Joby Branion (Part 1) : Elevating Life After Sports

Welcome to the Legacy All Stars podcast. We feature inspirational stories from people who dedicate themselves to helping others. Here is your host, Alan Pavloski.

Hello, and welcome to today's episode of the Legacy All Stars podcast. Today's episode's a little longer than normal, so we've split it into two episodes. You'll be able to find the second edition of this episode as part two on Legacy All Stars podcast.com on YouTube or on your favorite podcast platform. Enjoy the show.

Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Legacy All Stars podcast. This episode, I gotta tell you, is super special to me. This podcast was created to establish a platform to feature inspirational people that have committed themselves to helping others. The first person I thought of on this show to feature is Joby Branion. He's my guest today. I'm uniquely qualified on this because Joby and I have been friends first and foremost for about 25 years on a personal and professional level. I have personally been the beneficiary of his generosity and kindness. And I'm uniquely qualified to say that he is one of the most genuine people you will ever meet or have the benefit of meeting. Toby is the founder and CEO of Vanguard Sports Group. He is renowned for his holistic approach to athlete representation, emphasizing not only professional success, but also personal development and community impact. That description of his commitment to his clients best interest can't possibly be communicated in a bio. I've personally seen it firsthand. He is the real deal. Welcome to the show, my friend. It's good to see you.

It's great to be here. I appreciate that incredible introduction and not enough emphasis on the relationship we've had and how long and thorough it has been. It's rare that you. You get relationships sort of later in life, like not in high school or college that end up being, you know, some of the most important ones in your life. And I consider you a very, very close and dear friend of. Of me and my whole family. So thank you.

Yeah, as do I, and as does my whole family, as you know. So thank you for being here. I want to start the show by playing a clip of your client, Von Miller, a Super Bowl MVP and future hall of Famer, no doubt talking about you and your firm. Let's listen to and see the clip.

How instrumental has Joby Brandon been throughout your career?

Joby, my agent, bro. We've dealt with so many different things, you know, on and off the football field. And, you know, he's shout out, Joby. Joby's a great agent. And of course, of course they have, you know, of course, they have different agents that fit different players. And, you know, Joby is a great fit for me. You know, he was a great fit for me when I was 21 years old. He's a great fit for me when I'm 33 years old. So many different things that I've had to overcome on and off the football field, from injury to, you know, to all different types of things. And he's helped me with that. He's been like my uncle. My uncle that. He's always giving me great advice. It might not have always been the advice that I wanted to hear, but he's given me the. He's given me the right advice for me. And, you know, I trust him. Obviously, I trust him with my career. You know, I trust him with everything. And I'm just blessed and appreciative to have, you know, agent and be represented by Vanguard Sports. You know, I really appreciate those guys. Thank you.

So how does it make you feel to hear that perspective from a client?

Well, again, knowing Vaughn as well as I do for as long as I have, and I met him when he was a junior at Texas A and M, and that's a whole different animal. But to see where he is sort of today, and then to hear him, one of the things that's interesting is when we go about the business of representing these athletes, the people, right.

It becomes part of who we are, and they're like an extension of our family. And it's just so rare to have a client, you know, completely unscripted, off the cuff, be asked a question, and then have that truly authentic answer from him. And what he said just validated everything that we're striving to do, which is we want to make a difference in these young, and they're all young. I mean, Vaughn at this point is, what, 35 now? But he's still young. And to make an impact in their lives and to hear them respond in a way that's so appreciative and, again, genuine. The thing that resonated the most for me, it wasn't so much him talking about me per se, because it's really about what I've tried to build here at Vanguard. And everyone that is a part of Vanguard, I think, should take pride in hearing what Vaughn said, and that is that he said.

He doesn't always tell me what I want to hear. They don't always tell me what I want to hear. They tell me the truth. They tell me what I need to hear. They give me the Best advice for me. And being the father of three boys who are now 17, 19, and 21, who listen to me about half of the time, that makes me feel old, by the way. Right. But I understand the value of, of.

Having people be real and authentic with them. Don't tell my kid what he wants to hear. Tell him what he needs to hear. While he's still young enough to. Course. Correct. While he's still young enough to modify his behavior. Right. If you keep telling him that everything is great and he's the most wonderful thing in the world, growth stops. Right? And.

I learned many, many years ago, and it was reinforced by actually the women's basketball coach at Duke who posted something and I put it on one of my social media platforms where her whole point was, life is hard.

