation for developing lasting relationships, advocating for athletes on and off the field, and helping clients navigate the business, legal, and personal challenges that accompany professional sports.
In this conversation, Peter shares:
• How he broke into the agent business “by accident” and built a successful practice from the ground up
• Why managing client expectations is often more challenging than negotiating contracts
• The reality of life as a sports agent and the sacrifices required to survive in the business
• The importance of preparation, patience, and listening in every negotiation
• Lessons learned from legendary NFL executives and negotiators, including George Young and Ted Phillips
• Why relationships and trust remain the foundation of successful negotiations
• The role of agents as advisors, counselors, connectors, and problem-solvers beyond contract negotiations
• The growing impact of NIL and college athlete representation
• The importance of educating athletes about finances, taxes, contracts, and life after sports
• Why preparation creates confidence at the negotiating table, including the story behind Joe Thomas’ historic contract negotiations
Peter also opens up about overcoming adversity, maintaining perspective through life's challenges, and why great negotiators must never lose sight of what truly matters.
This episode is a masterclass in relationship-building, preparation, leadership, resilience, and the art of negotiation.
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Everybody just sees, you know, the negotiations part, and they think that that's all that we do. And I try, you know, it's like a the iceberg. That's 10% of the iceberg, the 90% of the iceberg is under the water. And so they don't see the the managing client expectations, which I think is very, very critical. Managing client expectations is the hardest part of the job. You know, you talk take the draft, for example, and someone says, Well, I'm gonna I'm gonna go in the first round. I said, Where did you get that from? Well, you know, joe draftsite.com just put me in the first round. I'm like, okay.
SPEAKER_04Welcome to negotiation warriors. I am Cliff Stein, and I am on a never-ending quest to learn what it takes to be a great negotiator. In every episode, I will sit down with some of the greatest negotiators in professional sports who will share insights, knowledge, and control, and real-life negotiation experiences. Negotiation Warriors is sponsored by Front Office 360, premium management software.
SPEAKER_02To find out how we are helping college athletic programs, go to Frontoffice360.com to schedule a demo. Welcome back to Negotiation Warriors, the podcast where we have conversations with some of the greatest negotiators in professional sports. Today's guest is one of the most respected and experienced player agents in professional sports. Peter Schaefer has built a long and successful career representing elite athletes. Some of his clients include Hall of Famer Barry Sanders, Steve Atwater, Jerome Bettis, Joe Thomas, Joe Mixon, Pac-Man Jones. Anyone else, Peter? Well, you left that Hall of Famer Willie Rofe. Willie Roe. All right. He's got a reputation for being strategic, thoughtful, relentlessly prepared at the negotiation table. For me, the one thing that really stands out about Peter Schaeffer is his ability to build strong relationships. He builds credibility, trust, and a deep understanding of both the players' goals and the team's perspective. He was also a star of a television show called The Agent. Peter has faced tremendous adversity in his personal life and continued to serve as an inspiration to many. I'm honored to welcome my good friend, Peter Schaefer, to Negotiation Warriors. Welcome, Peter.
SPEAKER_00Thanks, Cliff. With an introduction like that, I can only doubt I'll be able to live up to those expectations.
SPEAKER_02Well, I know you've always got great humility, so I'm really excited that you agreed to do this. So many places for you, Peter, to start. But I know people would be very interested to know how did you become an agent in the first place?
SPEAKER_00Well, so things are a little different now than they were back when you and I first started. So I graduated law school. I was fortunate enough to get a job in Denver, Colorado. Moved out here, did not go to law school planning on being a sports agent because it really wasn't a thing back there. So went to law school, started a big litigation firm here in town doing uh defense work, said to myself, 24 years old, I enjoy eating macaroni and cheese. I could, you know, the struggle, a single, the whole shooting match. And so I just said, all right, let's start a firm. So I had a partner, we started a firm and actually started a law firm and used the revenue from the law firm to fund the sports practice. So did every type of law there was personal injury, domestic uh relations, uh insurance defense work, whatever it took just to be able to keep the lights on in the shoot at that point, keep the lights on in both the office and the house.
SPEAKER_02Was there a specific player or what what led you to uh build the sports practice?
SPEAKER_00Ironically, because you're in Chicago and worked for the Bears for so many years, first client was a guy named David Tate, and he was an eighth round pick, so that tells you how long ago it was, because there's not even eight rounds anymore. And I did the first deal with Ted, and with Ted was had your your job as a contract negotiator, and I think his signing bonus was sixteen thousand three hundred dollars, and I held him out for training camp for two or three days because they were at sixteen thousand, and we wound up at sixteen thousand three hundred. So I held him out for three hundred dollars for two days. Chicago Bears.
SPEAKER_02You mentioned you mentioned Ted Phillips, and Ted Phillips was um also a guest on this podcast. And so David Tate was a Chicago Bear. How'd you get David? Is that your first client?
SPEAKER_00Yep. So University of Colorado, we're here in Colorado, and you know, just I don't know whether it was charity on his part or whatever, but he you know, he gave us a chance. And so that's how you know that's how you start. You start out with late-round draft choices of free agents, and hopefully they they work out, hopefully you do great work for them, and hopefully they recommend you to other people, and hope you know, hopefully you don't make too many mistakes in re representing them that you screw up their career. Where is David Tate now? David lives here in Denver. Uh, he's a local legend. He was a great basketball player, just great outgoing personality, just the whole shooting match. But yep, Chicago Bear, number 49. Love it. Did he did he did he make the team? Made the team, played for probably nine or ten years, put away some money, owns a bunch of I think FedEx franchises is doing really well.
SPEAKER_02So you spent four decades, right, in this business. Is that accurate?
SPEAKER_00This is my fourth decade. I tell people, so because whenever you say that's people start doing the math to figure out how old I am. And I just say, well, I started when I was six.
SPEAKER_02So just You know, so over four decades, you know so much about this business. And between having students that probably want to be agents plus the hundreds of other students that are probably reaching out to you on a regular basis, what what is it that you think people need to know about some of the biggest challenges of being an agent?
