Representation reimagined for the modern athlete.
A new kind of sports agency. Founder-led, small on purpose, and built around one belief: the right deal is the one still paying you ten years from now.
The athlete is the institution.
For most of sports history, the team has been the institution and the athlete has been the talent passing through it. We don't see it that way.
An athlete's career is the one thing that doesn't change. Coaches move, teams trade you, you might play in three different cities. The player stays the same. So does the money the player keeps. Brunson is built around that. Every contract and partnership is one part of a longer career, and we judge every decision based on where a client will be at forty, not at tomorrow's press conference.
That's why we keep the roster small on purpose. Depth over scale. Judgment over volume. A career, not a contract. And a financial plan built to outlast both.
Your career deserves more than an agent.
Apply to the RosterFounding clients wanted.
Brunson Sports Agency is brand new. We are not signing in volume. We are choosing the small group of athletes who will define the agency from day one.
Our roster is intentionally empty.
We started in 2026. We don't have a wall of headshots, fake deal totals, or a "selected clients" list. What we have is a clear philosophy, a founder who picks up the phone, and a small number of seats saved for the athletes we believe in.
Your name here.
Your name here.
Your name here.
A small group, taken seriously.
We pay more attention to the shape of a career than to a single highlight. The athletes who fit Brunson aren't always the loudest names. They're the ones with a long horizon, a clear point of view, and the discipline to build something that outlasts a single contract.
- Pro and college athletes with a defined long-term vision
- Rising prospects who value judgment over volume
- Veterans planning the next phase of their career
- Athletes building a brand beyond the field of play
- Talent in football, basketball, baseball, soccer, and beyond
- Anyone who would rather have a partner than a salesperson
Think you belong on the founding roster?
Start the ConversationA full-service practice.
One agency, one team, every part of an athlete's career. From the first contract to the chapter after sport. No outsourced specialists. No referral fees.
Contracts
Tough negotiation backed by real market data and long-term thinking. Every clause read, every option weighed, every dollar earned.
- League contract negotiation & restructure
- Free agency strategy & market positioning
- Bonus, option, and incentive structuring
Brand & Endorsements
We treat brand the way we treat contracts. With patience, taste, and a long view. The right partners, on terms that compound over time.
- Endorsement & NIL deal architecture
- Long-term brand partnership strategy
- Equity, ownership, and venture deals
Media & Content
An athlete's voice is an asset. We help build the platforms, productions, and relationships that turn it into a body of work.
- Podcast, documentary & series development
- Social and editorial strategy
- Press, interviews, and crisis communications
Financial Planning
Career earnings should outlast the career by decades. We coordinate with vetted advisors who don't work in our office, because the same person handling your contract should never be handling your money. Conservative where it counts. Ambitious where it actually pays.
- Wealth planning & advisor coordination
- Tax, residency & entity structuring
- Investment due diligence support
Performance & Wellness
We help build the team behind the athlete. Trainers, recovery specialists, and mental performance coaches who keep careers long.
- Training, recovery & medical introductions
- Mental performance & coaching
- Travel, logistics & family support
Post-Career Strategy
The hardest negotiation of any career is the one with the version of yourself that comes after sport. We start that work early, and we stay for it.
- Front office, broadcast & media transitions
- Founder, investor & board pathways
- Education, philanthropy & legacy planning
Same principles. Eight different sets of rules.
Every league pays its athletes differently, and the part of the contract that matters most isn't the same in any two of them. Click a sport to see how we read it, and how that reading turns into long-term money instead of just a flashy first-year number.
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How we play it
Most of an NFL contract is air. The headline number can disappear the moment a player gets cut. So we negotiate as if the guaranteed money is the only money that exists. Hard money first, signing bonus structure second, and the deal front-loaded so the value is in the bank before anything goes wrong.
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How we play it
NBA money is mostly guaranteed, so the work moves to optionality. When to extend, when to opt out, how to time the next contract against the cap and a team's flexibility window. We think three contracts ahead instead of one, and let that math drive every signature.
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How we play it
MLB is the sport where the money happens late, after six years of service time. The decision that matters is whether to take an early extension or wait it out. We make that call with the math, not the hype. Done right, one pre-arb deal can be the difference between generational money and just good money.
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How we play it
Soccer is the only sport where a contract has a second life. Every transfer is basically a new negotiation. We treat the buyout clause, the image rights split, and the loan terms as if each one is its own deal, because in five years, one of them probably will be.
