Experience Spotlight - Jesse Sherman, The Legacy Agency

In this semester's Experience Spotlight series, the blog will be featuring Cornell ILR SBS members who have excelled in positions in the sports industry. Many talented Cornell students are making impressions all across the sports world, and this is their chance to showcase their experiences.

This week's Spotlight focuses on Jesse Sherman '15.  Jesse is a senior in Cornell's Industrial and Labor Relations School. He has been a dedicated member of the club since his freshman year at Cornell, serving on the E-Board since Spring 2013.  Jesse has also cofounded Cornell at Bat, and eventually, the Big Red Sports Network.  He can be reached at jws328@cornell.edu.

Jesse worked with The Legacy Agency as an intern for Summer, 2014.  Jesse served as a Baseball Representation Intern at TLA, and was kind enough to answer some questions about his experience.


What were some of your day-to-day responsibilities of the position?

The Legacy Agency as a whole is a dynamic representation and marketing agency that looks after the interests of the broadcasters, coaches, and professional athletes that it represents. Legacy handles anything from on the field contracts to off the field marketing opportunities, and also serves as a sports consulting firm for external organizations. 

I was the baseball representation intern for a list of clientele that includes MLB stars such as Johan Santana, Jose Reyes, Melky Cabrera, Martin Prado, Starling Marte, and Bobby Abreu, as well as over 100 minor league players. 

My responsibilities included researching clients' statistics on a daily basis, keeping track of their career progression (that is, seeing if they are currently with an organization, which level they are playing at, whether they were released and have free agent standing, so on and so forth). I was also asked to perform analyses on big league teams and their rosters to see if any Legacy clients that were free agents at the time could potentially fill a void on a big league roster. 

I was also responsible for logging and checking client endorsement contracts to ensure that the athletes had been appropriately compensated by the sponsors in accordance with the terms of their signed contracts. 

Additionally, a major project I worked on was creating a career projection analysis on a current client who will be eligible for salary arbitration following the 2015 season. My bosses asked me to do a preliminary determination of what he will be worth during his arbitration years, based on my evaluation of his current performance and potential performance in the future. Salary figures are then determined using comparable players and the statistics they compiled while being on a major league roster for a similar amount of days/years as the player in question.

How were you able to get the internship?

I got the job through a combination of family connections and experience with baseball statistical research with my peers at Cornell.

How has this experience shaped your career plans?

The internship was amazingly insightful as to what it takes to be a successful and respected sports agent, as well as everything that goes on from an athlete marketing perspective. I also learned to understand the interests of the player and team sides, which I believe will serve me well if I decide to either pursue agency-side or team-side work.

What advice would you give another student interested in a similar experience?

I would say that if you want to get your foot in the door, show potential employers that you can bring something out of the ordinary to the table. For instance, I believe my work with the Cornell SABR analytics team gave me an edge in showing that I could evaluate baseball player performance at perhaps an even deeper level than is done by some agents or teams. It also helps to read up on the CBA. Finally, being up to date on up and coming players, international free agency and the draft, in addition to knowing the players in the big leagues and the terms of some long term contracts is incredibly helpful in thriving as a baseball representation intern. Now go out, make the connections, and do the best work you can possibly do.

What was your favorite aspect of the experience?

My favorite aspect of the experience was being able to learn more about baseball, a sport that I thought I couldn't learn much more about. The agency side of the sport is so important, and working with some of the best and brightest minds in the industry today gave me a much better understanding of what agents do each and every day as well as what it takes to be ahead of the curve from a player development and client management perspective. I also loved not knowing what to expect from one day to the next. I could be doing a project one moment and then get up to talk to my boss and a major leaguer will be sitting in his office.

Thank you to Jesse and The Legacy Agency for allowing us to share this awesome experience. We hope you have learned about some of the wonderful opportunities that Cornell, the ILR School, and the ILR Sports Business Society can provide in the sports world. We hope to feature many more stories from students and employers this fall!