SPEAKER_00Well, everybody thinks everybody just sees, you know, the negotiations part, and they think that that's all that we do. And I try, you know, it's like the iceberg. That's 10% of the iceberg, the 90% of the iceberg is under the water. And so that they don't see the the managing client expectations, which I think is very, very critical. I actually teach, you know, a whole week on how to manage clients' expectations. And it doesn't matter if it's just an agent dealing with clients, or even in your role as the team negotiator. You know, on some level, whether it was Ted or Ms. McCaskey, you're dealing with your your bosses or your head coach. And how do you, you know, coach comes into your office and says, I want this freaking linebacker now, Cliff. Like, okay, I got it, but there's a process, or we want him for this amount of money, whatever. Or sometimes I'll, you know, when we have guest lecturers like yourself, you know, if if there's pressure, does that affect your well, I'd one again for 5 million, but I'm so worried the coach is gonna rip me a new one, he's you know, you wind up paying 7 million. The same thing on the other side, you know, I managing client expectations is the hardest part of the job. And it's getting harder and harder each day because it used to be when we started there was very little access to players. The players really got most of their information from newspapers, Sports Illustrated, andor us. But then all of a sudden I have social media, and you know, you talk, take the draft, for example, and someone says, Well, I'm gonna I'm gonna go in the first round. I said, Where'd you get that from? Well, you know, joe draftsite.com just put me in the first round. I'm like, okay. So then you also have other agents and other people direct messaging them and talk about, you know, like if Peter doesn't get you in the first round, you know, you should fire them. And, you know, so now you have all these external pressures, and then you have families and parents, and everybody's reading stuff. And so you want to managing expectations is very difficult. And I always find that you want to keep just be as honest as you can and and underpromise and over-deliver. Now it's hard because in recruiting, um, you know, everybody's offering the whole world. People agents are paying players to sign with them, they're promising them, you know, Chipotle deals and Gatorade deals, and telling them that they'll get them in the senior bowl, all this stuff. And it all sounds good until the they fail to achieve their goals or their mission.
SPEAKER_02Is there anything you can do earlier on in their career, like kind of prepare them that that kind of information is going to be out there so that you kind of help help, does that help manage the expectations?
SPEAKER_00Well, there's two things. One with the NIL, so now we're getting to now that with the NIL we're able to represent players in college. And so you have a chance to try to educate the ones you do represent. Problem is that there's a lot of agents out there that aren't certified even by the union now. There's I mean, you don't even need to have a business card anymore. And they're grabbing these kids and they're not really educating them, they're not taking the time to educate them on taxes, on budgeting, on, you know, that we had a kid came to us last year, had another agent. I think he got paid $200,000 in NIL for a senior in college. I mean, $200,000 for us in college, shoot, we we could have lived 20 years on that. He blew through it all. Because he figured out I'm gonna keep getting it. Well, then he wound up be an undreacted free agent and got a $10,000 signing bonus. And so, you know, the the agent had done zero in terms of educating him on budgeting and taxes and all kinds of stuff. So that's interesting.
SPEAKER_02So, you know, so it's difficult, right? What like the business model of being an agent, client expectations? What about people that think that this is a very lucrative profession?
SPEAKER_00Well, I would say that it can be lucrative if you're successful, but the one thing that people don't see is the work that's involved. You know, 30 years or whatever in my fourth decade, I've not truly not taken a day off and working in 30 years. And you have to be prepared for 24-hour phone calls, seven-day a week work jobs. You know, right now it's the holiday season, and you know, we'll work on Christmas Day, we work on New Year's Day, obviously, with ball games, the NFL plays on Christmas Day now, Thanksgiving Day. Shoot, I I worked on the day both my kids were born when worked through the when they both got sick. You you have to so yes, it can be lucrative, but it's also it's it's if you want to make a lot of money and work eight to five and go to the country club and have a normal life, then this is not the profession for you. And I tell everybody at the get-go, I'll tell you how to get in, I'll tell you how to succeed, I'll give you all the answers to all the tests, but there's no substitute for for grinding. And you want to get in, you're gonna start at the bottom in the mail room or the training room or the you know, being a ball boy or whatever, and you gotta grind. It's no different than being a coach in the NFL or a person in player personnel. Nobody comes in as a general manager.
SPEAKER_02Nobody comes in. No. And they all want to be one, right? Everybody wants to be that that person.
SPEAKER_00You know, Nick Saban started as a grad assistant, and you know, Elaine Kiffin started as a grad assistant, you know, working 90 hours a week for $20,000. That's the deal. So the best part about being an agent, I don't know, the the ability, I guess, to expose my kids to fascinating people from all walks of life.
SPEAKER_02That's very cool. I'm gonna ask you about that too. But before I do, I think a lot of people don't realize that you're different to me also because you're not just an agent. I mean, there are a lot of agents that are lawyers, but a lot of them haven't or don't practice law. You're very much a full-fledged sports law attorney. You represent clients in court in cases, I believe, that are not necessarily related to contracts. Are you is this accurate? Are you like a one-stop shop full service agency when it comes to giving them that kind of level of service? In terms of law, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Stay out of um doing taxes, obviously. But I do think it's part of the deal to be able to now there are times that with the a player will get into involved in a civil litigation matter, in which case, if if it's in a state that I'm not admitted into practice, then I might just oversee the litigation. I might be sometimes be the expert witness, that type of stuff. But you know, if if I can save the player money and legal fees by doing the majority of the work. And the reality is in the sports world, if you can give great advice on the front side, then you could probably keep them out of trouble and litigation on the back side. So review you know, business plans, proposals, say absolutely not, you're gonna lose your money on this, this is not a good idea, or draft up the contracts, articles of incorporation, the bylaws so that and anticipate things not going well so that you don't have litigation on the on the tail end. That usually is the best way. If you spend the time on the front side to make sure that the deals are right, everybody's got the right expectations, then you could usually avoid some bad stuff on the backside. Which the backside is always way more costly because you know then you're talking about litigation and that gets into six figures and all kinds of stuff.