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How we play it
In a hard-cap league, structure beats raw AAV. Signing bonuses are the part of the deal protected from the next work stoppage, so we push the bonus skew forward. The no-trade list, term, and team cap calendar all get weighed against each other instead of chasing the cap-hit headline.
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How we play it
Fighters get paid out of three pools: purse, sponsorship, and PPV. One of them almost always gets ignored until it's gone. We negotiate the sponsorship calendar with the same intensity as the purse, because for most fighters the longest-paying part of the career is still five fights away.
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How we play it
No team, no salary. The brand portfolio is the paycheck. We treat partnerships the way other sports treat contracts: multi-year, layered exclusivity windows, and equity wherever we can get it. The goal is a deal book that keeps producing through a swing change, an injury, or a cold year on tour.
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How we play it
Olympic sport pays in four-year waves, and federation rules quietly shape what's possible the rest of the time. We plan against the calendar. That means locking in sponsorship before the year actually matters, and protecting commercial rights through the rule pages most athletes don't read until they cost them.
One practice. One team. Every chapter.
Talk to UsA new kind of agency.
Brunson Sports Agency was founded in 2026 by Sam Brown on a simple bet: that athletes are better served by depth than by scale.
— Founder
Built around one belief.
Sam Brown founded Brunson Sports Agency in 2026 after years inside the traditional agency world. Long enough to see what it does well, and where it stops short. The goal was never to start a bigger agency. It was to start a different one.
Brunson is built to be small on purpose. A founder-led practice with a tight team, a small roster, and the kind of attention that big agencies structurally can't give. Every athlete on the roster works directly with the founder. That isn't a marketing line. It's how the agency actually runs.
“The work isn't getting the deal. The work is making sure the deal still looks right ten years from now.”
Three rules we don't bend.
Selective by design
We will always represent fewer athletes than we could. The roster size is the product. Less is the strategy.
Founder-led
You will not be handed off to a junior account manager. The founder is on the call, in the negotiation, and on text the night before the deal closes.
Career, not contract
We measure ourselves by the shape of an entire career, not by the size of any single deal. Long horizon, every decision.
The wisdom we're building on.
Brunson is new, but the thinking isn't. The principles we work from come from years of listening to people who have lived inside this business. Veteran agents, players' association lawyers, professors who teach sports law. A few of the lines that shaped us:
If you've been through enough of this, you can anticipate some of the stuff that could go wrong. The inexperienced ones lean on the union to get them through it.
On why experience matters in negotiation
I don't know that you want your agent handling your money. When the same guy doing the contract is also touching the financial side, there are conflicts of interest you don't see coming.
The reason we coordinate with outside advisors instead of handling money in-house
Most guys think they deserve more than the market will bear. They don't really consider the market. But if you're an agent, you have to.
What it means to actually represent someone honestly
Where the practice is going.
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Now / 2026 Live
Founding chapter
Doors open. We are accepting a small number of founding clients across sport and discipline. Every conversation goes directly to the founder.
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Phase One
Build the practice areas
Stand up the in-house contracts, brand, media, and post-career teams. Bring vetted financial and performance partners under one roof.
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Phase Two
Grow without scaling
Selectively add a small number of additional athletes, only where we can hold the standard the founding clients were promised.
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The Horizon
A practice that outlasts the careers
The ambition is simple. To still be the right partner ten and twenty years from now, for the athletes we sign today, and for the chapters that come after the playing career.
Questions, answered honestly.
Build the next chapter with us.
Get in TouchWhat we're reading.
A curated reading list for athletes, agents, and anyone trying to understand where the representation business is moving, sport by sport.
We don't break news. We read it carefully. The list below points to the publications and beats we follow most. The ones still doing serious reporting on contracts, agents, unions, and the smaller mechanics that decide whether a career grows or just peaks. Filter by sport, or browse the whole shelf.
How NFL guaranteed money is quietly reshaping the contract
Coverage of the post-Watson era and how guarantee structures, not headline AAV, have become the most negotiated part of an NFL deal.
Read at SporticoInside the working economics of an NFL agent
Ongoing reporting on the small group of agents who actually move the football market, and what it costs to run a representation practice that lasts.
Read at Front Office SportsCBA, cap, and what the next round of bargaining could rewrite
Long-form analysis of how the next collective bargaining cycle could reshape player compensation, and what agents are positioning their clients for.