And it gets harder as you get older, it never gets easier. And so if you're looking for it to suddenly get easy, that's not what happens. And as you get home, as you get older, it gets harder. And the question is, can you learn how to handle hard? And a big part of our mantra, which is exactly the same stuff I tell my own children, is, life is difficult. It's not fair. Things are going to happen. They're going to be completely outside of your control. The lesson there is it's crazy not to control the things you can control, because life's gonna be hard anyway. Don't make it harder. And then along those lines, what's the single most important thing you control? Well, I tell this to my own kids. Single most important thing you can control is who you choose to surround yourself with. If you surround yourself with good people who truly care about you and from a professional standpoint who are qualified to do the jobs they've been brought in to do well, you've increased your likelihood of success. But just as importantly, you've limited the likelihood of failing. So that hopefully the inevitable curves that life will throw at you, the inevitable obstacles, will only be speed bumps and not derailing events. And sadly, in this business that I've chosen, and now I'm in my going into 30 years, I think of representing professional athletes.

I've learned that inevitably the careers end and life goes on. And it's crazy not to prepare yourself for the inevitability of the end of the playing career and along the way to learn as much as you can, to help position you so that you can live life on your terms when you stop being a professional athlete, because it comes for all of us, everybody, whether you're a Hall of Famer or only play for two or three years, the day comes where it's over. And sadly, in our business, there are a lot of people in our business who theoretically do the same job that I do or that we do, even at Vanguard. But their whole approach is very different. It's not about doing what we can to add value, doing what we can to empower our clients, doing we can to protect them and prepare them for the inevitability of their careers. It's about transactional. It's being transactional. How much money can we make off the backs of these guys? And when their careers are over, we kick them aside. Right. That is something I've witnessed.

Way too often, and it turns my stomach, and it still does.

And I just think that it's sad that even today, every year, we see athletes whose careers are dramatically altered, if not cratered, by things that have nothing to do with their ability to play the game and everything to do with the choices they made, the reactions to an obstacle or adversity they had, the people they chose to be around them, and how those things interplay with one another and then dramatically impact their ability to continue to have a productive and lucrative career. Their careers end for reasons have nothing to do with their talent and everything to do with things that could have been avoided. That's.

You and I were talking earlier, Joby, about, you know, some divergent paths of players even drafted in the same draft at the same position. Can you. Can you. Can we share this and talk about that on the show? Because I think it's. It's poignant to talk about how paths can be divergent based on who you surround yourself with and based on what kind of advice you get.

Yeah, I mean, there's a part of me that hesitates to be so specific, but I'm going to be because I think it's relevant and because I honestly have a great deal of respect for.

The person I'm going to also mention. But most people don't remember when Von Miller was drafted in 2011, he ended up being the number two overall pick in the draft. And in that same draft class, there was another free agent. Not free agent, another edge rushing linebacker, was extremely talented. Won a few picks after him to the 49ers. Alden Smith. And most people don't remember their rookie years. Alden Smith had more sacks than Vaughn their second year. Alden Smith had more sacks than Vaughn their third year. They both got suspended from the NFL for repeated substance abuse violations, which were primarily using marijuana, which has now Been almost decriminalized even in the NFL. But back then it was a pretty big deal. And so they both faced suspensions. And that's where both of their careers went in completely opposite directions. I know that what we did was we surrounded Vaughn with the people and the tools and the resources to do a 180. And to his credit, he embraced that. And three years later, he's the MVP of the super bowl going into a contract negotiation which ultimately made him the highest paid non quarterback in the history of the NFL, with the biggest guarantee of anybody other than one other player, Andrew Luck. That same year.

His contract was $114.5 million. And at that point, I think Alden Smith was out of the league or barely hanging on.

Six years later, when he gets to the end of that contract, he had been injured.

Arrested, suspended.

Traded, but won another super bowl with another team, signed another contract for $120 million. And you know he's on pace. If he finishes out his contract, he will have made over a quarter of a billion dollars playing football. And Alden Smith unfortunately just got out of prison. And I say this not to disparage Alden Smith, because what really struck home for me was Alden, I think, was on Brandon Marshall's podcast and he acknowledged, he said, you know, I was so young when I got to the league and I just didn't have the people around me. I didn't know what I was doing and I didn't make good choices.

And to his credit, he owned what happened, but it shouldn't have happened. He was too good a guy, too good a human being.

