Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Leigh Steinberg: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1549

Episode Date: September 10, 2024

In this 1549th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with sports agent Leigh Steinberg about his 50-year career negotiating over $3 billion in contracts for players including Troy Aikman, Steve Young, and Patrick Mahomes, his fall from grace, his redemption and whether he's the inspiration for Jerry Maguire. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, The Advantaged Investor podcast from Raymond James Canada, and RecycleMyElectronics.ca. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail]

Jerry! Yeah, what can I do for you, Rod? You just tell me what can I do for you. It's a very personal, very important thing. Hell, it's a family motto. Are you ready, Jerry? I'm ready. I just want to make sure you're ready, brother.

Here it is. Show me the money. Welcome to episode 1549 of Toronto Mic'd. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery. A fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times and brewing amazing beer. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. Palma Pasta! Enjoy the taste of fresh, homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. The Advantage Investor podcast from

Raymond James Canada. Learn how to plan, invest, and live smarter. RecycleMyElectronics.ca. Committing to our planet's future means properly recycling our electronics of the past. And Ridley Funeral Home. Pillars of the community since 1921. Today, making his Toronto Mike's debut is Lee Steinberg. Lee hello from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Hello, nice to be with you. Where do we find you today? I'm in Newport Beach which is in southern California about 50 miles south Los Angeles. I'll bet you it's warmer where you are than it is where I am.

Over the weekend we had our biggest heat wave it was like 9500 degrees but you can't get too warm by the beach. Otherwise it turns into a big magnifying glass and gets all foggy. I'm very interested to dive into your story. I find your story Hollywood worthy and we'll talk about that. You know, you have this great rise, there's a fall, there's a redemption, just a tremendous story.

But I couldn't help but notice Lee, over your 50 year career as a sports agent, that even though you've represented over 300 professional athletes, a lot of football, baseball, basketball, boxing, some Olympic sports, but have you ever represented an NHL hockey player? I did once. I did once, but you know it's not quite that we grow up with ice around here. As a matter of fact, they take you on snow trips when you're in elementary school and you drive up to the mountains and you're so excited to see snow that you put it in a cup to show your parents when you get home, but of course it takes a couple hours to see snow that you put it in a cup to show your parents when you get home. But of course, it takes a couple of hours to get home and you know the results.

Do you remember the name of this hockey player by any chance? Joaquin Gage. OK, but interesting, though, because you'd think that, you know, having such a long, illustrious career, one or two, you know, first overall picks in the NHL draft would have found their way to Lee Steinberg. I think it's a great sport. I enjoy watching it. And I'm sure they're well represented.

Now I mentioned you got to rise, there's a fall, there's redemption, but would you mind sharing with me your super agent origin story? I was reading that you were elected president of the Associated Students of the University of California, but then resigned because of some cheating scandal. Maybe take us back there and how do you become a super agent? So, I was student by president at Cal and the governor was Ronald Reagan and every time we demonstrated against war in Vietnam he would crack down and there were many many instances. So I learned everything I needed to learn

about the art of negotiating from dealing with Governor, later President Reagan. I was a dorm counselor in an undergraduate dorm and they moved the freshman football team into the dorm. And one of the students was the quarterback, Steve Bartkowski, on the Cal football team and I had graduated from law school and was traveling around the world and when I came back in late 1974 Bartkowski became eligible for the NFL draft and he was the

very first pick in the first round and he asked me to represent him and there I was brimming with legal experience. So I had the first pick in the first round of the draft and we received the largest rookie contract in NFL history. And there really wasn't an organized field of sports agentry. It was teams could just hang up the phone and say we don't deal with agents. So we get to the airport in Atlanta to sign the contract the next day and there's lights in the sky, a crowd's pressing up against the police line. And we hear, we interrupt the Johnny Carson show to bring you a special news bulletin. Bartkowski and his attorney arrived at the airport. And it was like a revelation.

