Octagon (Sports Agency)
Encyclopedia
Octagon is the global sports and entertainment content marketing arm of the Interpublic Group of Companies (NYSE:IPG)
, Frank Craighill
, Lee Fentress and Ray Benton founded the Washington D.C. law firm, Dell, Craighill, Fentress & Benton, one of the first sports law
and sports management firms in the world. Dell's friendships made through his U.S. Davis Cup
captainship allowed him and his University of Virginia
law school friend Craighill, and partners, to begin their sports agent
careers with clients such as Arthur Ashe
and Stan Smith
. Dell was also instrumental in the founding of the Association of Tennis Professionals
and is considered one of the fathers of sports marketing
and the sports agent
business.
The firm enjoyed great success during the formation of the ATP and would become ProServ
in 1976. As ProServ evolved, difficulties between partners arose and in 1982, Craighill and others left to found Advantage International. Craighill became Managing Director and the firm rose to become an industry rival of fellow full service agency IMG
in the 90's. Craighill came to realize that Advantage's historical 20% growth rate since its founding would not be sustainable in the long run, due to the increasing complexity and competition in the athlete representation industry, without the addition of greater capital and resources. This led to the sale of Advantage and its leadership including President, Phil de Picciotto, Mickey Lawler, and Tom George to Interpublic Group. In 1997, Interpublic group successfully completed the merger of Advantage and other agencies to form Octagon.
was the head of the advertising agency Collett Dickenson Pearce
(CDP). In 1979 Lowe arranged sponsorship of the Queen's Club Championships
which became known as the Stella Artois
tournament, an arrangement that lasted almost 30 years.
After leaving CDP in 1981 to form his own agency, Lowe Howard-Spink, which eventually became Lowe & Partners Worldwide
, he sold his agency to one of the world's largest advertising and marketing communications groups, Interpublic Group (IPG) and joined the board of the US Giant. In 1997, Sir Lowe convinced the IPG board to build the first “marketing-led sports agency." To do this, IPG bought a group of sports agencies which included APA and Advantage International.
In June 2008, Octagon was awarded top sports agency honors by Sports Business Journal and was named the inaugural Sports Agency of the Year and President, Phil de Picciotto, was named amongst the 50 most influential in sports list. Then, in October of the same year, Octagon acquired a large portion of sports management firm CSMG, including their baseball, coaches, broadcast, legends and marketing divisions, and added CSMG founder Alan Nero and 20 other staff. The following February, Octagon Digital launched a sports content aggregator for Twitter
posts named Twackle
.
Octagon currently operates with over 800 employees around the globe, with an equal number of athlete and personality clients, and manages upwards of 13,400 events per year. Octagon representation divisions include Athlete and Property Marketing, Baseball, Basketball, digital, entertainment, Financial Services, First Call, Football, Football (Soccer), Global Events, Hockey, Music, Olympics & Action Sports, Speakers, Tennis, and Track and Field.
Current clients include athletes Michael Phelps
, Justin Tuck
, Rudy Gay
, Robin Soderling
, Ryan Miller
, Jeanette Lee and Asdrubal Cabrera
, and personalities including Bill Cowher
, Brian Billick
, Herm Edwards, Curt Menefee
, and Emmitt Smith
. Full lists of clients by sport are available online for some sports; NBA,
NFL, Soccer, Tennis, and Olympics and Action Sports, as well as Speakers.
History
In 1970 Donald DellDonald Dell
Donald Dell is an attorney and was a professional tennis player, U.S. Davis Cup captain, and administrator. Dell was one of the first professional sports agents, having represented professional tennis players Arthur Ashe, Stan Smith, Jimmy Connors, and Ivan Lendl during pro tennis' golden age...
, Frank Craighill
Frank Craighill
Frank Craighill was one of the founding partners of the sports marketing firm ProServ. ProServ was created in 1970 in Washington, D.C. by attorney and former professional tennis player and U.S. Davis Cup captain Donald Dell and Craighill. Their first clients were Dell’s Davis Cup teammates Arthur...
