In a Dressing Room Full of Millionaires, Money Stops Separating People

Here’s an example that helps you understand the mindset of Premier League players who are already on several million pounds a year.

Offer one of them a £200,000 pay rise (an extra £4k per week)

Or offer him an unpaid Rolex ambassador deal, with a £50,000 watch gifted to him as part of a 3-year agreement.

Most people reading this are certain they’d take the money. Almost every player takes the commercial deal.

Despite, even after tax, that pay-rise buys him 2 of those watches, with some money left over. Don’t misunderstand this, the players can run those numbers as well as anyone, and they still take the watch.

The reason is status when you’re rolling with other millionaires. A pay rise lands in an account nobody else will ever see. The Rolex deal gets announced, it goes on the wrist, and it tells everyone in that dressing room a global brand looked at all of them and picked him.

The Rolex deal gets announced, it goes on the wrist, and it tells everyone in that dressing room a global brand looked at all of them and picked him.

In a squad where money is everywhere, money stops separating people. Status is the scarce thing, and the deal is social proof of it.

I once had a $50,000 watch deal on the table from Tommy Hilfiger for one of my athletes, and he turned it down. The reason was because their watches retail at around £150, and he didn’t want his name anywhere near one. He could have taken the $50,000 and bought himself an actual Rolex with it. The fee never mattered to him. An ambassador deal is worth whatever the brand’s name is worth in his dressing room and on social media, and he valued that one at zero.

An ambassador deal is worth whatever the brand’s name is worth in his dressing room and on social media, and he valued that one at zero.

Now the Sports Business Lesson Most People Miss

What this psychology does for the operator behind it – The agent who lands the Rolex deal has the attention of every player in that dressing room, while the agent who just negotiated someone an extra £200,000 is somehow no big deal. The visible deal IS your marketing.

And commercial deals extend to events as well as items. If a deal ever puts you at a luxury or genuinely exclusive event, take your player and tell him to bring a teammate, ideally one you’d like to one day represent. Be good company for the evening and look after them both, built that relationship, and I can just about guarantee that teammate ends up represented by you before long.

The visible deal IS your marketing.

It’s not just watches, you see the same thing with trainers for example. A few years back it was the Dior Jordan 1s, a $2,000 shoe released through a raffle that drew around 5 million entries for 8,500 pairs, and every dressing room seemed to have someone wearing them (today a pair trades for more than $15,000). At the other end of the scale sit the limited-run Liam Gallagher Spezials, a £110 adidas trainer that sells out the minute it drops, where the only realistic way to get a pair is knowing someone. Both carry weight in a dressing room for the same reason.

Plenty of people look at the player’s choice and call it vanity, and they’re wrong, this is simply the reality of the world they live in.

These players are competing for status with a room full of people who, on the surface, already have it all.

Lesson

Lesson – land the deal the dressing room can see, and the dressing room starts recruiting for you.