SPEAKER_02All right, so to summarize that, you you're so you're the agent. It sounds to me like you're also their general counsel. Yes. And you are a business advisor.
SPEAKER_00Business advisor, you know, relationship advisor, pastor, priest, rabbi, physical therapist, orthopedic surgeon.
SPEAKER_02So you have to have a great, and an amazing Rolodex, right? Because you talked about tax issues and you know specialties within the law that maybe you don't handle, and then finance people. Um, I don't know, maybe real estate, maybe marketing, obviously all different kinds of physicians. Is that a regular part of your job where you're just making sure they have the right professional in their lives?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. We're connectors, is what we are. And it's not just for my athletes, you know, everybody in our life. Hey, Peter, you know, we got, you know, we want we I want to uh need a house inspector. Well, I got one, you know, and and if I don't have one, I really feel that I can get to just about anybody in this country within two calls or two people away. And that's really what that's very important. A lot of young guys or young women don't have that right now, they don't have that access. But it you know, even general managers call me, can you get da-da-da-da-da? You know, we get calls all the time from a GMA, can you get me uh White Sock tickets? You know, I'm I'm two calls away, right? Or one call away, or you know, who who knows what it is. And you know, sometimes you get them for free, sometimes you don't. Sometimes they'll trade off, you know, bears tickets for White Sox, whatever it is. But uh, you know, you want to be able to do that. Or if someone wants to buy a house in Miami, well, we have real estate agents there, or the whole shooting match. But you what you want to be a connector and you want to be able to get in touch with just about anybody anywhere.
SPEAKER_02The name of your agency is Authentic Athletics, is that correct? Correct. And all right, so Peter Schaefer's, I don't know, he's he's out of commission. Let's say you get a flu or you need surgery, God forbid something happens to you. Who do they call?
SPEAKER_00They call me. There's no off days. There's no off days. There's no off days. Well, I mean, I've people associates that work with me. My son's starting to do some NIL work, and it's fun to watch him. He's got we we've got some clients now that are in the transfer portal, and he uh he he he sat next to me for 21 years, so whatever I can teach him in college or university is nothing compared to just sitting next to me for 21 years. And he knows as many secrets as anybody. And this is your son, Gavin. Yeah, Gavin. He's 21 and he's a uh red shirt junior at Mount St. Mary's. He graduated in three years and now he's getting his MBA. Excellent. He's also a lacrosse player, you said. Yep, he's a he's a he's he he's a lacrosse player and having a blast and has great friends and having a great experience. And you know, I tell and he's also a uh a world-class chef. He has a a meal prep company for athletes and fantastic cook. And so he's got a lot of different you know, he's he's doing an internship with our scouting scouting uh conglomerate that we have that Scott McLoon and I have. And so he's he's got his hands on a lot of stuff. So it's you try to expose it to it and see what he's passionate about.
SPEAKER_02That's awesome. I love hearing that. It looks like he's learned so much from you. Which brings me to um, you know, the name of the show is negotiation warriors. And the reason the word warrior, right, it's a powerful word. And you you have dealt with a great deal of adversity in your life. I'd be interested to know.
SPEAKER_00You mean just over and above my just naturally ugly looks and lack of athletic ability.
SPEAKER_02I I can only imagine what that did to you. So I wasn't even thinking of that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So that that was that was the first adversity I had I had to learn to live with.
SPEAKER_02Yes. And I and I'm and look how far you've come. There you go. But I would be interested to know like what does that word mean to you? And can you explain some of the adversity you've had to overcome over the past decade?
SPEAKER_00Well, so when you know, life goes on and you you know, get married, beautiful wife, we have two kids, a boy and a girl, everything's perfect. And when our daughter was a senior in high school, she had been having medical issues for roughly eight to ten months, incredible full body itching, low-grade fevers. She was a world uh national champion equestrian, so they thought it was hay fever and you know, all kinds of stuff. We took every possible expert or specialist, they couldn't figure it out, and then my wife finally took her to children's hospital, and I was coaching Gavin's high school or Gavin's hockey team, and it was a Thursday night, you always remember it. And my Allison calls and says, You need to come home. We just got a call from children's. We have an appointment tomorrow morning at 8 a.m. on the on with the oncologist, and you know, life is just puttering along, and everything, you know, Lillian's applying to college, Gavin's playing hockey, playing lacrosse, and all of a sudden you sit there and they turn the screen around, the doctors, and in this little exam room, and they circle this what looked like a football in her chest and said, Well, that's the tumor, and we have to admit her, and she's got cancer. So Lillian, intense chemo, radiation, the whole shooting match, knock on wood. And then so she beats cancer, and she she takes a year off after high school, gap year, and just does her horses, and she's an artist now, and then she goes back to school, and then she's healthy now. And then about right during COVID, Gavin started feeling sick. And he started uh totally different symptoms and everybody thought it was COVID because nobody had any idea what COVID was or what the symptoms were or whatever. If you were sick, oh you must have COVID. And so this this starts in you know, February, March, COVID hits. April, we go to his doctor, they do all these tests, they come up completely different in Lillians, we joke with Gavin's pediatrician saying, Hey, you know, my sister had cancer, and you know, there's no way, and she's like, Well, there's no way you could have it. The the odds are astronomical. And then right about middle of May during COVID, he went in for a biopsy on a Thursday, and we don't hear back from on Friday, so we're like, all right, things must be good. We don't hear back from on Monday, and so all day we're everybody's on pins and needles. And then all of a sudden uh I would take the boys out during COVID as a lacrosse coach of the high school, and we would take them out to this the first thing I did during COVID is I took two lacrosse goals and a whole bunch of balls and we chained them up in the park. So that was sort of the boys' way to get get away from COVID. Every afternoon at five o'clock, went out and shot and ran around and whatever. So we're getting ready to go to the field to go shoot lacrosse, and then the oncologist calls. And it's never good when you have a family oncologist. You know, a family pediatrician's good, a family accountant's good, but a family oncologist is never good. And they said that that he had cancer also. And so the different part was as opposed to the doctor telling Lillian, we then had to bring Gavin upstairs and tell him. And he was wound up at stage four. So you know, two kids, cancer within five years, they both have made it through. Allison, you know, obviously my wife, she really it was very stressful, obviously stressful on everybody, on her. You know, two kids, you know, one kid with cancer is tough enough, but two in five years, and you know, she did a wonderful job of trying to keep things normal in the house. You know, through through it all. You know, normal dinners, you know, we really when Lillian was going through it, make sure that Gavin still played hockey and went to school. And you know, the sort of the the interesting story that I have is that when Gavin got sick the night before he starts chemo, Lillian, who's very strong-willed but very quiet, she comes in the room and he very rarely will go in Gavin's room. And they're they're right next to each other, and she goes, I want to tell you what's gonna happen. And so I said, All right. And she goes, Chemo's not as bad as you think it is. It sucks and you can have a lot of stuff to deal with, but you'll get through it. And then she looks at him and goes, I never threw up once. In chemo, you better not throw up. And she walked out of the and she walked out of the room. And so Gavin's like, Wow, all right. The gauntlet's been laid. And it was one time during treatment, chemo, he's like, Dad, I I think I'm gonna throw up. I I can't do it. I gotta suck it up. And you just see him clenching his mouth and his and his whole body, and for about an hour, just to make sure he goes, I I'm not gonna give Lillian uh I can't let her beat me. Wow.
