BusinessTN

Jimmy Sexton is given to phrases like, “Just tell me when—I’ll make it happen.”

At 43, the Evangelical Christian School alum helms one of the elite sports agencies in the country, Athletic Resource Management. In the last five years, ARM negotiated $300 million in deals for clients—$100 million in just the last year for less than a dozen new client contracts.

It helps when your clients include University of Alabama’s new head football coach Nick Saban (signed for $40 million over eight years). The goings-on surrounding Saban’s deal typifies Sexton’s job. Wielding the didactic customer-service aplomb of a Madison Avenue executive, Sexton explains the bottom line of the business from his East Memphis office. “You do what’s best for your client.”

Saban was vilified for telling a press conference in December, “I’m not going to be the Alabama coach,” then signing with Alabama in January. But from a business perspective, ARM did its job.

“People who know the business will tell you that we really worked that pretty good for Nick Saban,” says Sexton, matter-of-factly. “Saban wanted to get back into college football, so we looked and found the best deal for him to get back. There wouldn’t have even been a story if the press in Miami hadn’t goaded him into saying that.

The Saban move wasn’t Sexton’s highest-profile deal. That was probably college pal Reggie White, whose 1993 move from Philadelphia to Green Bay was the NFL’s first landmark free-agent contract.

Sexton’s preternaturally proactive and accommodating baritone doesn’t smack of the mollifying charm of the title character of the HBO series Arli$$ (Robert Wuhl) or the smarmy vulnerability of Jerry Maguire (Tom Cruise). Real agents aren’t like their Hollywood counterparts.

“Some of both of those are accurate,” he allows. “Arli$$ was closer, but too sensationalized. Jerry Maguire was a great movie, but it was unrealistic that he only had one client.

Conversely, ARM has a lengthy and diverse clientele, sporting almost half the SEC’s 12 head coaches (Saban, Steve Spurrier, Phillip Fulmer, Tommy Tuberville and Houston Nutt). In professional ranks, clients include Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers ($51 Million, six years) and recently retired Cowboys head coach Bill Parcells.

Admittedly, the numbers are staggering, Sexton says. But day-to-day, the contracts are not that difficult. “We’re not trying to find the cure for cancer.”

It wasn’t long after Saban’s deal was finalized that Sexton was again fielding questions about a possible move by another college coach client.

University of Arkansas administrators offered the top basketball spot to University of Memphis coach John Calipari in April. Two days after the offer was publicized, Sexton told BTN that “Calipari is vitally important to the University of Memphis’ success,” and that Calipari’s projected success at Memphis would be hard to duplicate elsewhere right away. Because of these factors, Sexton said he did not see Calipari leaving “until something else came along.”

If somewhere down the road Calipari does decide to look elsewhere, though, one can be sure he’ll be guided by the ARM.