Creative Artists Agency is a powerhouse entertainment agency with an impressive basketball division led by agents Aaron Mintz, Austin Brown, and Leon Rose. They can offer a long list of clients — Paul George, Chris Paul, Joel Embiid, Donovan Mitchell, Karl-Anthony Towns, D’Angelo Russell, and many more — branding opportunities through their entertainment industry ties.
Now Rich Paul — the agent for LeBron James, Anthony Davis 21 other NBA players — is getting in the same field after striking a deal with United Talent Agency, another big Hollywood powerhouse. Marc Stein of the New York Times broke the story.
The alliance calls for Klutch, with Paul as chief executive, to operate as United Talent’s sports division while retaining its own branding.
“We’ve been looking for the right sports opportunity for quite a while,” said Jeremy Zimmer, the talent agency’s chief executive. “We have taken a significant stake in Klutch, but Rich retains very substantial controls because we want it to be his business and we love what he’s doing.”...
The growing influence athletes have in music, fashion and content creation made adding a sports division an “urgent” priority to Zimmer.
“All these things have a connectivity and a power in the culture today like we’ve never seen before,” Zimmer said. “And so, for U.T.A. to be a fully built media company, we had to be directly connected to the athlete — not just through sponsorships and endorsements but directly to them in every aspect of their life in a real way.”
The days of Paul being dismissed as just LeBron’s friend are long gone. Paul has buried that idea.
Paul has a reputation as one of the more aggressive, harder negotiating agents in the NBA, for example how Anthony Davis forced his way out of New Orleans and ultimately landed with LeBron and the Lakers. That has vilified Paul with some fans, but for a player an agent that pushes hard to get his clients what they want and where they want is attractive. (That said, Paul did lose some clients this summer, including Marcus Morris.)
Now Paul has new ties and even more opportunities to offer clients — e-sports opportunities, book deals, opening doors to different kinds of businesses — and it makes him just that much stronger a player in the NBA game.