SPEAKER_02So Lillian was 18 when she was dying six.
SPEAKER_00Gavin was sixteen in ten months. Yeah. And what's their age difference? Four years. So Lillian's 25 now. Look, Gavin's 21 now. So Gavin's four years, almost four years out. Lillian's six years out. Okay, so it was two years after Lillian was diagnosed that Gavin was?
SPEAKER_02Yes. Man, you're so calm. Like, that's what I'm amazed by. Like, that's so much adversity and so much crisis for people to panic. First of all, your your kids sound like they're pushing each other to get through this. How do you guys do this as a family? What's been this ingredient to overcome this?
SPEAKER_00Well, I made the decision, so as a father, that we weren't going to stress that once we pick the doctors, children's hospital, you know, everybody's everybody calls with, you know, you could have this doctor, this is the greatest thing. I said, once we pick the doctor, they're the coach. We're not going to sit there and drive ourselves crazy and read every possible thing on the internet and say, well, what about doing this? And what about doing this? What about CBDs? No, once you pick the doctor, that's got to be the call. All right. And then I think that Allison really did an unbelievable job of just being consistent, making sure the kids had normal lives, great meals, special. Every meal was special, every treatment was special, and keep everything positive. But it was the other thing that helped help was Lillian was great at equestion. She would go to her barn and ride her horses every day during treatment. And so she was able to get outside. She just didn't sit on the couch, you know, wallowing away. And Gavin actually played lacrosse every day during treatment, even played games during COVID. And got out. And there were some days he wasn't feeling well, and we let him, whatever. But you know, he I think being with his teammates and his his buddies, that helped a lot a great deal. And then, you know, everybody says that oh, you guys use the word warriors, you know, as parents. And I never felt that way. You know, you can say warriors, the kids were warriors, because they were the ones that were dealing with uh the life or death situation. We were just parents. And whenever you as a parent you get dealt with a situation, you just you gotta deal with it. That's it, that's the score. You it doesn't make you a warrior, it makes you a parent.
SPEAKER_02The mindset of uh that Lily and Gavin must have, what did you and Allison learn about them through this whole process?
SPEAKER_00Oh, you know that kids are a lot more resilient than you think they are, they're a lot smarter, um, you know that you know when we're reading stuff on the internet, I'm sure they were. Uh it was funny because they're as as close as siblings they are, Lillian never said a word to us. We never knew, scared, happy, um, nervous, anxious. She was internalized everything. And Gavin, on the other hand, told us everything. I mean, and you could see that with with him, he he just was just, I don't feel this, or I'm worried here, or whatever, and you could see it. And it was interesting to see that both kids handling it differently. How are they now right now? They're both in remission and they've moved on with their lives. And you know, they've had this they're both so Gavin is the spokesperson for the Headstrong Foundation, which is the big lacrosse pediatric cancer foundation, and then Lillian is the spokesperson for the Morgan Adams Foundation, which is the big pediatric fundraising group out here in Denver. And actually Al M Allison works for the Morgan Adams Foundation now. So they are raising six to eight, ten million dollars a year for pediatric research, which is even more important now because a lot of the funding has been curtailed. And you find out that in terms of pediatric cancer research, very little money is spent on it because most there's just no money for pharmaceuticals, there's no money for the the hospitals, it's all in adult cancer. So we need a lot of the treatment that the kids had for the lymphoma is 30 years old. It really hasn't changed much because there's no money being spent on pediatric uh cancer treatments. So the fact that they want to give it back to that is is you know, that's how they're paying it forward.
SPEAKER_02Well, man, you you and your family are such a source of inspiration. Do you find yourself often trying to help others that are in a similar situation, talking them through what to expect going through this?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we get a lot of calls and and we try to do what we can and help out. Um, you know, we've a couple of the kids um that we have helped out didn't make it, and that's just tears your heart us apart from the inside and the outside, especially when you realize that our kids made it, right? And you go to these foundation dinners and um galas and the pictures on the wall and not not not all of them made it. Or the one thing is like when you go to children's hospital, and the thing about children's hospital, each floor is a different specialty. You know, there's uh the orthopedic floor and this floor, and the seventh floor is the cancer floor and the oncology floor. And everybody there, when you walk in there and I has cancer, all the kids that's the deal. Nobody's there with the flu, and nobody's there with a blister, and nobody's there with a broken finger. Everybody in that room, and then you sit there and you look at the numbers, and you know, some of these kids aren't making it out of there. And I I do remember, you know, in Gavin's first treatment, he looked at at it at Alice and said, Mom, I don't want to be here. Because he had been there with Lily. And well, I get it. But that that was the deal, because everybody there had it, and some of those kids don't make it out, so that makes you feel how blessed you are that we were able to make it out. And so you do want to give it back to up the numbers so that more kids do make it out.