Read at SBJThe three-contract player: modeling NBA career earnings
How agents and front offices are starting to model value across the rookie scale, the second contract, and the supermax window, instead of one deal at a time.
Read at The AthleticPlayer empowerment, five years in
How player options, no-trade clauses, and roster control reshaped the NBA's leverage equation, and where the next pendulum swing is starting to land.
Read at SporticoThe Klutch and CAA effect on what representation means
Reporting on how the largest NBA agencies have raised the floor and the ceiling for what an agent is now expected to deliver beyond the contract.
Read at Front Office SportsPre-arb, service time, and the math of an early extension
Why the timing of an MLB extension is often worth more than the dollar value of the offer itself, and how the best agents model that decision.
Read at The AthleticBoras, the open market, and managing a career toward free agency
How baseball's most prominent agency consistently steers clients toward the open market, and why that approach doesn't fit every player.
Read at SporticoService-time manipulation: the long quiet fight
Running coverage of grievances and pending CBA fights over how teams keep prospects in the minors, and what's actually changing.
Read at SBJFIFA's agent reforms and the European pushback
Coverage of the Football Agents Regulations, fee caps, and the legal challenges shaping how working soccer agents do business across borders.
Read at SporticoThe MLS Designated Player and how the cap actually works
Reporting on how MLS structures keep evolving around DP slots, GAM/TAM mechanics, and the U22 initiative, and what that means for player value.
Read at Front Office SportsImage rights and the modern soccer contract
How European clubs are negotiating image-rights companies and personal sponsorship windows, and why a soccer contract is really a bundle of separate deals.
Read at The AthleticThe signing-bonus era of NHL contracts
How hockey agents structure deals around the lessons of the last work stoppage by front-loading bonuses to protect against the next one.
Read at SporticoNo-trade lists, recapture, and the things agents quietly negotiate
Smaller mechanics inside NHL contracts that don't make headlines but determine what a player's career actually looks like five years in.
Read at Front Office SportsInside the NHL agent network in the cap era
Coverage of how a small group of NHL agencies came to dominate the market once the cap put real pressure on every dollar negotiated.
Read at SBJUFC fighter pay and the antitrust reckoning
Ongoing coverage of the long-running fighter antitrust case and how its resolution could reshape MMA contracts for the next decade.
Read at SporticoPPV splits, sponsorship, and what fighters actually keep
Reporting on the still-changing economics of boxing's biggest cards and how managers structure the three different pools fighters get paid out of.
Read at Front Office SportsMMA sponsorship after the outfitting policy
How fighters and managers work around the UFC's outfitting deal and where modern sponsorship money actually lives now.
Read at The RingerPGA Tour, LIV, and the new player-economics question
How agents are advising clients on the choice between guaranteed LIV money and PGA Tour equity programs, a decision with 15-year tax and brand consequences.
Read at SporticoThe tennis endorsement stack
Long-form on how individual-sport athletes assemble portfolios of overlapping brand partnerships across racket, apparel, watch, and lifestyle categories, and how the layers compound.
Read at Front Office SportsWhen the career is the brand
Long-running coverage of how golf and tennis players manage commercial value across decades instead of seasons, and what happens when the career outlasts the contract.
Read at The AthleticRule 40 and the Olympic athlete's marketing window
How USOPC and IOC rules limit Olympic-athlete commercial activity, and how agents work around the restrictions during games years.
Read at SporticoNIL and the Olympic pipeline
Coverage of how college NIL deals are reshaping the way Olympic-track athletes earn money before the four-year payday actually arrives.
Read at Front Office SportsAction sports brand-building outside the quad cycle
How surf, skate, and snow athletes build commercial value through brand exclusivity windows that run independent of the Olympic calendar.
Read at The AthleticNo articles in this category yet.
Let's talk.
Roster applications, brand inquiries, and press all go to the same place: the founder. Expect a personal response within 48 hours.
Every inquiry, whether roster, brand, or press, goes directly to the founder. Reach Sam by phone, text, or email below.
Los Angeles, California
Sam Brown · Direct line
Within 48 hours, every time.
— Apply to the founding roster
Application received. Thank you.
Sam will personally review your application and be in touch within 48 hours. Every inquiry is read directly by the founder.
Need him sooner? (949) 293-4446
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