Inside Jay Z’s sports agency, where big-name athletes want in
The sun hammered Mark Light Field at Alex Rodriguez Park on July 26, the humidity so prominent in Coral Gables, Fla., that you couldn’t even summon the energy to chuckle about so many baseball folks — nearly 100 — convened in a place named after a currently banned player.
Rusney Castillo, too, looked like he was feeling the heat.
The 27-year-old Cuban defector, the reason for this showcase to end all showcases, went through a lackluster first round of live batting practice, failing to put consistent good wood on the ball.
As the 5-foot-9 Castillo toweled off and hydrated, a taller gentleman wearing a T-shirt, gym shorts and Roc Nation Sports baseball cap clutched Castillo’s shoulders, looked him in the eye and spoke to him in Spanish.
“I told him hitting was just like riding a bike,” Juan Perez explained later to The Post. “You don’t forget how to do it.”
Castillo returned the eye contact, nodded and retreated to home plate for a second round. In this instance, you could’ve called it “The money round.”
With blasts over the scoreboard in left field and into the parking garage in right field, the right-handed hitter showed off the power that should make him quite wealthy as soon as this coming week.
If the vocal approvals of the talent evaluators didn’t cool down the place, their reactions at least distracted you from the conditions.
The moment, and the day, typified everything Roc Nation Sports aspires to be. It combined the flash of a big event — never before had a Cuban prospect auditioned on American soil — with the personal touch of its unconventional leadership, co-founders Jay Z and Creative Artists Agency and the president Perez.
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Juan Perez, right, and Cuban Baseball player Rusney Castillo.
Photo: Larry Marano
“With us, everything is magnified. It’s bigger,” said Perez, a close associate of Jay Z for nearly 20 years. “[Castillo] would’ve been a regular guy with another agency.”
“With [Jay Z] being an artist, being in front of crowds, there’s definitely a connection there,” said Yankees pitcher CC Sabathia, who left his longtime representatives at The Legacy Agency for Roc Nation Sports last winter. “It’s just them being good people.”
Giants wide receiver Victor Cruz, another client, said of Perez: “He’s a good guy, man. He’s cued into the players. He really knows his players and knows the game and really understands the game. He’s someone you can pick up the phone and talk to at any time and just bounce ideas off of him.”
Roc Nation Sports’ arrival has shaken up the crowded, cutthroat world of athlete representation, generating more anonymous sniping and scrutinizing than even the usually high such level in this arena.
Simultaneously, the agency’s lack of media access has given it an air of mystery to which this universe is not accustomed, generating curiosity over the principals and their practices.
The agency announced its arrival on April 2, 2013, with a bombshell — the swiping of then-Yankees second baseman Robinson Cano from industry titan Scott Boras. Cano left the Yankees last winter to sign a 10-year, $240 million contract with Seattle, an action that drew both praise (for landing so much guaranteed money) and criticism (for taking Cano out of New York to a team with four straight losing seasons).
In June of last year, Roc Nation Sports added its second superstar in Kevin Durant of the Thunder.
Cano, Sabathia and the free agent Castillo make up the baseball stable so far, while 2014 Celtics draft pick James Young and WNBA player Skylar Diggins have joined Durant in the basketball group.
In football, along with Cruz are his former Giants teammate Hakeem Nicks of the Colts and Jets quarterback Geno Smith.
Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown signed with Roc Nation Sports this past May, only to depart in July for his previous agent Drew Rosenhaus.
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Mariners’ Robinson Canó and Jay Z.
Photo: WireImage
That’s a total of eight clients — “Within the next 90 days, it’ll be over 10,” said Roc Nation’s president and chief of branding and strategy Michael Yormark — with about 45 employees to service them and grow the business.
Some of those 45 also spend time with Roc Nation, the parent company that represents 112 artists, producers and writers.
The parent company and its subsidiary occupy the 38th and the 39th floor of a Times Square building, with Roc Nation Sports on the lower level.
The Roc Nation Sports office has a sleek look to it, with open-glass offices hugging the walls while a cluster of desks facing one another occupies the middle. At the end of the hallway rests Perez’s 1,500-square-foot office.
MLB Network played on a flat-screen TV last Monday as Perez welcomed this Post writer (but no photographer) inside his lair. One wall featured a painting of legendary boxer Joe Louis, adorned with a ticket stub from one of The Brown Bomber’s fights.
Another wall held a work by late artist Keith Haring; “Jay got me that,” Perez said.
Behind his desk sat a replica of the plaque that used to adorn the old Yankee Stadium, with a quote from Joe DiMaggio reading, “I’d like to thank the Good Lord for making me a Yankee.” Cigars are available to VIPs.
In an adjoining conference room, you can find a Satchel Paige painting similar to the Louis work; a table for meetings and negotiations, and a framed Mariners jersey with the back reading “CANO 240.”
“We talked about doing this maybe five, six years ago,” Perez said of starting a sports agency with Jay Z. “It’s just the time wasn’t right. Jay just brought it up to me again. ‘Why not just add the sports to it?’ We always talk about how entertainment and sports go together, but nobody has put it together. So let’s do it.”
As Perez said two days before Castillo’s showcase, in a telephone interview, “Every athlete wants to be rapper, and every rapper wants to be an athlete.”
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Yankees’ pitcher CC Sabathia, left, signs papers with Jay-Z as Sabathia signs on with Roc Nation Sports.
Photo: AP
By putting it together, the agency believes it has leveraged its myriad connections to help athletes with endorsement and charity opportunities. Michael Yormark, twin brother of Nets CEO Brett Yormark, left his high-ranking position with the NHL’s Florida Panthers to join the enterprise.
“Our job is to take our athletes and create star power around them,” Yormark said. “That’s the job we do off the field.”
