It’s salad days for athletes getting content deals, and that means CAA Sports is inking scores of new production partnerships for clients, whether it’s Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen’s alliance with Skydance (now Paramount-Skydance) or a new docuseries on former Alabama coach Nick Saban. “There are bigger businesses to be built around these athletes, teams and leagues,” says Raphael, the agent who sold the docuseries The Comeback: 2004 Boston Red Sox to Netflix on behalf of Meadowlark Media and Major League Baseball. Kramer and Young, co-heads of sports media, rep ESPN’s Joe Buck, Mike Greenberg and dozens of others, with the latter saying that on-air talent can make more — in some cases far more — than the players on the field. “Tony Romo, Joe Buck, Troy Aikman and Tom Brady will all make more in the booth than most active NFL players this year,” he says. Nonfiction TV agent Gross reps sports doc producers, including Box to Box, EverWonder, Barnicle Brothers and Meadowlark Media, as well as league production entities like NASCAR Studios.
Biggest shift in sports
GROSS “Documentary series and films have turned athletes into cultural icons, influencing fan behavior. Fans today crave more than game highlights — they want depth, story arcs and emotional resonance. Platforms like Netflix, Amazon and Apple invest in binge-worthy series; as a result, sports documentaries are sometimes even more compelling than the game itself.”
Player doing the best job building their brand
KRAMER “Bryson DeChambeau did a public reinvention from being viewed as a divisive player on the LIV Golf tour to now clearly being a fan favorite. He did that by creating relatable viral content, from doing a daily challenge on TikTok and Instagram where he hit a golf ball over his house into a hole in his backyard, to creating his own digital show, Breaking 50, where he tries to break 50 on YouTube with a celebrity.”