Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Podcast / Leadership, Physician Empowerment, and the Future of Sports with Leigh Steinberg

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Leadership, Physician Empowerment, and the Future of Sports with Leigh Steinberg · Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

0:00
- This is Scott Becker with the special edition
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- of the Becker's health care and Becker private
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- equity business podcast.
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- We're joined today by a legendary
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- sports agent,
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- Lee Steinberg,
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- who's done so much more besides just being
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- a sports agent. He's done a lot with
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- concussion protocols, a lot with CTE,
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- and and is doing continues to do great
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- things in addition to writing best selling books.
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- Lee,
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- when I grew up,
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- or you're not that much older than me,
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- just a little bit, but you were a
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- household name
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- in sports, and you still represent some of
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- the greatest names in sports today.
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- Tell us a little bit about for people
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- that are not familiar, tell us a bit
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- about yourself and your background and and and
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- what you've built.
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- So I grew up in Los Angeles,
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- and had a father who's a high school
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- principal,
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- and he had two core values. One was
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- treasure relationships,
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- especially family,
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- And the second was
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- trying to make a meaningful
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- difference in other people's lives and help people
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- who can't help themselves. So I was sort
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- of hardwired for that.
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- Went undergrad to Berkeley,
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- then on to law school with student body
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- president when Ronald Reagan was governor, and we
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- used to demonstrate. And I've I've learned everything
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- I needed to learn about the art of
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- negotiating
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- by interfacing with then governor, later president Reagan.
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- They moved the freshman
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- football team into a dorm I was a
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- dorm counselor for,
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- and one of the students was the quarterback,
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- Steve Bartkowski.
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- And in 1975,
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- he became the very first player picked in
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- the first round overall
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- in the NFL draft,
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- and he asked me to represent him.
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- And there really wasn't an organized field of
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- sports agentry,
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- At that point, teams could just slam the
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- phone down and say we don't deal with
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- agents.
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- So it was very embryonic.
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- And
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- as years went on, I made it a
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- point only to take those clients who are
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- willing to be role models and retrace their
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- roots to the high school,
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- collegiate, and professional
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- level and set up charitable programs. And
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- the players in the aggregate have raised over
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- a billion $300,000,000
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- for various charities,
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- charitable foundations,
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- scholarship funds,
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- and
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- sixty four first round draft picks in football.
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- The very first pick in the first round,
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- eight years,
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- 12 players in the hall of fame,
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- a
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- big baseball practice, basketball, boxing.
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- And,
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- and I became,
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- distressed
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- with the concept of athletes getting hit in
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- the head. And we would go
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- to neurologists, and they had no answers.
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- How many is too many? When should we
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- retire? So I started holding concussion conferences
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- in
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- first one nineteen ninety four with Troy Aikman
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- and Steve Young and Warren Moon
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- and,
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- have have worked
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- ever since with new
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- brain health summits every year at our Super
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- Bowl party, we do two hours of it.
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- And we also have a longevity
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- lounge where we show off new modalities
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- of healing
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- and,
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- and a charitable foundation on the issue of
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- concussion,
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- which deals with
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- concussion and collision sports.
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- Amazing. And talk a little bit about when
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- you watch the business and sports world today
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- or the health care, because I know you're
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- involved in that as well.
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- What what are some of the trends you're
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- watching? What are the things that you find
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- interesting out there?
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- I I know we've talked a little bit
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- about in health care, you know, being an
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- agent for these physicians that have these huge
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- practices or sharing organizations, sharing academic medical centers.
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- But what what do you find interesting out
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- there that you're looking at? Because you've seen
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- so much through the course of your career.
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- What trends are you watching both in business
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- and health care?
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- So in health care,
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- I talked with doctor Michael Sook, who's,
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- former head of the AMA,
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- and we talked about the similarities
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- between
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- doctors
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- and
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- where athletes were years ago with very few
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- rights and very little guidance
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- and sort of a one-sided negotiation
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- process. So we established something called
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- MD Envoy,
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- and the goal was to get a 100
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- doctors
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- by last December,
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- to put $10,000
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- a piece into being founders, and it would
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- help them with
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- career guidance, placement,
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- contract negotiation,
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- financial planning, marketing, and and branding.