And since my dad had two core values, one was treasure relationships, especially family, and the other was to try to make a meaningful difference in the world and help people who couldn't help themselves. I was looking for a profession where I could do that, and I saw that the athletes were the movie stars and they were the celebrities. So if they would retrace their roots and go back to the high school, college and pro communities and set up charitable giving programs, they could make a profound difference. What a confluence of happenstance that your, you know, friends of Steve Bartowski at Cal and he's the number one pick overall. And it sounds like you

weren't exactly headed down this road but you were kind of in the right place at the right time and it almost sounds like Steve asked you to do him a favor or something. Well, there was no road. There was no organized field of sports agency, but I quickly learned how to profile athletes so I would get those that were willing to retrace their roots, would do a high school scholarship fund, would do a college repayment, would set up a charitable foundation, and would be self-starters so that led in football to what like 64 first-round draft picks and the very first pick in the draft but again it was the subtext of everything was trying to make a difference in the world

that's a that's a very interesting detail and we will spend some time talking about your philanthropic efforts. It's kind of amazing. But Steve Bartowski, he's the first of the eight first overall picks that you would end up representing in your career. And as you mentioned, that contract was a four-year, $600,000 contract. That was the richest ever for a draft pick at that time. Like what a way to kick off your career. It's like hitting a home run, the first pitch you see.

It is. But when you think of where modern economics are, Steve's first year of salary is $40,000. And he got a signing bonus of, wait for it, $250,000. And oh my God, it was sports economics run amok. How could someone get paid that much money? Right, this is literally in the mid 70s here. So that is a different era for sure. So over your career, $3 billion in contracts is what I think it all adds up to that you've negotiated for your clients.

Over three billion. It was a substantial amount. I mean, at our height, we had 90 football players, 60 baseball players, 15 basketball players, you know, the boxers, Olympic athletes. And, but again, I'm more excited about the fact that we took on issues like concussion, that we tried to make the sport available for as many people as possible, that we broke the color line in quarterbacking in the NFL and things like that.

Well, to hear you speak, it's almost as if the dollar amount is sort of a bonus benefit. So look, the sport generates the money. We have salary caps like in football, the NFL, 53% of the money goes to owners and 47% goes to players. So it's guaranteed profitability. And when you look at high ticket prices, because I do worry about the future of sport, if you can't have young people attend live and working families attend live, the truth is ticket prices are a function of supply and demand. The truth is ticket prices are a function of supply and demand so When you look at the grievous toll that a sport like football Even baseball take on the human body and the fact that these are people that are going to have problems

cognitive problems Brain problems and the breakdown of every joint then I feel like if money's being generated from this, that the athlete's ought to be able to maximize their revenue. Well, it kind of goes against this catchphrase that I've always heard. It was in a movie we're going to talk about for a moment here called Jerry Maguire, but show me the money. Show me the money. So now it's my chance to get, you know, hear directly from you. How much of Jerry Maguire is Lee Steinberg? So Jerry Maguire is Cameron Crowe's creative writing and his brain.

But he did spend a couple of years with me. He called me up in 93 and said, can we follow you around for a movie that would center on a character who was a sports agent? And so he started coming to events like the NFL league meetings with me, the NFL draft in New York, signing of Drew Bledsoe. He came to Pro Scouting Day at USC. He came to my Super Bowl parties. He went to a number of games with me and I told him stories, lots of stories. And so he wrote a script and part of my job as

technical advisor was to vet the script so the willing suspension of disbelief that holds you in a motion picture didn't get broken, that you don't think the dialogue is stilted or phony, that you don't think the look is. And then he assigned me actors like Cuba Gooding Jr. who I took to a Superbowl and for a week he had to pretend he was a wide receiver client of mine. So he hung out with Desmond Howard and Amani Toomer. And so there's a lot of life up there on the screen. But and it's been like 26 years

and still I can't go to an airport or go out to dinner without someone running up to the table and saying those four iconic words, show me the... Money! Right, and so I sort of hear it every week. Okay, so it sounds like Cameron Crowe took elements of you in your life and then he sort of did his creative spin on it. So you're not Jerry Maguire, but is it fair to say that the character Jerry McGuire is modeled, inspired, let's use that word, inspired by you? Well, you'd have to ask Cameron because I don't want to take away from his achievement, but there's a lot of life up there.

