Business Manager for Professional Athletes
The brother business managers planned for a long time to take a football star (Travis Kelce) to a crossover celebrity. The following is more a story about the brothers than their famous client.
FAMILY BACKGROUND
Andre and Aaron Eanes are twin brothers who grew up in Cleveland with entrepreneur parents (they owned their own businesses). Their mother and father owned and ran 17 Burger King franchises across their hometown and Atlanta, Georgia.
CHILDHOOD
The twin boys grew up watching and playing football, basketball, and other sports. A fellow graduate of their school, Delvon Roe, was at the time the 15-ranked high school basketball prospect according to ESPN in the 2008 class, ranked higher than future NBA star Draymond Green. Roe was one of the first people who saw the potential in what Aaron and Andre were capable of, telling them at the lunch tables of their high school that Aaron should be his future manager.
Aaron said, at the time, “Yeah, (but) I don’t know what that means. Obviously, the movie “Jerry Maguire” (about an agent for athletes) had come out so I knew what an ‘agent’ was, but I didn’t know what a ‘manager’ was.”
Editor’s note – The formal definitions of both terms are:
Agent – In law, an ‘agent’ is a person legally empowered or presumed to act on behalf of another person, called the ‘principal.’ In business, an agent may be employed to represent a client in negotiations and other deals with third parties. The amount of decision-making authority to be used by the agent depends on the precise agreement between the client and the agent.
Business Manager – A business manager oversees the day-to-day operations of an individual or organization.
Aaron states the difference in his own terms, “Agents are contract advisers. I thought instead about a music model: building a business where there’s coordination with all (our clients’) external providers.”
Aside from his parents, Aaron’s desire to get into the business side of sports stemmed from an unusual yet reasonable place: the Madden video game series. “They had franchise mode that used to be my go-to,” Aaron said. “Back then, everything wasn’t on the computer so I would print out scouting reports of every player.”
Meanwhile, Andre had hoop dreams. He played on a LeBron James-ran AAU team while he was in eighth grade and aspired to make it all the way to the NBA. But sometimes, dreams meet reality: “I’m 5’10’,” said Andre.
EDUCATION
Aaron and Andre attended the same high school in Lakewood, Ohio, whose alumni coincidentally include former NBA and NHL players plus a professional wrestler.
When the brothers went off to two different Ohio colleges – Aaron to Bowling Green, Andre to the University of Cincinnati at Clermont – the seeds of their current company, ‘A & A Management’ began to bloom. Inspired by the burgeoning music scene in Cleveland at the time – Machine Gun Kelly, Chip the Ripper, and Kid Cudi – Aaron wanted to create a sports management company that helped athletes leverage their playing careers to sustain or increase the wealth they accumulated, so that years down the road after they retire, they wouldn’t be featured in a sequel to ESPN’s documentary Broke.
In sports management, Aaron and Andre foresaw a lane for professional athletes that, before recently, did not exist. Previously, it was normal for an athlete to shill a product, shoot the commercial, get paid and go about their day. Athletes can typically be viewed as meatheads who inevitably blow through their money, rather than, as Aaron says, human beings with “passions, interests, cares, wants, desires.”
LEARNING THE BASICS TO GROW YOUR SKILLS
After realizing that playing professional basketball was not in his future but before creating his eventual business with his brother, Andre jumped onto a business path with which he was most comfortable: starting his own company – i.e. becoming an entrepreneur. He launched an event management business which he named “The Deuce Club” or “TDC.” In Andre’s mind, he was honoring one of the meanings within Alpha Phi Alpha, his historically Black men’s student fraternity. He borrowed the idea because, he said, “I’m not too creative.” (Editor’s note – I disagree; both brothers are very creative and critical thinkers. Be careful to not assign yourself to a subjective category of thinking – like ‘I’m not creative’ – which might be inaccurate and limit your future planning.)
Andre earned money representing DJs around Cincinnati, booking venues, and coordinating parties. Along the way he met the manager of one of the local music celebrities, who took Andre under his wing, teaching the young college student how to build relationships in the business.
Meanwhile, almost 200 miles north from Cincinnati, Aaron had been working on what would become ‘A & A Management’ during his freshman year at Bowling Green, where he was a ‘sports management’ major and entrepreneurship minor. He noticed how fragmented the sports management business was at the time, run by nationally well-known business names like IMG, CAA, and Wasserman. He saw an opening for smaller shops, so together the brothers launched their management business while they were juniors in college.