And Vaughn was a lot like him. The difference was who they had around them and the fact that Vaughn embraced what was provided to him. And he, you know, he bounced from one side of the lane to the other, but never went into the gutter and still headed towards the pins. That's what we aim to do. And with my own children, my own boys, it's like I just want to have the guardrails up. I know they're going to go from one side of the lane to the other. Just keep them out of the gutter and keep them headed toward the pins. That's the best we can do as parents. That's the best we can do as advisors. And I feel like our job is that of a quality mentor, a quality coach. Right. A great coach can make a good player look great. A bad coach can make a great player look bad. But no coach can coach somebody who doesn't want to be Coached. You can't teach somebody who doesn't want to be in class. So for us, it's about finding relationships, families, and athletes who embrace what it is we're trying to provide them, which is the support and the resources and the guidance so that they can have the cheat codes on how to get through the professional career with as much return as possible. Because as I said earlier, you know, the career is going to end. They take your helmet away and it's over. And to not prepare for that is tragic.

Yeah, we like to. One of the things that keeps bringing me back to involvement with people that have a platform is that.

In an effort to celebrate those that are making a difference, that have a platform, that are celebrities or that have a big profile, inevitably you can exponentially affect the rest of the world because people are inspired by these individuals. And if we collectively as a society can embrace the people that are doing those positive things and lift them up and show them for who they are, I think that creates an exponential effect on the greater good. With that in mind, you've highlighted the importance of athletes understanding their roles as role models and giving back to the communities that shape them. Can you share a few specific examples of how you've guided clients in that regard?

Sure. I'd like to start with the genesis of it, though, because I can't take credit for it.

I ended up going to law school and business school and becoming. Becoming a entertainment lawyer first. That was my first real professional life. And I remember a friend of mine would introduce me to people. This is my friend Joby. He's a lawyer. And I said, please don't introduce me to people as a lawyer. Then I became a sports agent, and the same person did that one day. And I said, whatever you do, do not introduce me to people as a sports agent. Tell them I'm a lawyer.

But the opportunity to become a sports agent sort of presented itself to me, and I gravitated to this profession now 29 plus years ago, because I was attracted to what the icon Lee Steinberg had built back then. Lee, one of the things he espoused was the importance of giving back to the communities that shape you. Right? And I said, you know what? If I. If I'm going to be a sports agent, that's the kind of sports agent I want to be. So I was inspired by Lee Steinberg, and I still am by a lot of the things that he. He emphasized, and I embraced it. And so as I've gone forward, I helped co found a very big agency that I left 10 years ago to start this because I didn't want to be part of a big agency. And a big part of what we do still is make sure our clients understand again the importance of giving back to the communities that helped shape them, that impacted them. And it doesn't have to be necessarily giving back to a particular community. It's just doing something good with the profile, the platform, the resources that you have, but doing it in a way that's authentic to you, right? Because don't do it just because somebody tells you go give money to this thing because you won't be behind it. The a great example of this and I'm probably go back to Vaughn several times because he's had such a long career. But when I first met Vaughn, he, when he was a junior still at Texas A and M, deciding whether to enter the draft or not, he decided to stay in. But he came into the room, I was at his parents office, he walked in the room, he had these big glass, thick black glasses on. And I looked at him, I said, bro, I said, are those for real? He's like, ha, yeah, I'm blind. And he handed me the glasses and I looked at, oh my God, you are literally blind. He said, I'm legally blind. He said, but I'm going to get, I'm going to get Lasik as soon as I get to the NFL. I said, man, look, I don't know if I'll have the honor of down the road being able to represent you, but promise me this, don't get rid of the glasses. Let those be part of who you are, your brand, because they're real. And it was at that he told me that the reason he was wearing the glasses and he'd always worn them even though they weren't cool, was because he needed them to see the boards in school, right? And so long story short, we get a couple, three years in his career and it's like he decides he wants to do something now with a charity endeavor. And he came up with the concept of Vaughn's vision, which is a foundation that has now is devoted to giving eyewear and eye care to kids in need and making it cool to wear glasses, right? How cool is that? And he's helped countless thousands of kids. It started in Denver, it grew all the way to College Station in Dallas, and now he's in Buffalo again, impacting all these kids. He now has an eyewear deal where he's actually developing the eyewear and, and it's just so. And it's authentically. Him and it's impacting so many others. But it redounds back to him so that he gets the personal joy of seeing how he can impact others given the platform he was blessed to have. Right. And that's what you look for. And we've got numerous examples of guys who have have done that. That just happens to be the easiest to sort of tie together.

But we love doing that. We make no money, by the way. There's a lot of things that agents do. The only thing the agents really make money on are negotiating contracts. But we do a lot of other things to again, be impactful for our clients. And we want our clients to understand the kind of impact they can have.

I see myself as a mentor and I want to impact. I've always been a mentor in my life.

