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1:02 PM Friday, November 6, 2009

By Alex Butler

Contributing writer

He’s not Ari Gold and he thinks Jerry Maguire is “soft.” NFL Super agent Drew Rosenhaus has certainly made a splash throughout his career with colorful clients like Chad Ochocinco and Terrell Owens, but on Monday night, Rosenhaus joined New York Times columnist and Sports Illustrated writer Selena Roberts at Miami University as part of a lecture titled: Professional Sports: Are fans the losers?

In what started out as a cordial conversation, Rosenhaus and Roberts used their experiences with high profile athletes as well as fans to explain to a crowded Hall Auditorium crowd, if they, themselves are the losers when it comes to professional sports.

Roberts opened up the debate with a tale about legendary NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt. She discussed being a rookie beat writer and being invited to a lunch with Earnhardt. The lunch consisted of a can of tuna and a plastic fork and it was then that Roberts saw a connection to the man and not just the legend of No. 3.

“There are two categories of sports fans,” Roberts said. “Those who follow sports religiously and those who do it for entertainment value. I don’t know if that connection to athletes is possible now.”

Rosenhaus then spoke up, citing Cincinnati’s own Ochocinco as “that (Earnhardt) kind of guy.”

“Chad Ochocinco, in my opinion, is the kind of guy who loves fans and the game,” he said. “I hope he is that type of athlete. You can definitely identify with the players. Chad will go to a movie and tweet to his fans to come to the theatre and he’ll buy their tickets.”

Rosenhaus – who represents 118 athletes and has negotiated billions of dollars in contracts – was in large support of his clients and other athletes even when Roberts suggested that they are paid like entertainers.

Roberts then drew the line between the fans and players by using herself as an example.

“I’m not going to go into a club with a gun and have it go off,” she said as the crowd laughed in front of her.

The reference, aimed former New York Giant and Rosenhaus client Plaxico Burress, was quickly answered by the agent when he replied with “I don’t think that is a laughing matter.”

To bridge back to the fan/athlete connection, Roberts then cited that the athletes are being paid like “entertainers.”

“At some point they stop being human,” Roberts said. “The sideline scares the hell out of me.”

Rosenhaus quickly responded in support of his “friends and clients.”

“It drives me nuts when it says football players make too much. They earn that salary. They pay their dues. It’s a brutal sport. They are out there earning. Don’t feel disconnected. They are out there working their tail off. The players know you are their customers.”

As the debate fizzled to an end with no answer in site, Roberts added a final note to accompany Rosenhaus’s dialogue.

“The Reverend has spoken,” she said.

The next lecture in the Miami University Lecture Series will feature Cleve Jones, founder of The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt – and is titled Harvey Milk, the AIDS Quilt, and Human Rights.

Jones will speak in Oxford at 8 p.m. Monday, Feb. 8.

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