SPEAKER_02How did um going through all this, did this change your perspective as an agent and or negotiator?
SPEAKER_00Uh I don't know. I think that uh I I always thought I had good perspective, but you know, it does give you a chance when players complain about certain little things, like really? That's what we're worried about? Come on now. That's what we're worried about. You know, I think they're there are bigger issues, and you know, I think that we we have to expect our athletes, the one thing that they have to do is give back to, because in our society we don't really have royalty. So our royalties are entertainers and our athletes, and we need role models. And that's why, you know, I I know the politicians have become role models now, and we need them not just to be successful at what they do and and good at their profession, but in how they do it, and play like champions, and do things the right way, and show show the next generation how to succeed but the right way.
SPEAKER_02I'm gonna let's shift a little bit and talk to you about money. Okay, specifically player contracts. Why do you think that there's so much public fascination about how much money is paid to a professional athlete?
SPEAKER_00Well, shoot, it's you know, the interesting thing is it's the they win the lottery. These players win the lottery, and because the money um that they're making is up there, you know, the Powerball is what, a billion dollars now or whatever, and some, you know, some of these guys are making a hundred million dollar contracts and two hundred and fifty million dollar contracts, and so you have this lottery ticket, but the difference is as opposed to just buying a ticket, you know, you've you they worked for it. And so that's interesting. Uh, you know, but I do think that there is a corresponding responsibility to that to give back. And the but the the fans are definitely fascinated. They'll but the other thing is they also think every player is making like LeBron makes. They think, and even some of the players when they get in and and their family say, oh my god, you know, I'm in the NFL, so we're we're making this, making, you know, no, no, you rookie in the NFL makes a signing bonus of $100,000, and I'm not gonna say only $100,000, but $100,000 on the first year base is $740. So they're making $840,000. It's a hell of a lot of money, don't get me wrong, but that's not what LeBron makes. That's not what you know some of the baseball players make, right? And that's not what um Patrick Mahomes is making, you know, $500 million. You know, the rank and file are not there, but everybody thinks they are. And all the friends think they are. Oh, you're may making, you know, in the NFL, you could pick up this, you could pick up this. No, no, no. You still have to be careful. And then we're we're seeing it now in college football where players are making money in NIL that they've never heard of. You know, offensive linemen are making two, three, four, five hundred thousand dollars a year to play college football, which they deserve. But at the same time, that's not enough money, that's not lottery money now.
SPEAKER_02How much of that fascination, though, do you think stems from either one, people just like to count other people's money? Is it more it kind of signifies that the investment made by their favorite team somehow correlates to success?
SPEAKER_00Well, well, that that's what really separates the NFL from all the other sports, the salary cap. So that each team does have an equal chance to succeed. You know, this year, I mean, how many teams, when you look at it, the standings this year are are in the playoffs that you know were picking in the top ten last year. You know, you can go from the bottom to the top. Last year, you know, Washington picked second in the draft and went to the NFC championship. You know, the Bears, I've been down in the dumps, and right now they're you know in first place in their division. So I think that having a salary cap and Wellington Marrows won it and said we want to split the national TV money evenly, allows every team to have a chance to succeed. You know, in baseball, you know, unless you're a big market team, it's gonna be very rare you're gonna be in the playoffs. We're here in Colorado, and if the Rockies go 500, it's a good year. So I do think that everybody is fascinated by the money, and the money is extreme. But if you think about what these players do and how many people watch the National Football League, it's it's just the greatest reality TV program of all time. Some of the scripts this year of what has happened in the game, where there's a fumble in the fourth quarter, then the referee makes a bad play or bad call. And then, oh my God, the other night down by 14 points, and they come back, the Bears come back and tie the game up, right? Because on the big fourth down play, they double the wrong guy, and the guy gets open in the end zone. I mean, just you can't script this stuff. TV can't script this stuff. And it just happens in live, right in front of our face. The fans are into it, the the TV production is unbelievable. And you know, you're having regular season football games higher than every other event other than the Oscars. And it's it's fascinating. It's great to be just a little bit of part of. But you know, that but that's the deal. The money's there is because we have 330 million people in the country, and now we've, you know, we're international and the NFL and the NBA. So, you know, we like I said, we don't have royalty anymore. It used to be royalty. This is our royalty.
SPEAKER_02There's a lot of important professions out there. We talked about surgeons and pilots earlier. Does it bother you though, or does it help or hurt that professional athletes' salaries are made publicly available?
SPEAKER_00No, I think that, you know, it's it's you know, it's part of the deal. You know, if you're gonna be in the public limelight and you're gonna make this, and you're gonna have to deal with people looking into your to your lives and and and following you around like the paparazzi, and you know, who are you dating? And you know, uh, you know, you broke up with this person. You know, it it just comes to territory. You know, the famous story is I think this was uh 1930 or something, and Babe Ruth was the first uh person to make over $100,000 a year in salary, and the president was making $80,000 a year, and I think it was Harding or whatever, whoever was the Coolidge or Harding, whoever's the president during the depression. And he said, Babe, you know, how do you feel that you make more money than the president? And he responded, Well, I had a better year than the president.
SPEAKER_02Four decades in the business. I've met so many people. Um, I'm gonna talk to you more about your relationships, but as you were coming up in the business, who were some of the greatest negotiators that you either dealt with or learned from?
