Endeavor acquires stake in BDA sports
Endeavor, the entertainment and sports conglomerate, expanded its sports representation business Tuesday by purchasing a stake in BDA Sports Management, the firm led by influential NBA agent Bill Duffy.
The partnership calls for Duffy, who represents rising basketball stars Luka Doncic and Sabrina Ionescu, to become an adviser in the sports division of William Morris Endeavor, one of Hollywood’s major talent agencies. Duffy will continue to serve as chairman and chief executive of BDA Sports, which will retain its own branding and represents an estimated 130 players in the NBA, WNBA and professional leagues internationally.
“We don’t really have an uber-NBAagent in our company,” Mark Shapiro, Endeavor’s president, said in an interview. “I’m certain this will accelerate our growth plan as it relates to representing more NBA players both on and off the court.”
Terms of the agreement were not disclosed, but Shapiro described Endeavor’s stake as a “meaningful, strategic investment.” WME Sports has provided full-service representation for several tennis and golf clients, including tennis stars Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka, but the sports division’s co-head, Karen Brodkin, said the alliance with Duffy was part of a broader strategy to work with “more clients earlier in their career trajectory” in sports where they haven’t historically. Duffy said the union with WME would position BDA Sports “to build something even bigger and better than what we’ve been able to do.”
“The modern athlete has a high expectation for off-the-court opportunities,” Duffy said. “They want to get into gaming, into fashion, into entrepreneurial endeavors. WME has a history of doing that at the highest level, so with this partnership, it’s like we’re expanding our menu from one page to four.”
Duffy, who turns 61 in January, oversees a team of six agents domestically and seven internationally. He has represented Hall of Fame NBA players like Yao Ming and Steve Nash, now the head coach of the Brooklyn Nets. Duffy’s current clients include Ionescu of the WNBA’s New York Liberty and NBA players Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks, Phoenix’s Deandre Ayton, Chicago’s Zach LaVine, Miami’s Goran Dragic and the New York Knicks’ RJ Barrett.
The arrangement between WME and BDA Sports is the latest in a string of partnerships between top Hollywood agencies and player-representation companies in both basketball and soccer — the team sports with the most global reach. In July 2019, prominent NBA agent Rich Paul sold what United Talent Agency called a “significant stake” in Paul’s Klutch Sports Group to establish Klutch as UTA’s sports division.