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- And,
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- so we're
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- we got a 130 of them,
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- and, I think we're about at one forty
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- five now.
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- The goal is to have a thousand doctors
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- by,
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- the end of the year
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- and
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- revolutionize
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- the way in which they're empowered.
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- So
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- that's a medical trend.
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- Breaking modalities
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- of health and wellness are stunning how quickly
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- it's happening, and it has applications to athletes
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- in that it can heal them quicker and
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- return them to service
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- and,
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- hype up
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- productivity in critical game situations,
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- so we look at that.
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- In sports,
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- college sports
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- have been dramatically
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- shaken up by
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- the introduction of
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- name, image, likeness ability
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- for
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- a high school player going to college to
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- have a
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- an agent negotiate
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- with the college about how much money
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- they will pay to have the player come
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- to that school.
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- That's changed dramatically
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- the whole tableau of college sports.
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- And then you have conference realignment,
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- which has I went to
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- Cal Berkeley.
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- When you walk across the campus, you look
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- out at the Pacific Ocean and the Golden
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- Gate Bridge. When you get
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- we're now in a conference
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- that is
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- located in
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- in North Carolina
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- looking at the Atlantic Ocean. So the travel
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- time, regionality,
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- the traditional rivalries
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- all change. And then you have gambling,
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- which has made
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- a major difference and really is an existential
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- threat to sports because
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- if you have a player
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- who gives inside
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- information to a gambler
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- on what they call prop bets,
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- which means if someone can bet basically on
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- every aspect of the game
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- from,
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- you know, who wins the coin flip to
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- how how many yards player x y gets.
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- And if you have someone who gives inside
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- information
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- or is,
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- shaved performance,
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- it could end up with sports
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- seeming like it's not played on an even
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- even playing field,
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- and then you have wrestling.
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- Yeah. So talk about that a little bit.
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- Like, the money going into college football
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- has caused such a perversion of what was
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- college football, and it's and it's complicated. Because
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- once coaches started getting these $100,000,000
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- salaries,
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- it was almost impossible, you know, when when
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- when the the guy who went out to
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- USC for, I think, ten years, 100,000,000, that
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- was sort of the end of college football
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- from this concept of how do we not
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- pay players if the coaches are getting paid
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- like that. And then this most recent thing
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- with at LSU,
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- you know, we're trying to recruit
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- people that are already NFL tryouts.
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- And and, you know, perhaps it is within
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- the letter of the law, but it sure
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- has changed
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- college sports. Is it ever it's never changing
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- back though, isn't it? It's really become like
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- minor league sports now or or but not
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- even minor leagues are getting paid a lot
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- of money. But
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- It was the law of unintended
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- consequences.
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- Players
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- sitting on a college campus who had athletic,
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- performance but
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- limited finances,
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- who might be sending money home to their
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- parents,
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- needed a little more to give them an
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- adjustment
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- that would make them at least at the
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- level of non,
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- athletic
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- students on the campus who could work to
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- supplement their income where the athletes couldn't.
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- So they probably could have fixed that problem
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- by giving select athletes $5,000,
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- and they'd have been very happy.
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- Instead,
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- we talked about LSU. LSU had a quarterback
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- before Lane Kiffin got there named Underwood,
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- and he went to LSU for 4,000,000.
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- Then along before he ever played it down,
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- along came
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- a Michigan alum who offered him $14,000,000,
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- and he took it and went off to
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- Michigan where he's now the starter.
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- So we're looking at stunning amounts of money,
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- both,
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- high school to college and then what's called
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- the transfer portal afterwards.
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- And so
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- it's free agency for high school football players
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- and basketball players.
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- No. Incredible.
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- And what are you you do a lot
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- of different things and been doing for a
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- long time. What are you most focused on
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- and excited about as we head towards the
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- end of this year and into 2027?
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- Well, I wrote a book called The Comeback,
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- and,
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- I've been out on book tour for a
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- while and and
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- continue to to sign it. It's based on
10:00
- the premise that life will set you back,
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- that it could be financial,
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- it could be marital, it could be health,
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- or in my case, it was,
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- addiction to alcohol.