SPEAKER_00Well, I was I'm very blessed, and I don't mean to drop names, and and of course, George Clooney once told me it's not polite to drop names, Cliff. So the first one, I I was fortunate enough when I first started in the business that George Young, who's the general manager of the Giants, took me under his wing. And George was a high school professor, not professor, teacher in Baltimore public schools, and somehow he got tied up to the Colts in the 60s and worked his way up to be a general manager. No advanced degree, no MBA, no law degree, no nothing. And for whatever reason, he took me under his wing when I was, and I think the player was Lance Smith, was with the Giants. And everybody says, who's the toughest negotiator? And of course, there always was Paul Brown because you know they didn't pay a lot of money. But no, it's easy to say no. That's not negotiations, to be, you know, just to be rigid. No, no, no. That's not negotiations. George, when you would negotiate with George Young, high school teacher, no professional training, and I've got this and I've got my book ready to go, and I'm ready to go, and I've got my statistics, you know, I've got this big proposal, and I've broken down everything that I can break down. And you know, let's say for a running back, and I know it's 4.6 yards per carry, and he's got 29 TDs, and his third down uh success ratio is 46%, and he had one fumble, and you know, I've got every statistic possible. And every time I would say something, he goes, Yeah, but what was his yards per carry in December? You know, it was 3.8 yards. And then what about at night games? You know, 3.6 yards. What about the two fumbles he had against Dallas? So every time I made a salient point based upon empirical data, George just hit me back like a ping pong, like, you know, or a tennis player like Martine and Avertola, just hitting forehand after forehand right by me. And that's what a good negotiator is. And George was that kind of guy. And and he was he could be rough and he could be gruff, but it wasn't no. It was he came back, every point you made, he had four, and it was right on the tip of his tongue. He was as prepared as anybody. He had it. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. You're like, oh, and then finally you just said, no mass no mass, all right, where do we sign? I will tell you a funny story. So the other person that took me in uh was a guy named Mike Holovac, and Mike was the general manager of the Houston Oilers back in the late 80s and old school, and he was with the Jets when uh Joe Namus was with was with the Jets, and we he told this story to me where Weeb Bubank, who was the head coach and GM of the Jets with Name. And back then you didn't have to be signed to go to training camp. You had to be signed to play the regular season. So players would actually show up to training camp without a contract. And what Weeb would do is he would bring the player in in between like, and they did three days back then. Forget about two a days. They were doing three a days in July and August in humidity and heat. And he would bring a player in and say, okay, and the player would have all this notes, and he's ready to go with, you know, I started this and I played this, this many plays. And then we would just sit there and he'd turn the heat up in the office. So it was already 90 degrees outside. He's turning the heat up. Player's already been to two a days, and he can't keep his eyes open. And we would just look at it, didn't not say anything for 20 minutes. And the player's falling asleep, and finally, you know, the player's like, I want 15,000, and we've like started at 10. He goes, All right, here's 10,100. And he'd slide the offer across. And finally, the player's just like, all right, I'll sign anywhere. I just need to get back to my dorm room and get to sleep. And that's how old school negotiations went. He just would wear them down. Wear them down.
SPEAKER_02Yep, he knew it. So, all right, so so for George Young, sounds like one of the biggest takeaways you got from that is really incredible preparation, right? He wouldn't be able to counter you with it without knowing the facts.
SPEAKER_00That's right. You want to have have all the preparation, you want to have all the statistics, you want to be ready for every possible counter move. You know, if the team wants to do this, they want to go to four years. Why don't we want to go to four years? They want to go put the signing bonus here, deferred. You know, okay, well, this player is not getting, you know, not as good as this player. You just want to make sure that whatever they say, you have ready to go. And you have to prepare, prepare, prepare.
SPEAKER_02When I interviewed another agent, he also talked about Ted Phillips, and this leads me to uh the Weeb Ubank analogy, that he's he made it very difficult for agents to get concessions. So no matter what it was, he made them really, really work hard for it before he gave something up. Is that a good takeaway also that you're getting from Weeb Ubank?
SPEAKER_01Well, no.
SPEAKER_00Well, with Weeb, right, I never negotiated against Weeb. That's way ahead of my time. But with with, as I call him Theodore, I found a way to have a relationship with him. And so it's not just call up and say, here's what we want. You know, find out certain things, find out about their family, their lives, what matters, football philosophies, the whole shooting matter. Sometimes you just call up and talk and don't even talk about your client. And you have relationships and let them know that here's some ideas that help can help you. You give me some ideas and help me. So Ted, after our first one, and even with David Tate, it wasn't never acrimonious because I was at least justifying my position. And as the Ted, as the relationship moved on, Ted was great. We always had a great relationship. And sometimes people that are more gruff or stoic or whatever, um, are harder to have a relationship with or gets no because they don't want to have that. But you got to find a way. In this business, you've got to find a way to get have a relationship with everybody. Paul Brown and the Bengals, gosh, Mike Brown. Mike and I have a good a very good relationship. And he he might say eight words a year. I hope he says two of those to me, a quarter of them to me.
SPEAKER_02Me, like when I think of you, that's a superpower I think you have that not everybody has is your ability to relate to so many different people, making all of us in the front office feel like you know, we were we were your friend, that we could trust you. Tell us about more about is that just a natural skill that you have? I even heard you talk about on another podcast or or a show where you know you were coaching lacrosse. This is not even being an agent, and you know, like a federal judge called you, and you had to, you know, and the and your client's takeaway was by the and you were coaching a game and you were dealing with like a like a major legal issue, and you don't have to tell the whole story. But my takeaway was that your client got from that, that you just got everybody's guard down and just turned the whole thing around by by relationships, it sounded like.