, Lee Fentress and Ray Benton founded the Washington D.C. law firm, Dell, Craighill, Fentress & Benton, one of the first sports law
Sports law
Sports law is an umbrella term used to describe the legal issues at work in the world of both amateur and professional sports. Sports law overlaps substantially with labor law, contract law, competition or antitrust law, and tort law. Issues like defamation and privacy rights are also an integral...
and sports management firms in the world. Dell's friendships made through his U.S. Davis Cup
Davis Cup
The Davis Cup is the premier international team event in men's tennis. It is run by the International Tennis Federation and is contested between teams of players from competing countries in a knock-out format. The competition began in 1900 as a challenge between Britain and the United States. By...
captainship allowed him and his University of Virginia
University of Virginia
The University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...
law school friend Craighill, and partners, to begin their sports agent
Sports agent
A sports agent procures and negotiates employment and endorsement contracts for an athlete.In return, the sports agent generally receives between 4 and 10% of the athlete's playing contract, and 10 to 20% of the athlete's endorsement contract, though these figures vary...
careers with clients such as Arthur Ashe
Arthur Ashe
Arthur Robert Ashe, Jr. was a professional tennis player, born and raised in Richmond, Virginia. During his career, he won three Grand Slam titles, putting him among the best ever from the United States...
and Stan Smith
Stan Smith
Stanley Roger "Stan" Smith is a former American tennis player and two time Grand Slam singles champion who also, with his partner Bob Lutz, formed one of the most successful doubles teams of all time. Together, they won many major titles all over the world...
. Dell was also instrumental in the founding of the Association of Tennis Professionals
Association of Tennis Professionals
The Association of Tennis Professionals or ATP was formed in 1972 by Donald Dell, Jack Kramer, and Cliff Drysdale to protect the interests of male professional tennis players. Since 1990, the association has organized the worldwide tennis tour for men and linked the title of the tour with the...
and is considered one of the fathers of sports marketing
Sports marketing
Sport marketing is divided into three sectors. The first is the advertising of sport and sports associations such as the Olympics, Spanish Football league and the NFL. The second concerns the use of sporting events, sporting teams and individual athletes to promote various products. The third is...
and the sports agent
Sports agent
A sports agent procures and negotiates employment and endorsement contracts for an athlete.In return, the sports agent generally receives between 4 and 10% of the athlete's playing contract, and 10 to 20% of the athlete's endorsement contract, though these figures vary...
business.
The firm enjoyed great success during the formation of the ATP and would become ProServ
ProServ
Professional Services Inc., was one of the first sports management firms. Initially focused on tennis, the company would grow to become among the world's largest sports marketing, athlete management, event production, and TV companies....
in 1976. As ProServ evolved, difficulties between partners arose and in 1982, Craighill and others left to found Advantage International. Craighill became Managing Director and the firm rose to become an industry rival of fellow full service agency IMG
IMG
The abbreviation IMG has several different meanings:* IMG, abbreviation for image* IMG , global sports and media business headquartered in New York City but with its main offices in Cleveland, originally known as the "International Management Group", with divisions including:** IMG Academies, an...
in the 90's. Craighill came to realize that Advantage's historical 20% growth rate since its founding would not be sustainable in the long run, due to the increasing complexity and competition in the athlete representation industry, without the addition of greater capital and resources. This led to the sale of Advantage and its leadership including President, Phil de Picciotto, Mickey Lawler, and Tom George to Interpublic Group. In 1997, Interpublic group successfully completed the merger of Advantage and other agencies to form Octagon.
IPG
In 1970 Sir Frank LoweFrank Lowe
Frank Lowe was an American avant-garde jazz saxophonist and composer.Born and brought up in Memphis, Tennessee, Lowe took up the tenor saxophone and then moved to San Francisco...
was the head of the advertising agency Collett Dickenson Pearce
Collett Dickenson Pearce
Collett Dickenson Pearce & Partners emerged from the "Swinging London" cultural shifts of the 1960s as Britain's most glamorous and influential advertising agency, generally regarded as one of the finest advertising agencies in the world during the 1970s...
(CDP). In 1979 Lowe arranged sponsorship of the Queen's Club Championships
Queen's Club Championships
The Queen's Club Championships is an annual tournament for male tennis players, held on grass courts at the Queen's Club in West Kensington, London. Between 1970 and 1989 it was part of the Grand Prix tennis circuit. The event is now an ATP World Tour 250 series tournament on the Association of...
which became known as the Stella Artois
Stella Artois
Stella Artois is a 5% ABV lager brewed in Leuven, Belgium since 1926. In the UK, Canada and New Zealand a 4% ABV version is also available.-Production:...
tournament, an arrangement that lasted almost 30 years.
