Technology first blog post

Even though we haven’t done anything yet I am really excited for this new quarter. I’ve heard good things about it and I like making stuff. For example people said that making their own flashlight was really fun. I’m excited to see what else I can make about the choices are. I’m a little nervous that it will be hard to do the work without being in class but I’m hoping it will be OK.

About me

In my project I added a basketball court as my background. I had a self drawn basketball, a baseball, a cake, and a donut. Whenever I clicked my sprite something would happen. For example when I press the basketball it says in a speech bubble my favorite sport is basketball. My favorite part of the project was drawing the basketball and learning how to code.

Capstone Blog Post #6

Capstone Blog Post #6

 

My Capstone is now coming to a close and I am really happy with how it turned out because it is good. Also because I put so much work into this project on Sports Agents. I choose to do a ted talk which is a live presentation.

First I finished my research and that was a lot easier then I thought I got so much research from a book, my interview, my site visit, a database, and a lot of websites. After that I had to decide if I was going to do a ted talk video or ignite I knew I did not want to do an ignite because I did not want to have a time limit on each slide so not that and then I had ted talk or video I choose ted talk because I wanted to do a live presentation and a video most of the time sounds choppy which means the voice is loud then quiet then loud the quiet Then after I finished my research I started working on my essay with all of my research and that took me a few days. Then I had to write my script and that was pretty easy because I had my essay so I pretty much just took that and made it shorter and more personal. Then I had to make a slideshow to present to everyone that was a little hard I started with one slide for every sub question. But  I realized that was not a great idea because then people watching would get bored so I made a couple slides for each sub question and I realized that more slides was more entertaining to the audience and just a lot better. Then I needed to memorize my script which was a lot easier than I thought.

So overall I am really happy with my project I think it turned out great and I hope that other people like it.

See below for my script for my Ted Talk presentation:

 

Hi, I am Spencer. I am here to talk about Sports Agents. My main inquiry question is what is the role of a Sports Agent and how do they impact a player’s success. A Sports Agent is pretty much a player’s assistant. An assistant is someone who helps someone else. Being a sports agent you have a lot of responsibilities. One  responsibility that a sports agent has is negotiating contacts. Being a good contract negotiator is hard you have to have skills. Agents can help their clients get deals and contracts. If you have a good contract negotiator you will get good deals but if you have a bad agent who is not good at contract negotiating it will be hard to get a good deal. One example that you have to be a good contract negotiator is that Nike’s first offer to Michael Jordan was $250,000 but Adidas was already offering $500,000. So a good Agent like David Falk who is MJ’s agent  would do something about it. And Falk did he demanded more and Nike agreed to give more. According to my interview “agents also have to speak on behalf of the player” this is to keep a player of the spotlight if they are in a bad mood. For example if your player loses a game they will be emotional and not in the mood to be interviewed then the player can ask his agent to speak for him and the player can tell the agent what to say. It is also the agent’s responsibility to always look out for their player by always meeting with coaches, teammates, and companies that are looking into doing deals with their player.

So why do player’s sign with agents? Players sign deals with agents because of many reasons. One reason is that an agent is a role model to a player. A good agent helps a player be polite and nice. This is because businesses would want to endorse in them if they are polite and nice. The reason for that is because if the face of a business is a nice guy more people would like the businesses and they would make more money. Also agents give advice, agents give their clients advise if you are not happy with playing time or you are in a fight with a coach or a teammate. Another thing is that, if their advice does not work the can go talk to players and coaches for you. However, some people say that agents are not helpful. New york times says that “responsible agents exist but they are rare.” That is pretty much saying you are better off not having an agent. But I don’t agree if they were rare then their would not be so many players in professional sports and not a lot of people would be endorsed but there are a lot of players and a lot of players do get endorsed.

Agents are really good at helping players sign endorsement deals. One of my interviews said that to help negotiate contracts for players they have to be a mentor to the player and try to get them in the best place to succeed. The first thing you have to do is brand your client. This is so that people can learn about you. Next you have to find potential endorsers. This means the agent has to find people that may endorse and gather some different ideas. After that the agent should make sure the player is motivated. Because then the agent can get the players prospective. Like MJ, his agent did not do all the work he got some ideas from MJ and tried to negotiate them in the deal. Next, the agent has to negotiate with people looking into his player. An agent will look at what a brand / company is willing to offer and then try to make the deal better but they don’t want to push it. My other interview said that they need to find as many endorsers that is the agents primary goal. Agents can not only help you get a deal with something related to sports. They can try to get you a deal with whoever you want the agent will do anything to help their player make money because that is their job.