SPEAKER_00Right. So actually, Daniel Snyder sued myself and Scott McLuhan. It's a funny story. He sued us um because someone put a I and it's sort of topical now, someone put out a story on a website in India. I'm talking about the country of India, that Daniel Snyder was somehow connected to Jeffrey Epstein. And he sued us because he thought we leaked it, this information, to this website in India. And he sued us here in Denver Federal District Court. And it's it was actually during COVID. So no, there were no hearings, all the hearings were on Zoom. And the hearing went over, but I had to go coach the boys' high school team. And so I'm like, screw it, I'll I'll go do it during during the Zoom. So I'm there. The judge says, Well, it seems a little windy in the background, Mr. Schaefer. I said, Well, I'm I'm coaching the uh the high school. He goes, What high school? I said, Well, I'm at I coached South. He goes, Well, my son played lacrosse at East. And the Snyder, it was me as the only person representing us, a little old me. And Snyder had six or seven lawyers, two in Denver and four big city New York lawyers, and they're running all this stuff through. And once we heard that, we're like, we're fine. We're we're gonna be just fine here. Because, you know, Colorado's a very sort of small town, parochial, Denver is a is not a big city. It's a lot of people, but not a big city. Yep. So having those relationships and the fact that I was given back to the community by coaching at the local inner city high school, I think the judge realized, yeah, he's not such a bad guy.
SPEAKER_02How do we take that? So we take um your skill at building relationships, then we want to talk to current and future negotiators that want to get better better at it. How can they become better negotiators by maximizing their ability to build relationships?
SPEAKER_00Well, I think the first thing they have to Do is and it doesn't, and this is not just negotiators, but any profession you want. When you and I were growing up, we have to would go to these um buildings that had books in them. I think they call them libraries, right? And that's where we would get all this information. You'd actually have to pull a book out, sign it out, and you'd have to bring it back in two weeks, or you'd have to pay a fine. Now, with the internet the way it is, if you want to, whatever profession you want to go into, marketing, uh, orthopedic surgeon, there's just so many articles, so many books that you could just on your phone at night read, read, read, read, study, study, study. I mean, I've got every book on every negotiator. I I read books on generals, on how to lead, you know, a leadership. You always just want to just, if this is what you're gonna do, you want to just get as much information as you can. And it's right there on the tip of your tongue or tip of your finger, tip of your phone. And we have a situation where you know you now have art, you know, if chat GBT and AI. And I tell the students, I said, Look, you can use Chat GBT. It's just so much easier. Like, if right now you told me that there's a player, you know, what about this player? I hit ChatGBT. It's not telling me everything, but it gives me a basics. It can't do the work for you. But study, if you want to sit there and say, what are the best books to read about being a sports agent? Hit Chat GBT. Let it give you the 20 books, and then go either buy them or check them out of the library or grab them online somehow. That's how you get it. Or what are the best articles? Or what are the great negotiation stories? You know, I when I go for my run every day, I I I I'm not a big music guy, but I put on uh uh either YouTube or some type of documentary about whether it's uh a World War II general or um, you know, podcasts, like your podcast, and uh, and that's what I'll listen to when I'm running. Always want to just take that time, the precious few hours we have every day, and try to learn as much as we can.
SPEAKER_02You mentioned uh ChatGBT recommending books, but is there any is there one main book that you would want to tell people that either want to be on in sports or agent, read this book? Do you have anything in mind?
SPEAKER_00Well, I've I've been sent a bunch of manuscripts of that a lot of them haven't been published. You know, Richard Bertelson for the National Football League Players Association general counsel sent me his book. I think it's fascinating. I've got a book here that I have give me a second that I keep on my desk. And it's Never Ask Why by Ed Garvey, who was basically the first. Here it is, and I'm not getting any commission or any royalties on this, but Never Ask Why is is a book that Ed Garvey wrote. He was the first head of the Players Association. Actually, uh Thomas Delaney, the contract negotiator for the uh Raiders, sent that to me a few years back. Just a fascinating book. And those are the stuff, but any book you can. You can get some out of every book. I get you know books that you know, Lee Steinberg, who's a competitor of mine, wrote a book. And you know, I've read that. Uh Ernie Coursey, the gentleman of the Bronx uh the Giants, read a book.
SPEAKER_02So we had um I had Lee Steinberg on, and we talked about Winning with Integrity, which was written before I even started working for the Bears when he was kind of at the height of his career, and I used sections of it in my class. Is is that the um is that the book you're referring to? Yep, yep. Absolutely. Okay, the other question I have for you, Peter, too, is that, and then I'll wrap up with one final question. But before that, you know, because you've dealt with so many people, you've dealt with me, um, you've dealt with experienced people, and you have to be a chameleon because you've dealt with much less experienced people, you're probably even dealing with college front office people. What are some of the common mistakes that you you see that come from people working in the front office or even agents?
SPEAKER_00Well, I think that, well, first of all, agents tend to talk too much. You know, I think the one of the greatest attributes of any negotiator is the ability to listen. Okay. You don't have to win every conversation, you don't have to dominate every conversation. You know, there's sometimes that you know I get on the phone and the guy just wants to go, and that's why I don't like to do Zooms because you know I could multitask here in my office while they're just droning on. So I think listening is definitely the most important thing. It's a tremendous quality, not just in negotiations, but in life. It tells you what other people feel, what their issues are, what you know, the whole shooting match. Number one. Number two, with regards to teams, a lot of times you know that like if I was negotiating with you, there were certain times that I knew that you had the authority to get a deal done. And then there are other times I'm like, well, this is way over Cliff's head. He's gonna have to go to either the general manager or Ted Phillips because we're asking for something that either you've never done before or authority monetarily that's above your pay grade. You know, if we're doing a under free agent deal for $10,000, $15,000, you you had that. If we're doing, you know, a $10 million signing bonus deal and we want it paid about right now, you might not have had that authority. So you would have to get it. But a lot of times the the negotiator will sit there and say, Well, I need to go talk to Ted, or I need to go talk to Ryan, or whoever it is, and I'll get back to you. And I always say, don't do that. Just say, let me think about it and get back. Don't ever let someone know that you don't have the authority.
SPEAKER_01I think that one.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00I mean, just say, I'll get back to you. Don't tell me that I can't do it because you no, I don't wh why are you doing that? Nobody needs to know that you don't have the authority.