After leaving CDP in 1981 to form his own agency, Lowe Howard-Spink, which eventually became Lowe & Partners Worldwide
Lowe Worldwide
Lowe and Partners is an international advertising agency headquartered in London. The Agency is a unit of the Interpublic Group, one of the world's largest advertising agency holding companies...
, he sold his agency to one of the world's largest advertising and marketing communications groups, Interpublic Group (IPG) and joined the board of the US Giant. In 1997, Sir Lowe convinced the IPG board to build the first “marketing-led sports agency." To do this, IPG bought a group of sports agencies which included APA and Advantage International.
Recent Years
The two divisions which make up Octagon are Athletes and Personalities, and Marketing. With Athletes and Personalities primarily broken down into sport divisions and Marketing division primarily handling corporate sponsorship and event management.In June 2008, Octagon was awarded top sports agency honors by Sports Business Journal and was named the inaugural Sports Agency of the Year and President, Phil de Picciotto, was named amongst the 50 most influential in sports list. Then, in October of the same year, Octagon acquired a large portion of sports management firm CSMG, including their baseball, coaches, broadcast, legends and marketing divisions, and added CSMG founder Alan Nero and 20 other staff. The following February, Octagon Digital launched a sports content aggregator for Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
posts named Twackle
Twackle
Twackle is a Twitter aggregator created by Octagon Sports, launched in late February 2009. Similar to Digg, it incorporates user feedback into its ranking of items.Twackle is used by several professional sports teams, including...
.
Octagon currently operates with over 800 employees around the globe, with an equal number of athlete and personality clients, and manages upwards of 13,400 events per year. Octagon representation divisions include Athlete and Property Marketing, Baseball, Basketball, digital, entertainment, Financial Services, First Call, Football, Football (Soccer), Global Events, Hockey, Music, Olympics & Action Sports, Speakers, Tennis, and Track and Field.
Current clients include athletes Michael Phelps
Michael Phelps
Michael Fred Phelps is an American swimmer who has, overall, won 16 Olympic medals—six gold and two bronze at Athens in 2004, and eight gold at Beijing in 2008, becoming the most successful athlete at both of these Olympic Games editions...
, Justin Tuck
Justin Tuck
Justin Lee Tuck is an American football defensive end for the National Football League's New York Giants.A former standout defensive end for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Tuck currently plays in the National Football League for the New York Giants. His cousin Adalius Thomas was also a former...
, Rudy Gay
Rudy Gay
Rudy Carlton Gay, Jr. is an American professional basketball player who is currently playing for the Memphis Grizzlies...
, Robin Soderling
Robin Söderling
Robin Bo Carl Söderling is a professional tennis player from Sweden who is currently ranked number 13 in the ATP rankings. Söderling reached successive French Open finals in 2009 and 2010...
, Ryan Miller
Ryan Miller
Ryan Miller is a professional ice hockey goaltender for the Buffalo Sabres.Other people named Ryan Miller:*Ryan Miller , video game designer and author*Ryan Miller , lead singer and guitar player for the band Guster...
, Jeanette Lee and Asdrubal Cabrera
Asdrúbal Cabrera
Asdrúbal José Cabrera is a switch-hitting infielder for the Cleveland Indians of Major League Baseball.After coming up through the Seattle Mariners organization, he was acquired by the Indians on June 30, 2006, in exchange for Eduardo Perez...
, and personalities including Bill Cowher
Bill Cowher
William Laird "Bill" Cowher is a former American football coach and player. Cowher resigned after 15 seasons as the Steelers' coach on January 5, 2007, 11 months to the day after winning 2005–06's Super Bowl XL...
, Brian Billick
Brian Billick
Brian Harold Billick is a National Football League game analyst for Fox, and is also an analyst for the network's Bowl Championship Series coverage. He was previously an NFL coach, most recently with the Baltimore Ravens from January 19, 1999 to December 31, 2007...
, Herm Edwards, Curt Menefee
Curt Menefee
Curt Menefee , is an American sportscaster who is the host of the Fox network's NFL show Fox NFL Sunday. His co-hosts are Jimmy Johnson, Terry Bradshaw, Howie Long, and Michael Strahan....
, and Emmitt Smith
Emmitt Smith
Emmitt James Smith, III is a retired American football player who was a running back in the National Football League for fifteen seasons during the 1990s and 2000s. Smith played college football for the University of Florida, where he was an All-American; thereafter, he played professionally for...
. Full lists of clients by sport are available online for some sports; NBA,
NFL, Soccer, Tennis, and Olympics and Action Sports, as well as Speakers.