Success wasn’t immediate. Through their various people connections, the brothers pitched draft prospects at both the University of Cincinnati and (The) Ohio State University to represent them, but they were consistently rebuffed, told they were too young and too inexperienced. They eventually signed Ohio State cornerback Chimdi Chekwa after he was selected in the fourth round of the 2011 NFL draft.
FOR ANY NEW BUSINESS, ITS FIRST (PAYING) ‘CLIENT’ / ‘CUSTOMER’ / ‘PATIENT’ IS ITS FIRST BIG STEP
How did they talk an NFL prospect into signing with two college juniors with no prior experience? Well, Chekwa was a finance major looking to immediately leverage what he’d learned as a student, plus he was coincidentally a teammate of fellow Ohio State player Nate Oliver, who had attended the same high school as the Eanes brothers. While that random connection might not have been enough, Andre confesses, “I would honestly say one of the reasons we probably signed him was we were the cheapest,” offering the lowest commission percentage payment from his overall earnings.
The brothers’ business fortunes would change a little over a year after signing Chekwa when a former high school quarterback from another Ohio town, Westlake, who they had known for a few years, decided to declare for the NFL draft: Travis Kelce.
Something Aaron and Andre learned over the years from their mentors was the importance of ‘touchpoints’ – the various ways you interact and meet someone. The more touchpoints, the more trust a person has in you.
Andre became familiar with Kelce from AAU basketball. Kelce, who played quarterback in high school, eventually turned into an All-Pro tight end in the NFL but according to his high school basketball coach, Kelce “had more basketball (scholarship) offers than he had football offers.”
While living on the U of Cincinnati campus but taking classes at UC Clermont, Andre reached out to Kelce – then a college tight end – through Facebook to try and connect with other people from the Cleveland area. As luck would have it (Editor – for this Career Stories Project, we define ‘Luck’ as “a little experience and a lot of desire to learn and do your best, meets opportunity.”), Kelce’s college roommate was a childhood friend of Andre’s. The three would ‘chill’ / hang out in the dorms, playing video games. Kelce and Andre would later work together at a call center while Kelce was serving a suspension from the football team for smoking weed.
When organizing events across Cincinnati for his TDC business, Andre would invite Kelce to events for free, help him and his teammates skip the line, get him a spot in VIP, all to show his friend Kelce some true hospitality.
So, when it came time to pitch Kelce on the brothers representing him as he prepared to enter the 2013 NFL draft, Kelce already trusted them and their plan despite how young and inexperienced they were.
“I just had a simple conversation with Travis”, said Andre: ‘Yo, we’re about to start this company, you should rock with us’, and he was just open to seeing what that would look like.”
CHALLENGE – SHARING BUSINESS OWNERSHIP WITH YOUR OWN FAMILY
Working with a sibling – a twin, especially – can be a double-edged sword. You know each other intimately, which means there’s a level of trust that’s hard to replicate with a non-family member. At the same time, one family member knows how to ‘push the buttons’ of the other, which can lead to useless squabbles, though there is more incentive among family members to quickly patch things up.
A special advantage is picking up the slack for the other’s personal time conflicts – for example, if one needs unusual time away to care for himself / herself or another family member.
A disadvantage was noticed by the daughter of one sibling: the brothers seem to be always talking ‘business.’ But Andre adds that mostly occurs when she is in the car with him during normal business hours and he tells her to ‘pay attention because at some point you’re going to run the business!” (Editor’s note – Whether pushing a child to run a family business is a good or bad idea is the subject of many books and family therapy sessions – the issues are too complex to cover here. In general, it’s better to provide good reasons for consideration than rigid requirements and let the individual choose the best path for themself.)
WORKING HARD LEADS TO EXPANDED BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES
In their first 12 years of the management business, it’s grown considerably. It’s no longer just Aaron and Andre repping local DJs and pitching future clients in the Big Ten or Big East dorm rooms. They now have six full-time employees, including specialists in strategy, community outreach and marketing.
