The green in the world of golf doesn’t simply refer to putting surfaces, as there’s plenty of cash to be made on the pro golf circuit. But only one agent associated with the PGA Tour cracked the Forbes list of the 2020 world’s leading sports agents, which was released on Tuesday.
According to the list, only Mark Steinberg made the top 50, notching the 42nd spot in the annual offering. Steinberg has been with Woods since 1998.
Steinberg has boasted a power-packed lineup of golf stars for years, including Tiger Woods, Justin Thomas and Justin Rose. He’s a partner at Excel Sports Management, which Forbes ranks as the third-most valuable agency.
According to Forbes, Steinberg has a total of 35 clients and contracts worth over $101 million.
There is a caveat — according to the article, contract earnings are counted for team-sport athletes; endorsement earnings are not. For golf (and tennis), agents do not make commissions from their clients’ on-court/course earnings, only from the marketing dollars they help generate, for which they receive an average of 20 percent.
That means it’s not exactly an apples-to-apples measurement since agents who represent golfers are measured by those marketing figures and not winnings.
Others on the list who stand out include Scott Boras, who tops the group and has negotiated a total of $3.2 billion for his clients, a jump of 30 percent over 2019; Rich Paul, who jumped to No. 9 on the list with a bevy of basketball stars on his roster; and rapper Jay-Z, who is listed at No. 27 with $28.7 million in commissions off $1.1 billion on contracts.
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