Lamar Jackson The Bag Without Agents
Basketball and football players are like commodities on the New York Stock Exchange. They are traded. They have a price and it’s mostly determined by agents.
That’s why NFL star Lamar Jackson was the flavor of the week, when he extracted an obese contract extension from Baltimore Ravens, without an agent. Agents have one product: information. That’s why there are agents for getting a small part in a Disney movie, publishing a book, getting a high corporate position or buying a house.
Before the internet, real estate agents knew who was selling a house because it was exclusive information. It still is because people belong to professional, racial, religious and business families. How do you sell information? It started in countries like Britain.
After the last war against Hitler, the aristocracy and their castles crumbled. Like King Charles 111 and his royal family, they also owned townhouses which were mini-castles. This city property became too expensive to heat and to clean, because servants flocked to factories and other jobs.
Aristocrats found a solution. Open castles to the public so that Canadians and Americans could visit them, for a fee, or renovate townhouses into six or eight flats, depending on size. Who knew which aristocrat had declared bankruptcy? The inner circle. Who had the money to buy and renovate townhouses? The inner circle. Who had the money to form rental agencies? The inner circle.
REAL ESTATE AGENTS
Real estate agents will be predominantly white for a long time because they own what is being sold. South Africa is a case in point. White agents live in neighborhoods that were white, by law. Black people have joined the industry but it’s difficult because they are not part of the inner circle, with information about which families are selling and running away to Australia or Canada.
Black agents are also required to undergo certain courses, white agents learned on the job during apartheid. Some black sellers ditch black agents after white agents play the ‘more experience’ card. It is also a great time for white agents because most black buyers might pay R900 000 for a R450 000 property because the white woman said so. There’s no education about asking and selling price.
In the U.S. sports agency is about making money from someone’s talent, and white agents want the business to remain white. Black or white agent, very few players can land the big bag like Lamar Jackson without an agent: the guy who has information.
By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.
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