Agents can also help you get contracts on a new team. One thing that they do to help you with that is look at what the player wants and they also look at what the team is willing to offer and then tries to make both sides happy. Also agents have to know how good their player is so that they can find out what teams want him and use the knowledge that he knows about the player skill level. For example MJ’s agent knew he was good but he was underrated nobody knew how good he was so his agents convinced people he was good and he got picked in  the draft. One of my interviews said,  “the agent has to express  the team how good the player is in all aspects on contributions. Do they make team better and stuff like that so an agent’s  job is to speak on behalf of players and help players make a case.”  In long term contracts agents usually make sure that the player gets paid immediately.

All of this shows how agents impact a players success in different ways  because of helping with contracts and helping them with things when they need it. Thank you for coming I hope you learned a lot about sports agents.

 

Capstone Blog Post #5

Capstone Blog Post #5


Now that I am done with the research I need to answer my main inquiry question. My main inquiry question is “what is the role of a sports agent and how do they impact the player success?” A sports agent has many responsibilities. Starting with, one of the biggest  responsibilities that is helping their players stay healthy. You might think that this is easy but it is quite hard because you need to be a good contract negotiator. Being a good contract negotiator is hard you have to have skills. Agents can help their clients get deals and contracts. If you have a good contract negotiator you will get good deals but if you have a bad agent who is not good at contract negotiating it will be hard to get a good deal. One example that you have to be a good contract negotiator is that Nike’s first offer to Michael Jordan was $250,000 but Adidas was already offering $500,000. So a good Agent like David Falk would do something about it. And Falk did  he demanded more and Nike agreed to give more. Another example is that MJ signed a extreme deal with Nike because of his amazing agent. His agent was so good at negotiating that he was able to make his own brand air jordan. A agent also has to be able to know what their client offers to his/her team. Also being a agent you have to be a good decision maker. For example each agent must be able to decide how strict they are going to be with their clients. According to my interview “agents also have to speak on behalf of the player” this is to keep a player of the spotlight if they are in a bad mood. For example if your player loses a game they will be emotional and not in the mood to be interviewed then the player can ask his agent to speak for him and the player can tell the agent what to say. It is also the agent’s responsibility to always look out for their player by always meeting with coaches, teammates, and companies that are looking into doing deals with their player. According to my interview another responsibilities of a sports agent is to give the more playing time and help them get more opportunities to make money. Finally one of the biggest responsibilities of a agent is to discuss with their player what career they want to do in the future and they help their players prepare for another job / career.

Also good agents have to have good qualities. One quality is Honesty. This is because you need a agent that will be honest with you. Another quality is Trust. You need to be able to trust his agent and what he is doing. Also Reputation if your agent does not look good you don’t look good. Another big quality is Accessibility if you need your agent you need to be able to talk to him. For example if the agent’s client wants a new contract or got some thing that it really important to tell the agent the agent has to be able to talk to the player. Also you need you agent to think you matter people like knowing that there success matters to your agent and they are not just trying to make money. My interview said that a really important quality is, “Understanding everything you have to do and doing everything you promised.” He also said “a agent has to have good interpersonal skills.” Interpersonal skills means that the agent has to be able to connect to their clients. Fairness. Agents also have to be fair. For example the agents have to be able to make consistent decisions or else people will get mad at the agent and nobody will want to do deals with their clients.

So why do players sign deals with agent’s? Players sign deals with agents because of many reasons. One reason is that a agent is a role model to a player. A good agent helps a player be polite and nice. This is because businesses would want to endorse in them if they are polite and nice. This is because if the face of a businesses is a nice guy more people would like the businesses and they would make more money. Also agents give advice, agents give their clients advise if you are not happy with playing time or you are in a fight with a coach or a teammate. Also if their advice does not work the can go talk to players and coaches for you.  The guy i interviewed said that “As industry has grown players realize it is helpful to have someone in their corner. They need help to manage things and agents provide a special service to player.” Making a long-term deal and making products that make a player look good is key and guess what agents can do all of that for you with just a little help from his client. typically young and upcoming players sign a contract with an agent. This is so that they can have a better chance of getting on a team and hopefully someday become pretty famous.