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- And
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- that will
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- have a
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- chilling effect on,
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- someone's ability
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- to to
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- function well.
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- So the question is not whether something like
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- that will happen. It's when it does happen,
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- how do you,
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- come back?
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- And so
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- that book tells tales of resilience,
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- talks about
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- Troy Aikman and Steve Young and Warren Moon
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- and Patrick Mahomes
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- and challenges they faced in their life, and
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- then my
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- sixteen years of continuous sobriety
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- and how that was achieved. So I've been
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- on
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- on book tour. We'll do an Asian Academy
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- this fall,
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- which teaches
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- younger people who wanna be involved in the
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- sports business
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- how to negotiate,
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- how to,
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- recruit,
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- how to brand and market,
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- how to set up a charitable foundation,
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- how to deal with
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- damage control with athletes.
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- And,
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- so we've held about 30 of them. It's
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- it's an effort to train a new generation
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- with ethics and values,
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- that also understand,
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- the power of,
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- sports
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- through this role modeling.
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- And
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- just to give you an example, I had
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- Lennox Lewis, the heavyweight champion,
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- cut a public service announcement that said
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- real men
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- don't hit women.
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- And that could do more on the issue
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- of domestic violence
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- to change the behavior
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- of rebellious adolescents
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- more than
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- a dozen authority figures ever could. So we've
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- got the ability to message also
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- and trigger imitated behavior.
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- Fantastic. And you've had this great career.
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- I I I love the concept that
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- nobody goes through life unscathed. All of us
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- can have something that we have to be
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- resilient from. I remember a a leader telling
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- me that a long time ago when I
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- faced some personal problems that no one goes
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- through this life unscathed and the comeback and
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- resilience is a is a beautiful thing in
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- people. I I love that.
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- Talk for a second about if you're giving
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- advice
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- to somebody building a career today or an
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- emerging leader, an emerging agent, and I know
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- you do that at your academy, give us
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- a couple thoughts on what you might tell
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- somebody who's trying to grow and build a
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- business or or become a leader.
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- But the first key is to do an
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- internal
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- inventory
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- of what values and priorities are most important
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- to you.
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- So it's how important is short term economic
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- gain?
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- How important is long term economic security?
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- What about family considerations
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- or spiritual or geographical
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- considerations?
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- How important is making an impact in the
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- world?
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- How important are things like the corner office
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- or,
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- vacation,
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- a belief in what you're doing. So it
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- would be to have clarity, Scott, in
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- understanding what in life's going to fulfill,
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- an individual.
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- And then the next thing I'd say is
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- hone your listening skills.
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- If you can draw out another human being
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- and cut below the surface
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- and get below surface responses
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- deeper and deeper so you get to their
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- emotional center.
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- And if you can understand their greatest anxieties
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- and fears
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- and greatest hopes and dreams
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- and, put yourself in the other person's heart
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- and mind and see the world the way
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- that they see it, then you can move
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- your way through life pretty gracefully.
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- Love that. And and we
14:09
- tell us where people could find the book
14:11
- to come back. Where can they find that?
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- That's just fantastic. Tell us about that. On
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- Amazon or Barnes and Noble,
14:19
- at your
14:20
- Better Bookstores, but you can order online, which
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- is how most books are sold now.
14:26
- And then if you like that, take a
14:28
- look at the first book I did, winning
14:30
- with integrity,
14:31
- which is a primer for negotiating,
14:34
- and the agent,
14:36
- which is an autobiography,
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- and,
14:40
- a book we wrote on athletic concussion with
14:43
- two doctors.
14:46
- So
14:47
- it's,
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- I actually have a book club on Facebook
14:53
- for people to still like to read. It's
14:55
- a lost art, but there's still some of
14:57
- us here.
14:59
- Fantastic.
15:00
- Lee, what a pleasure to visit with you.
15:03
- Sort of legendary, lifelong. I've looked up to
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- you, learned from you. Thank you so much
15:07
- for joining us today, in this combination episode
15:10
- of Becker's Healthcare, Becker private equity business.
15:12
- What a pleasure to visit with you. Thank
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- you so much. Thank you, Scott.