Sunday, March 15, 2009

Newsweek: 'America's Unemployed Olympic Hero'



Newsweek
has an article on Olympic champion and 4x100 superhero, Jason Lezak. From Newsweek:

It was late morning in Beijing on Aug. 11. In the waiting area before the start of the 4-by-100 freestyle relay, Lezak called a huddle with his young teammates, Cullen Jones, Garrett Weber-Gale and Michael Phelps. Lezak told them he had been a part of this relay in 2000 and had come in second. He was a part of this relay in 2004 and got bronze. The message: enough. They nodded and walked out to the pool.

Newsweek: [Link]
The article goes on to discuss monetary compensation that Lezak is asking for and while reading it the name, Evan Morgenstein, appears. He is the sports agent who refuses to do any work with TYR due to a lawsuit TYR filed against one of his clients, Eric Vendt, for switching suit brands while on the TYR payroll.

My reference is this quote from Morgenstein posted at SwimNews.com:

"...TYR Sport is no longer on our list of active apparel companies with whom we will do business with in the future." However Morgenstein's decision to speak out against their treatment of Vendt will not effect their current TYR sponsored swimmers. ..."

[Link]

According to the Newsweek article, Morgenstein's client list includes Brendan Hanson, and Aaron Peirsol, who both may also be in the same boat as Jason Lezak; that is to say: Unemployed.

It makes me think of Peter Marshall, a guy TYR sent off to Berlin, Germany, to participate in the FINA, Swimming World Cup and he consequently set three world records in the backstroke. He also came away away with $75,000. Not bad for a fast weekend: [Link]

I have to wonder if TYR had those three amazing swimmers in their stable how well would they have done if sent off to Berlin? Sure would have made one hell of IM relay.

Lezak has the talent, but does he have the talent management he needs to be employed?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Tony:

I believe Jason Lezak really should consider getting another agent. I have a friend that represents a global technology company that reached out to Jason’s agent about two months ago, about a small sponsorship opportunity, that could have been about $10,000.

They didn’t receive any return communication. Even if they didn’t want to accept an offer that small, they could have been professional enough to respond back.

Tony Austin said...

Whoa! That's so rude.

Marketing talent has changed. For instance, Rock bands in general will actually give their content away to video games and TV to get heard because getting heard means sales.

Face time is so important in regards to celebrity awareness.

Ryan Lochte should be doing fashion modeling for free just to establish a network of influential people, Jason Lezak should wrap himself in Orange County tech companies for small fees and Amanda Beard should be taking acting lessons!