Agents are really good at helping players sign endorsement deals. One of my interviews said that to help negotiate contracts for players they have to be a mentor to the player and try to get them in the best place to succeed. The first thing you have to do is brand your client. This is so that people can learn about you. Next you have to find potential endorsers. This means the agent has to find people that may endorse and gather some different ideas. After that the agent should make sure the player is motivated. This is so that the agent can get the players prospective. Like MJ, his agent did not do all the work he got some ideas from MJ and tried to negotiate them in the deal. Next, the agent has to negotiate with people looking into his player. A agent will look at what a brand / company is willing to offer and then try to make the deal better but they don’t want to push it. My other interview said that they need to find as many endorsers that is the agents primary goal. Agents can not only help you get a deal with something related to sports. They can try to get you a deal with whoever you want the agent will do anything to help their player make money because that is their job.

Agents can also help you get contracts on a new team. One thing that the do to help you with that is look at what the player wants and they also look at what the team is willing to offer and then tries to make both sides happy.   Also a agent has to know how good their player is so that they can find out what teams want him and use the knowledge that he knows about the player skill level. For example MJ’s agent knew he was good but he was underrated nobody knew how good he was so his agents convinced people he was good and he got picked in  the draft. In long term contracts agents usually make sure that the player gets paid immediately. One of my interviews said,  “the agent has to express  the team how good the player is in all aspects on contributions. Do they

make team better and stuff like that so a agent’s  job is to speak on behalf of player and help player make a case.”  

All of this shows how agents impact a players success in different ways  because of helping with contracts and helping them with things when they need it. Also agents mostly impact their clients positively.

Capstone Blog Post #4

Capstone Blog Post #4

 

For Capstone we also had to do a interview and the interview had to answer ten to fifteen questions that we came up with. To get the interview I had to come up with the email forward it to my dad and then my dad sent the email to somebody that I wanted to interview. It took a long time for him to respond.

But two days later I got a response it was four thirty the next day. The next day I was ready for him I got the interview questions ready and waited by the phone. Then finally it was time for the interview four thirty. He did not call, the four forty the finally at four forty five he sent a email saying can we reschedule for tomorrow. Sure I was upset but I was looking forward to tomorrow.

The next day I was ready and he called on time. I asked him all of my questions and he answered all of them with a lot of information. I learned a lot and it helped me so much it got me ahead because I got so much information. I was so happy.

This interview was a great experience and I had fun and learned a lot interviewing him was a great idea. See you next time on Blog Post #5.

Capstone Blog Post #3

Capstone Blog Post #3

 

For Capstone we had to do a site visit. It was hard to find a site visit because their are not many choices for my topic. My topic is Sports Agents. I have a cousin who works at the NBA so I did my site visit their.

When I choose to go there for my site visit I did not know if I was going to learn anything there because there are no sports agents at the office. But when I walked in the office for my site visit he said that he had a surprise for me and I wondered what it was. Then once we got inside he told me to sit down and then he called someone he said that it was a interview for me and that is when I knew that I was going to learn something at my site visit.

The guy that I interviewed was not exactly a sports agents but he works with sports agents so knows a lot about them so I learned a lot.  The only bad thing was that he could not answer some of my questions because some he did not know the answer to and some were questions only for sports agents so he could not answer them. Even though I did not get the most information I still had a lot of fun. I got a free sweatshirt and free fanny pack from the people who make the clothes for the NBA. I also got to take a picture with the championship trophy that is going to be given out in a few weeks to the people who win the NBA finals and that was really cool.

I had a really fun time at the NBA headquarters and I learned a lot. It was a great experience. See you next time on blog post #4.

 

Capstone Blog Post #2

Capstone Blog Post #2

 

Now that I picked a topic I started to come up with a main inquiry question.  A main inquiry question is a question on your topic that is not to big of a question and not to small. Then we made sub questions which are smaller questions to go with the main inquiry question.

My main inquiry question is  “What are the roles of sports agents and how do they impact a player’s success?” Before that my main inquiry question was “what is the job of a sports agent in terms of endorsements?” But that was too small of a question so I came up with another one and it worked. I choose my question because it followed the requirements of a main inquiry question and it was a interesting question in my opinion. I came up with my question with Mrs. Copper’s help we came up with other questions but the best one was What are the roles of sports agents and how do they impact a player’s success?”

My challenge with coming up with a main inquiry question is that I did not understand what endorsements were I thought that it was also getting a contract on a team and other stuff like that but I was wrong. After we came up with our main inquiry question we came up with sub questions I came up with five sub questions here are two of them What are the responsibilities of a sports agent? And Why do players sign a contact with a agent? Also Mrs. Cooper said that the hardest part of Capstone is coming up with a main inquiry question and coming up with sub questions and that was pretty easy for me to do so I am feeling pretty good about Capstone.

I think that the next step in capstone is researching my topic. But no matter what the next step is I will keep you posted on blog post #3 and all of the other blog post’s. See you next time.