The NCAA continues to display their greed and bias against the collegiate athlete, basketball especially. A few days ago the National Collegiate Athletics Association implemented a new rule that will affect how athletes choose their agent representation.
If players want to maintain their NCAA eligibility they now must be represented by an agent that has a bachelors degree. Why this rule all of a sudden? Because of one man...founder of Klutch Sports Group and Lebron James' agent Rich Paul.
A forward thinker, Rich Paul created his own unlikely path to huge success as a sports agent. When Lebron James was drafted in 2003, Paul asked to be a part of James' camp to learn the business and add value to the phenom's inner circle.
After years of working under the wing of James' agent at the time, Leon Rose, the understudy decided it was time to become his own entity. This caused shockwaves across the basketball world because he took King James to the new agency with him. Since that time Paul has signed a great collective of notable talent. Some other players he represents are Anthony Davis, Eric Bledsoe, Draymond Green, and Ben Simmons.
Paul is known for empowering his clients and going against the grain. In the recent NBA draft, Darius Bazley, a client of Paul's was drafted 23rd by the Utah Jazz. The twist to the story is Bazley was a class of 2018 graduate and did not play ball collegiately or overseas. In the year leading up to the NBA draft, he served as an intern for New Balance and got paid a handsome $1 million in the process. Moves like this are a big challenge to the NCAA's status quo of making billions of the athletes and not paying them.
So now we see the Rich Paul rule...