I love the fact that I can help Vaughn Miller be in a position where he can impact tens of thousands more people than I can. So my contribution is to make sure that he redoubles the results of doing good. He can do more good than I can by myself, but I can help him do good. I can help a lot of our clients. That's how we all feel at Vanguard. We're locked and loaded into being there for our guys and helping them have the kinds of impacts they want to have out there in the real world.

You brought it up. You really focus on every aspect of a client's career, regardless of whether you're getting paid for it or not.

That's a rare quality. But what strategies do you employ to assist athletes in securing their financial futures for themselves and their families?

Well, it's funny.

My very first recruited client was Iman Green, running back out of Nebraska, who you know, in fact, we know him well around that same time and he came out as a junior, ended up being a third round pick. Most people forget the Seattle Seahawks before he got traded and ultimately went to the Green Bay Packers.

But he was actually with the Seahawks when I met him. Yeah, because I met him after he got drafted and we hit it off and you were kind enough to make that introduction. But it was great. I have been friends ever since then.

Right, right. Well, he, I guess I was in my second or second or third year of the industry and had already seen experienced the world of financial advisors and it was pretty seedy, to be honest. I mean I thought, I didn't even know it existed. I thought agents were bad. Financial advisors could be equally, if not more so bad. They can be ruinous of players careers. Our job is to help clients make Money. Their job is to help them manage and keep their money and hopefully have their money make money. But sadly, these young guys, kids, they don't know what they don't know, and they end up blindly trusting people and sometimes get caught up with the wrong people who have the wrong motives, who bilk them of sometimes their entire.

Their, their entire bank account. I mean, it's, you know, it's, it's. And so one of the first people I remember, Amon Ramon Rabbit, but Aman Green said, hey, I just, you know, I got this financial advisor and I want to get this car done over here. But I said, whoa, you got a financial advisor? He said, yeah. I said, do you sign an agreement with him? He said, yeah. I said, can you please send me the agreement? Remember we talked about don't sign anything without us getting a chance to see what you're signing? Oh, yeah, my bad. So he sends this thing over and this guy had like advanced a bunch of money to him, but had also had an agreement where he was like getting. Going to get 10% of all of his, all of his money on and off the field forever. Right. And we immediately, I called a couple friends of mine who were lawyers, and we got us, you know, we got him out of the agreement. Long story short, three years later, I remember calling him on. At this point, he's in Green Bay. I said, hey, man, do you remember this guy? And I told him the name and he said, why do I know that name? He said, that was your first financial advisor. He's going to prison for having taken millions for committing wire fraud, tax fraud, et cetera, et cetera from other professional athletes. Right. And sadly, there are all. There are so many of these cases out there.

Yeah.

I learned early in my career that, look, I have a law degree and an mba. I know just enough to be dangerous, but I'm not in a position to manage anyone's money. That's not my job. But what we can do is protect our clients better than a lot of other people can because of the relationship we have from those folks. And so I read where I think it was Tim Duncan had lost 20 some million dollars to his financial advisor. And then Kevin Garnett came to the guy's defense because he also was a client of his. And then a couple years later, he suing the guy for having lost $70 million of his money.

Yeah, there's so many examples.

That's right. And so what I've learned over the years is that rarely do these things happen because of a One off transaction that goes sideways. It happens because you get into a relationship where somebody gets control of your money. They now manage all of your accounts, and they get you to sign documents that allows them have access.

That they shouldn't have. And they basically have drilled all these holes in your boat. Right. And you don't know because there's nobody overseeing anything. So what I've done, and I did this when I first started Vanguard, was I've since retained an outside group whose job it is, is to oversee the selection process of your financial advisor to make sure they are who they say they are. Right. Because finding agents is easy. You find people who are certified through the nflpa. That's not the case with financial advisors. Anybody can come up off the street and say they're a financial advisor. So they oversee that. They oversee the implementation of the people that you ultimately choose. And they will periodically do an audit to make sure that these people are doing with your money what they said they were going to do with your money. Because that's all it really takes to find out if there's a hole in your boat. Right. If that had happened with Tim Duncan five years earlier, he might have lost 200,000, not 20 million.

It's just a little bit of oversight goes a long way.

And as far as I know, we were the first. I know. And we may still be the only agency that pays for that service for our clients, because that's something that our clients should have, that level of protection for their finances going forward. We're not here to advise you about your money. We can give you some basic things about how not to blow your money. But the bottom line is you need a financial team. And that financial team should be a separate fiduciary whose obligation is to you, not to us, but ours is to you, not to them. And we can check and balance one another. And it has worked really well for us, especially with the clients who have taken advantage of it. They can sleep at night knowing that, okay, my money's where it's supposed to be, and my people are doing a decent job.

That's always fantastic to hear that.