As of late 2023, the firm represents 10 clients, including pro athletes involved with the NFL, NBA, and men’s soccer leagues. Kelce, of course, is the marquee name. For all those commercials and appearances which Kelce has made over the years, Aaron and Andre have been directly responsible. This has been all about using Kelce’s celebrity in football to expand him beyond just being an athlete spokesperson.
While Kelce’s personal (romantic) relationship with a certain pop singer has undoubtedly increased sales of his ‘merch’, the brother managers note that all Kelce’s marketing obligations were wrapped up before football training camp started in the middle of 2023. The only thing Kelce had discussed with them about Taylor Swift was just to let his business managers know that the couple would soon be in the news.
The managers strive to have personal relationships with the families of all their clients but who the clients date or have as friends is of no concern to them; they represent only their clients. (Editor’s note – However, clients who pal around with would-be criminals will eventually harm their own business interests and should be forewarned.)
CHALLENGE – POTENTIAL RACISM?
Andre has said that being Black business managers used to feel like a disadvantage. Initially, the brothers assumed their qualifications would be questioned, that potential clients might believe that he and Aaron could not have possibly negotiated some of the deals they landed. But that perception has changed as the managers’ profile has risen over the years. Of course, there will always be a few naysayers, whose skepticism is revealed with questions like, ‘Did you guys really do that?’ “Even about Travis,’ Andre has responded to doubters: “Yes, we do everything.”
SUCCESSFUL MANAGEMENT REQUIRES AN EVOLVING PLAN
Referring to the brothers’ success managing Kelce, Aaron has said “People say to me, ‘Man, it’s been a crazy year,’ but I when I reply, ‘Actually it’s not that crazy,’ people look at me funny. It’s because it’s easy when you have a plan. We’re executing that plan.”
“We had a strategy of wanting to maximize national commercials to parlay Kelce’s character beyond football; to maximize his ability to be a talent throughout the year, not just during his sports season so when people see him, so they’re seeing him as a talent, not just as the football player,” said Aaron.
Certainly, no strong marketing plan can be based on who your client is dating or plans to date. So no, the plan did not include anything about Taylor Swift.
An early hint of Kelce’s potential for crossover commercial success (i.e. being seen as a spokesperson for other than pro football related ads) was Kelce being hired to perform in a reality tv show. At first the brothers thought the role didn’t fit within their overall plan but Kelce wanted to try it so they relented, hoping that a TV show might open other doors. After 8 episodes, Kelce and his managers unanimously agreed that reality TV might set a bad precedent, limiting his appeal to opportunities beyond demonstrating his physical prowess.
Kelce then informed the brothers that he wanted to appear on SNL (“Saturday Night Live”). Aaron reached out to the show’s producers, but their interest was ‘lukewarm’ until Kelce dropped into an SNL after-party before a game in Philadelphia and went to work chatting up (and impressing) SNL’s producer, Lorne Michaels. Less than a month later, Kelce was booked to appear.
After SNL, with Kelce continuing to express interest in acting, the Eanes brothers began interviewing Hollywood agencies that had stronger connections in the entertainment industry. “We’re just two guys that live in Ohio,” Aaron said.
But nothing was being rushed, which is not Kelce’s style anyway. Throughout 2022, Aaron targeted endorsement deals with companies that were not traditional NFL partners – like promoting vaccines for Pfizer or a new debit card from Experian.
An important business managers’ task is to avoid distractions for their clients. Kelce’s longtime personal trainer said the star football player’s dedication to football has never been stronger. For example, while visiting a Paris fashion show several years ago, Kelce was antsy for a workout after an entire day of sitting by the fashion runway. At midnight, Kelce led the trainer on running sprints across the bridges over the Seine River. “No matter where he is, he finds time to get done whatever he needs to get done,” said the trainer.
CAREER SATISFACTION
What motivates the brothers to bounce out of bed every day is changing the perception that athletes are one-dimensional people without thoughts of their future after their last game. Andre said, “Knowing athletes are more than just game players and their value expands beyond being able to just play a sport. It means we can help them realize that more than ever before.”
“Then, if we do a good job for each person, they are sure to proudly recommend us to their friends. There is no better and less expensive advertising than a sincere, personal endorsement,” echoed the twin brothers.
This career story is based on an article written by Martenzie Johnson, posted online by “Andscape” on 11/23/23 and on an article written by Zach Schonbrun, published by The New York Times on 1/7/24, plus other internet research.