Sabathia credited Roc Nation Sports for improving his apparel agreement with Air Jordan.
Out in the Pacific Northwest, meanwhile, Cano and his new agents have worked diligently to eradicate the notion the perennial All-Star gave up considerable sponsorship dollars by departing New York.
Cano has signed an agreement with Seattle-based Alaska Airlines, and according to Yormark, he has a meeting lined up shortly with well-known Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, who used to own the NBA’s Seattle Supersonics. Starbucks doesn’t use celebrity spokesmen, yet there could be other partnership opportunities there for Cano.
Meanwhile, on Aug. 21, Cano will come to Brooklyn (the Mariners are in Philadelphia the previous day and in Boston the subsequent day) to join Sabathia in hosting a charity basketball game at Barclays Center, with their respective charities — RC22 Foundation and PitCCh In Foundation — profiting. Durant and the Knicks’ Carmelo Anthony, not a Roc Nation Sports client but a friend, will serve as the honorary team captains.
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Robinson Cano salutes Jay-Z.
Photo: Paul J. Bereswill
Such endeavors lead to the complaint, voiced privately, that Roc Nation Sports has its priorities reversed. The Yankees, in their negotiations with Cano, were concerned he was more interested in building his brand than building his Hall of Fame case.
“During the season, we limit what we’re doing with them,” Perez said. “In the offseason, when they’re training, I make sure that the athletes are always focused on their craft first and marketing second.”
For example, Roc Sports Nation publicist Ron Berkowitz pointed out Cano opted not to attend the ESPY Awards in Los Angeles during the All-Star break, instead taking the time to rest.
Perez, 46, was born and raised in Harlem, rooted heavily for the Yankees — his favorite player was Willie Randolph — and attended Brandeis High School on the Upper West Side.
After high school, “I was doing the airport thing,” he said, declining to explain before cutting off that line of questioning. “I don’t want to talk about that.”
He became friendly with Jay Z in 1996 or 1997, he said, through Kareem “Biggs” Burke, one of the co-founders (along with Jay Z and Damon “Dame” Dash) of Roc-A-Fella Records; Burke now is in prison for marijuana distribution.
Perez helped run studios with Jay Z, and then he aided with the rise of the 40/40 Club, the lower Manhattan hot spot opened by Jay Z.
“Basically, me and Jay, we always had these athletes come to the club and guys ask us for advice,” Perez said.
“Juan and I just hit it off right from the start,” Sabathia said. “On my very first night [after signing with the Yankees], I went to the 40/40 Club.”
“Perez said he feels his personal experiences allow him to connect with athletes in a way more traditional agents can’t.
“People have got to understand where we come from,” said Perez, referring to himself and Jay Z. “You’ve got certain things, you come out of your building, somebody might say something to you and you end up fighting and you go to jail for a fight. Or anything. It’s just where you come from.
It’s not Park Avenue and 65th Street where I grew up. Where I grew up is a big building with a bunch of people.
“…Just because I didn’t go to Fordham University or City College or whatever doesn’t make me dumb. I believe a lot in experience. When you live life, when you experience things, you become somebody smart. And I think common sense is what people need more in life than just book smarts. Common sense can save you a lot of headaches and will take you to a lot of places.”
(As evidence he doesn’t have a police record, Perez showed The Post his New York City personal handgun license.)
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CC Sabathia embraces Jay-Z in City Hall after the Yankees won the 2009 World Series.
Last year, Cruz and the Giants agreed on a five-year, $43 million extension.
“During my contract negotiations he understood the level of what I wanted as a player and what the organization wanted from their end,” Cruz said of Perez. “He understood that barrier and understood we had to meet somewhere in the middle…For him to just know that and really talk to me about it, assure me about certain things, along with Tom Condon and all of us together, that was something that kind of alleviated my initial worries.”
Said Smith: “Juan and [his wife] Desiree do a great job keeping the family environment and that atmosphere. We all hang out a bunch. We just do normal things. We don’t want to be in the spotlight. Obviously we are because of our positions and Jay, but we’re normal people. They’re good to my family. That’s what I like.”
Veteran NFL agent Condon works for CAA and is therefore part of the Roc Nation Sports operation, just as CAA Baseball co-head Brodie Van Wagenen works with Perez on Cano, Sabathia and now the Castillo sweepstakes. Van Wagenen, Perez and Jay Z all were heavily involved in Cano’s free agency.
Roc Nation Sports vice president Rich Kleinman is certified by the Major League Baseball Players Association, just like Jay Z and Perez.
Desiree Perez is not certified, and her participation in Cano’s meetings with the Mariners raised industry eyebrows. Nevertheless, there is no indication she violated any tenets by attending; Van Wagenen, Jay Z and Juan Perez did the actual negotiating.
The Perezes also got hit with some shrapnel from last year’s A-Rod mess because of their friendship with the Yankees’ suspended star and his sharing of Berkowitz and law firm Reed Smith with Roc Nation. Yet Rodriguez’s baseball agent remains Dan Lazano, and Roc Nation Sports has the full backing of the Players Association.
The Cano contract, Perez agreed, has represented the firm’s biggest challenge to date.
“To me, it was a little nerve-wracking, doing it for the first time,” he said. “Sitting with the Yankees and them not being where we wanted them to be. It was a little nerve-wracking. We got it done. [Cano] was happy. That’s what was important to us. Onto the next.”
That would be Castillo.
“We definitely showed everybody that we could get the contract [with Cano], and we did,” Perez said. “And we’re about to get another one for Mr. Castillo. It’s probably going to be better than any other defector ever got, hopefully. I don’t know yet, but I’m thinking we’re going to do a great job with that, too.”
It’s another test for this still developing, still mysterious group. The rest of the sports community won’t even fake disinterest. They’ll be watching eagerly.