And Lee, you're in the movie too, right? Yes, not to quit my day job, but I did a cameo which was so realistic. I'm introducing Jerry Maguire to Troy Aikman, like he wouldn't know him otherwise. All right, that's amazing. And because I was curious about your role as a consultant on the film, Jerry McGuire, I couldn't help but notice a bunch of other sports movies and shows. I totally dig have your name in the credits like any given Sunday for the love of the game, our list like so this is something you'll do.

You'll you're available as a technical consultant on sports films. Well, I've done a lot of it. There was a film called Concussion that I did not take screen credit for because it was sort of controversial. But, but being here in Southern California, when a sports team comes up there's many many occasions where I help with the script or with the concept or put athletes into the movies or done something any given Sunday was a fun experience because I got to work with Al Pacino and Cameron Diaz. And originally, the quarterback in that film was supposed to be played by a famous rapper,

but he couldn't throw the football. So they replaced him with a young comedic actor who had, this was his first dramatic role, and was Jimmy Foxx. So I worked with the actors on the set and tried to give them a motivation or point of view. I spent a good evening with Al Pacino where it was well what it's like to be a football coach what's in your brain in terms of relating to players and management and all the rest. Now, because you work with so many NFL stars,

name drop a few, but like Troy Aikman, Steve Young, Patrick Mahomes, you don't have a chance to negotiate with Toronto franchises. I'm just wondering, can you just maybe shout out an athlete or two you represented who, you know, played for a Toronto-based sports franchise? Ricky Williams.

Wow, Toronto Argos. All right, Toronto. And my brother went to, got a masters from the University of Toronto in economics that helped him with his deal, but I love the city. It's one of the three or four cities in North America that has immense diversity, unbelievable assets, and it's fun to go to. One fun fact about the Toronto Blue Jays is that prior to getting a franchise for 1977,

we were in negotiations to bring the San Francisco Giants to Toronto. I've read this in documentation of the time. So the Giants almost relocated in the 70s, almost relocated to Toronto. Obviously never happened, but I was interested in some of your efforts to keep franchises in their city. I mean, it sounds like the Giants were going to go to Florida in the early 90s. They had a signed contract. So I've always felt that the role here is to try to be a steward of sport and to keep sports healthy. And I don't think it makes sports healthy when the team claims to be a civic treasure. And so even though it's a private business, it says

for your Toronto Blue Jays with the implied obligation that you come win or lose, that you watch on television, that you buy merchandise, and then to rip a franchise out of the city and break the hearts of young fans, I don't think is in the best interest of professional sports. So in 1992, the mayor of San Francisco called me because they were about to lose their Giants team that you referred to, to Tampa Bay. And a group of business, they'd actually signed the contract. Well, I thought, so everyone assumed it was a pay to comp lead, they were going to leave and I thought why not

fight for the team? Why not convince the National League it's against the best interest? Why not find a new ownership group and and and and fight back and we did and that led to to the giant sting and then I got sued by the people in Tampa Bay for $3 billion, which is under the aegis of blood out of a turnip. So I did that and I did the same thing for the Oakland A's. And then I tried to do the same thing for the Rams, 94.

And we fought real hard and we won the first vote of the NFL, the Forbidden, and then they left. And I did such a great job. They were in St. Louis for 20 years. Right, well, you can't win them all. But your efforts in San Francisco, I know the mayor, Frank Jordan, declared Lee Steinberg Day.

That's not bad. Yeah, a day of complete chaos and anarchy, if anything goes. My goodness, it's hard to even imagine the Giants. Well, I guess they were in New York before San Francisco So here I am gonna tell you that I can't imagine them playing anywhere else

But of course they did play elsewhere. So what do I know but the oak Oakland needed to call you this year Oakland's gone Essentially after this season so 94 you were successful in keeping them in Oakland they just there was no there there in Oakland to to lead an effort to redo the stadium and redo the team. I just thought of another athlete that we had in Toronto, Sean Green. Oh, I loved Sean Green. Yeah. He was like a wasn't he a 40?