SPEAKER_02Right, because that could be that could be construed as a tactic, too, right? That you're just using this invisible person that you don't have to get to deal with directly as an excuse to why you can or can't do something. It's hard to negotiate against that, right? Correct. You kind of answered this, uh, one final question. I know we talked about listening, we also talked about preparation, but if you had a name, what are the three or four most important traits of being a great negotiator?
SPEAKER_00Preparation, patience, listening, and then knowing your client's will uh ability to get where you want to go. You know, I mean if the if the client is not gonna be strong, you can be as strong as you want, and you got nothing. So your client has to, you know, if if your client wants something, you gotta make sure he's ready, he or she's ready to uh you know, hold the line. If you have a client who's not ready to hold the line, then you don't have anything. You're only as strong as the weakest link.
SPEAKER_02Is that and you have detailed conversations with your clients on that topic before you get into a negotiation?
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. You gotta be able to sit there and say, are you ready to you are you ready to do this? You want to hold out? Okay, can you withstand this? Are you you know I was doing a deal, you know, Joe Thomas, and I think we're trying to get to 84 million over six years, making the highest paid tackle. And we're in the I'm in the Browns facility, and Matt Thomas, he's a wonderful person, great negotiator, was doing a deal with Tommy Hecker, and Holmgren was the general manager, head coach at the time. No, no, he was just a GM. I think Pat Sherman was head coach. And they had offered like 74 million. And we I knew I can get 84. And Joe looks at me and goes, You're gonna turn it down? I'm like, Yeah. What is wrong with you? I said, I can get this. And he looks at me and goes, You got this? I said, Joe, I got this. And we but it was many months and years of preparation as to why that number made sense. It wasn't an artificial number, it was a number based upon empirical data of what the tackles were, what the market was, where the salary cap was going, a whole bunch of different things that you know I had a situation today where I've got a player in the NIL world, and um the team, the school is actually making a proposal with uh incentives, playtime incentives for a college kid. And I said, this is a great example, Michael, where you know, this is what's gonna happen in the NFL. Let's use this as a learning experience because this is you know $50,000 incentive, but in the NFL, it could be a million-dollar incentive. And so we actually use that opportunity to teach a college kid, you know, this is what's gonna happen.
SPEAKER_02That's so you also touched on what I think is another important trait when your your conversation with Joe Thomas, your ability to have a certain level of emotional stability to take emotions out of it. I think it's another reason why players need agents. You and I have had conversations about this, about specific situations in the past where players choose to not have an agent. Talk about that for a minute. On you know, that conversation with Joe Thomas reminds me of how important your ability to remove emotion from the negotiation.
SPEAKER_00Well, Abraham Lincoln from Illinois said that you know, he represents himself as a fool for a client. And it's not because the client can't be smart enough. Richard Sherman always wanted to negotiate his own deals, and he and I have actually gone back and forth on all kinds of stuff, arguing. Yes, you're smart enough to do it. But like you say, you're it's emotional and you're subjective and you're arguing, and there's other, you know, how can you really look at it objectively? And then the other thing is that when you are negotiating, the other side is gonna say things that are gonna be, hey, look, I get it, but he's not the greatest running back, or he's not the greatest cornerback. We love him, he's our guy. And sometimes as the agent, we want to we have to sort of filter through what really said because we know that when the deal is done, he gotta go, he or she's gotta go play for that team. And you don't want him going in the in the building saying, Well, the coach says I'm not the best running back. So it is nice to have that buffer and that filter uh to have it. And I think that all players should have it an agent because of that. And yes, I get it. Um, one of the most important things that we can do as the agent community is to educate people as to our value. Okay. And when players say, Well, you know, I'm paying you $100,000 a year to represent me. I first of all want to make sure that they're getting two or three hundred thousand dollars worth of value. And of course, I then say to him, Well, I I wish you were paying me $500,000 a year, because you know, we work on a 3% basis. And he goes, Well, that's a lot of money. I said, Well, just think how much you're making it. All right, that's how you have to think about it. I wish every if every one of my players was paying me $500,000 a year, that means every one of my players is making $15 million a year. That would be a good thing. Right? You know, I guess on some level, I wish the players paid me $3 million a year, because that means they're making $100 million a year. You know, just like the same thing with tax. I pay a lot of money in taxes. That's a good thing. It means you're making a lot of money. That's how I look at it. That's awesome.
SPEAKER_02Well, I appreciate you being here. You are a true negotiation warrior, a legend in this business, super humble person, but a good friend to many. And I appreciate all your support over the years and uh hope as you're on a run one of these days and you get to turn on negotiation warriors podcast because and now you're part of it. So thank you.
SPEAKER_00Well, the problem is gonna be, Cliff, is this one went for an hour. I don't like to run for an hour, so I'd rather I'm gonna try try to find the shorter ones. Maybe Ted Ted will be much shorter, I'm sure. I'll I'll listen to the Ted Phillips one. That's it.
SPEAKER_02We will edit it. Don't worry. All right. But thank you. You've been awesome. Keep going because you're just you've so many different different stories. Like people are gonna be so interested in your career. So thank you for giving back, giving your time, helping me. Um, it's great to see you, great to talk to you.
SPEAKER_00Well, I appreciate you having me on. Uh, really, my goal is to try to help the next generation be better than we are, have better lives than we do, better society, do things the right way. You know, what where Lee talks about winning with integrity, that's something that should never go away. Doing things the right way all the time, you know. And i i it's just not words. You want to do that. You want to make sure everybody's doing doing things the proper way. That's the best way to have a great society. And we live in the greatest society in the history of the world. I hope next tomorrow some will sit there and say, it's even better tomorrow, and it's even better the next day.
SPEAKER_02Well said, Peter. Appreciate you. Great to see you.
SPEAKER_03Thank you for listening to Negotiation Warriors. I hope you enjoyed this episode. And if you like what you heard, please subscribe on the Negotiation Warriors YouTube channel and follow us at FrontOffice360 on Instagram and X. And to find out our helping college athletic programs, go to frontoffice360.com.