They just don't do that. You know why? Because they don't make money off that. We don't make money off of it either. But it's what I think is valuable. It's adding value to our representation.

I mean, it goes back to the way I introduced you. And there's nobody more genuine that I know about your intentions than you. And I can safely say that over the course of Our. I can't even count the years because we've been friends for so long. But you know, it really is true and I try to surround myself with those same kind of people and I've been fortunate enough to associate myself with you all these years. So it's nice to see that that's continuing to play out and that your clients are benefiting from those, those infrastructure pieces that you put in place.

Yep, yep. No, I appreciate that.

I was going to say there, there are a series of other things that we do that are unique, I think in the space. You know, everybody pays for guys to train for the draft, which is sort of necessary now in order. You can't like represent players unless you're least willing to do that. But we're the only agency I know that commits for all of our clients who pay for their training in year two, in year three until they get to their second contract, which really is the holy grail.

You know, even Vaughn Miller, who went number two, signed a four year deal for 20 million with a fifth year option was another nine. So that's five years, 29 million. His next contract was 114 and a half million and his next contract was 120 million. All of a sudden that 29 million from his rookie deal looks like nothing. Amon Ra St. Brown is one of our clients. So fourth round pick over the first three years he made about $4 million and then we just did a contract extension for him at $30 million per year going forward. Right. That's $120 million. That first contract changes your life. The second contract can be generational wealth. That's right. And again, it's not money for the sake of money. I try to emphasize these guys, we don't want to help you make money so you can just buy as many Lamborghinis and beach houses as you can. We want you to have the financial foundation so that whenever your career ends, you then get to dictate what you do next with the rest of you. If you want to go coach high school football and not take a salary, you can. But because you got so much out of your career and you have the financial foundation to live life on your terms, which is the American dream, to wake up and do what you want to do. As opposed to now trying to figure out how am I going to make ends meet now that I'm done playing football? I lost everything.

That was going to be my next question. I mean, how do you balance the pursuit of lucrative contracts with the importance of personal values and Long term goals for your clients?

Well, it's just an ongoing mantra. We also do something else that no other firm that I'm aware of does. Someone that I think you're aware of is who I met my second year in the business just before you, right around the same time actually, who's a PhD psychologist who specializes in guiding and counseling athletes, professional athletes and entertainers and CEOs to be honest, on the unique stressors that they encounter because of who they are. And I've watched him save careers, I've watched him save families because he has a PhD. I learned early that there are some things that are above my pay grade. I can only do so much as with my own background and my own life. I don't have a PhD in psychology. So I refer to as a performance coach. Right. Because at its minimal, he can help athletes learn how to lock in and perform when they need to perform. Because it is a business. When you become a pro, these NFL teams, these NBA teams, they, you know, the truth of the matter is they may talk about we're a family and we know. Bottom line is they want to know that you're going to perform when you need to perform and that they can count on you to perform as long as you check those boxes. They're going to pay you a lot of money. The minute that becomes suspect that they don't care why you're struggling, whatever's happening in your personal life, it cannot negatively impact your performance. If it does, they don't care.

Generally not their problem.

There are plenty of good people that work for these NBA teams, these NFL teams, but as institutions they are built to win and make money. And if you're not helping them win, they're going to move on from you.

That's especially in the NFL where the contracts aren't guaranteed.

Exactly right. I mean, and honestly. Well, I don't want to get too far into the weeds of the structures of contracts from different places, but you're generally right. I mean it is, I mean there's guaranteed money are short. The bottom line is the expectation is you've got to show up and perform on consistent basis in order to have a long term career. Right. And in the NFL a long term career in our mind is being able to get to a second contract that is substantial. And if you're Vaughn Miller or you know, hopefully Amon Ross, St. Brown, Keenan Allen, he's got the third contracts that are incredibly valuable too. But in order to get there, there are so many things you need to navigate again that have very little to do with your preparation or your health, or it has everything to do with how to make sure that you can perform when you need to perform because you're not distracted by this, that or the other thing that could be family related, could be girlfriend related, could be any number of things. And that's where someone who's a PhD, has a PhD in psychology can help you manage your stressors in a way that it becomes productive, not counterproductive. Right. And I, heck, I talk probably four times a week, and at least one of those times I'm talking to him about me. So, you know, someone like that in your life and someone like that on your team, your professional team, invaluable. You know, we've been good, good friends. He's worked with my clients since 1999.

And once I had my own firm, I had him working with all of our clients at different levels, depending on what the needs were. But it's an asset that no other agency has right there at their disposal, you know, to hopefully help, you know, navigate through the minefield that is. Is being a pro athlete.

It.