No, maybe it was 30, 30. I don't want to go want to go you know nowadays of Otani now soon we'll be talking about 5050 but I think Sean Green was a 3030 player. Well, one year with the Dodgers because I'm a big fan. He hit 49 homers. Yeah, he had power and he could steal a base. I love that combo. Right. Love that combo. Okay. Awesome. You know, you know, it's channel centric content that gets people here and then they're gonna stick around because at the end of this conversation, and I don't know if this will be embarrassing to you or not, but I want to run through like some of the charities and some of these some of your involvement in the Special Olympics, etc. But, but, but, but, I wonder how comfortable you are

in sharing how, you're sort of, we talked about these numbers, and numbers might not mean a lot to you, but huge numbers, you're the man. And then you have sort of a fall from grace before you redeem yourself. How much are you willing to share with us about the 1990s fall from grace? So I had had sort of a charmed existence for years in representing athletes and having

them do good things. But there came a period where my father died of cancer, my two sons were diagnosed with incurable eye disease, we lost the house to mold, and I'd never been a big drinker, but it caught up with me. And I eventually crashed and gave up my office and gave up my home and went into sober living. And I had to break denial of the fact that I had a problem. But I finally had an epiphany

that I wasn't a starving peasant in Darfur, I wasn't named Steinberg in Nazi Germany, I wasn't, didn't have cancer, what excuse did I have not to live up to my father's admonition. So I just went to work and worked a 12-step program with a unique fellowship and said look if nothing else in this lifetime I'm I'm going to pledge to be sober and pledge to be a good father and that was 14 and a half years ago and if anyone's out there struggling or despondent because of problems they have with addictive substances, just know there's help available.

And you have to do some work and you have to make sobriety number one. But I'm just turned in my third book, which is called The Comeback, Resilience, What Matters? And it talks about it. I've been public in the hope that maybe that helps somebody else that's going through the same thing. Well, congratulations on your sobriety. Thank you. Amazing. And I mean, it got so tough there that you even let your NFLPA agent license lapse, right? Like this is how bad things got, which is kind of amazing to consider.

You let your NFLPA agent license lapse and then fast forward and you're landing Patrick Mahomes a 10 year, $450 million contract extension with the Kansas City Chiefs. That's quite the redemption, quite the comeback. Really, the comeback is in maintaining sobriety and being a good parent. The rest of it is sort of the cherry on top. but I never had any doubts that I could probably do okay representing athletes but you know you have to pay attention every day to maintaining sobriety. Are you still in contact with Ricky Williams? Yes. I was a big Ricky Williams fan and I loved that he was here. I took my boy to see him at the the dome, the sky dome, just to say, hey look there's Ricky Williams playing for our Toronto Argonauts. That was a very exciting time for me in the Toronto Argos. You know Ricky loved playing

He loved playing in Toronto. He loved the whole CFL. And remember, you know, I go back with the CFL to the Edmonton Eskimos where I had Warren Moon and Waddell Smith and Brian Kelly and Tommy Scott and Jim Germany and a whole bunch of their guys, Joe Pow Pow in BC. And thank goodness for the CFL. Um, and, um, you know, it was a, um, great experience, but if Ricky could have played CFL from the start, I don't think he would have had any problems because it's just a more humane way to play football.

Yeah. It was a short time, but it was exciting to see Ricky Williams suit up for the, for the Argonauts. Now, so obviously we mentioned the Patrick Mahomes contract. We, you're back because you're sober, but you're giving back, which is, I find incredibly inspiring. Please, before we say goodbye, can we shout out some of these great organizations and causes that you devote your time to? And how do you find

the time? I mean, this list is a mile long. It's just a third of what I do is trying to help athletes do foundations for charity work done. Just put the 200 single parent and their family into the first home they'll ever own by making a down payment and moving them in. Patrick Mahomes has 15 in the Mahomes. It helps thousands of young kids at risk and other things. We do a Super Bowl party every year and we raise money for cholera prevention in Haiti and for the homeless and for Junior Olympics this year. We're doing national urban league but the point is sports can be a powerful force in dealing with triggering imitative behavior. So it's not just money raised. It's when you have Lennox Lewis kind of public service announcement that says real men don't hit women, then that can do more to trigger behavioral change in rebellious adolescence than a thousand authority figures ever could. Or Oscar De La Hoya and Steve Young

prejudices foul play. So the truth of the matter is we can make an impact. We've done programs on bullying, on fighting racism, on the environment, the Sporting Green Alliance, and those are all ways in which athletes can trigger the public to do their own definition of making a difference in the world. Amazing, and I mentioned the Special Olympics, but the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, the Children's Miracle Network, I mean, we could go on and on. I mean, these are fantastic causes you're involved with.

And you then given back at your old alma mater at Cal's law school. Yes, now I'm under no illusion that naming rights or anything else is going to endure. But the point is to do what you can. All of us in our own way and our own time can do what we can to have a nicer vision for the world and at the end of the day hopefully if you take an issue like concussion we've had 30 concussion conferences that I've held to try to deal with the specter of that terrible affliction that comes with football and other sports. And are we making progress on that front

with the more we learn about CTE? Yes. Again, I've had neurologists every year at the Super Bowl party in Las Vegas, we had a brain health summit and between confession protocol, between not hitting in the off season, And between confession protocol, between not hitting in the off season, there's certain programs now are experimenting

with no hits during training camp or during practice. So the only hitting is done during the actual game. And, but we now have one treatment called RTMS. So the only hitting is done during the actual game. But we now have one treatment called RTMS, another is called Nestre Brain Training that can actually through this area of neuroplasticity rewire a previously TBI concussed brain. And so things are getting better. That's, uh, that's, that's good to hear a couple of quick questions on our way out. I thoroughly enjoyed this and I really appreciate your, uh, your time, Lee.

If Scotty Norwood hits that field goal, how many Super Bowls do the Buffalo Bills win? Probably four. Um, you know, the irony is in sports that here you have a franchise and I had Bruce Smith and Thurman Thomas on that team and here you have a team so good that they are among the top two teams out of 32 and that's an amazing accomplishment to go four years and being in the top two teams. But because they lost those games, they go down in history as losers instead of getting credit for the fact they got that far. Right. Well, here in Toronto, we don't, as you know, we don't have an NFL team. So we've kind of adopted the Buffalo Bills as our, our local team. So we kind of know firsthand this feeling. But

you're right, getting to four Super Bowls in a row, extremely difficult. You have to be an amazing team to do that. Yes. And I mean, everybody is all excited because the Kansas City Chiefs won two in a row. And now we'll be going for a third but so much of that depends on who gets injured what key reverses you have during the season you really get it's hard to anticipate and on our way out here I heard you mention Lennox Lewis and as you might know Len Lewis, who spent many years in this country, he fought for Canada in the Olympics. Right. And, well, with Lennox, what I told him was, you know, you don't need to be using a promoter. You can be your own promoter. You don't need to be paying 40% of your money to someone.

You know, you can set up the chairs yourself and do the TV contracts and all the rest of it. So he came up with Lion Productions in the same way that Oscar De La Hoya came up with Golden Boy as a promotional effort. So the whole goal was to empower these fighters so that they could do being in control of their own lives. Lee, if you ever want to leave the sports agent world and be a podcast agent, I would love to be a show me the money is what I'm saying to you. Lee, show me the money. That was the very first time I ever heard that. Thanks for this, my friend.

This was great. I enjoyed the chat with you. You're welcome. And that brings us to the end of our 1549th show. You can follow me on social media at Toronto Mike. Go to torontomic.com for all your Toronto Mike needs. Much love to those who made this possible. That is Great Lakes Brewery, HomeApasta,

RecycleMyElectronics.ca, Raymond James Canada, and Ridley Funeral Home. And if you're interested in becoming a partner and sponsoring this program, show me the money! I'm getting us from a tent Cause my UI check has just come in Ah, where you been?

Because everything is coming out Roses in your grave Yeah, the wind is cold But the snow, the snow warms me today And your smile is fine And it's's just like wine, and it won't go away. Cause everything is rosy and green.