Rich Paul in August, speaking in Invest Fest in Atlanta. | Screenshot from Invest Fest video by Earn Your Leisure
EARLIER THIS YEAR, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) announced 11 new members were elected to its board of trustees since 2020. The group included Rich Paul, 41, CEO and founder of Klutch Sports Group and head of UTA Sports. He joined the museum’s board in 2022.
An art collector who just published a new memoir about the first three decades of his life, Paul is no ordinary sports agent. He is currently on tour promoting “Lucky Me: A Memoir of Changing the Odds” and recently appeared at Invest Fest presented by Earn Your Leisure. At the Atlanta event, he was asked about partnering with UTA and his interest in art.
“One of the things I do is I take [my clients] around to these museums and these galleries to help them better understand that there’s more areas to park your finances in than just clothes and shoes and cars because all those are depreciating assets,” Paul said.
“I take [my clients] around to these museums and these galleries to help them better understand that there’s more areas to park your finances in than just clothes and shoes and cars because all those are depreciating assets.”
— Rich Paul
“Lucky Me” was published in October and Paul’s riveting story is already a New York Times Bestseller. In the book, he shares his experiences growing up in Cleveland. He details the life lessons he absorbed working with his father, “Big Rich,” at the corner store he owned and operated. His father had another family, but kept a close watch on his son and insisted he keep his grades up, which Paul managed to do with relative ease, after his father threatened him.
“Once Dad scared me straight, I embraced academics, and my GPA never dipped below 3.6,” Paul wrote in “Lucky Me.” “I decided that having the best grades was another way of having the best of everything. I was serious about being on top. I participated in class and asked questions. Math and English were my best subjects.”
His father also taught him how to play dice, which he mastered. Paul played smart, defining his approach as hustling, rather than gambling. He was competitive, but most importantly, strategic and always played fair. He regularly won thousands of dollars from grown men, he said, using the winnings to dress well, wear the latest sneakers, and help support his family because his mother was addicted to crack. (Paul also said he sold weed to make money, before it was legal.) The most essential takeaways Paul learned from his father, were how to read people and the importance of treating everyone, no matter their station in life, with respect.
Those basic tenets are foundational to his success. Paul once thought he might play in the NBA, but by his sophomore year in high school realized it wasn’t in the cards for him, so he switched gears. Unlike most sports agents, Paul is not a lawyer and did not graduate from college. He leveraged his lifelong passion for sports, mastery of sneaker marketing, and savvy understanding of money, value, and risk. After a chance encounter with LeBron James in 2002, with vision and tenacity he turned the opportunity into an unlikely career.
The most essential takeaways Paul learned from his father, were how to read people and the importance of treating everyone, no matter their station in life, with respect.Those basic tenets are foundational to his success.
KEHINDE WILEY, “Yachinboaz Ben Yisrael II”, 2021 (oil on linen, 106.5 x 74.25 x 4.25 inches, framed). | © Kehinde Wiley, Photo by Joshua White, Courtesy the artist and Roberts Projects, Los Angeles
Paul established Klutch Sports in 2012 and now represents about 200 clients—an array of professional sports figures across the NBA, WNBA, and NFL, including LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Draymond Green, Tristian Thompson, Eric Bledsoe, A’ja Wilson, Jalen Hurts, DeVonta Smith, and several coaches. He also works with amateur athletes on NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness) deals. He recently told 60 Minutes the value of all of the contracts he’s negotiated is about $4 billion.
Earlier this year, Paul launched Klutch Athletics in collaboration with New Balance, to develop shoe and apparel collections. He is self made and disrupting the business of sports because he sees himself in his clients. Claiming an aversion to being called an agent, he has referred to himself as an “innovator who has agent capabilities.” In addition to being CEO of Klutch Sports, he considers himself the company’s “chief client services officer.”
In terms of contracts, Paul fights to get his clients what they are worth, often hedging is bets and waiting teams out for months and months. Then, he opens their eyes to investing and growing what they have with retirement in mind, given their narrow earning window as a pro athlete. Exposing them to art, from an educational, intellectual, and cultural standpoint, and also in terms of collecting and investing, is a part of this strategy.
In 2015, Hollywood talent agency UTA launched UTA Artist Space in Beverly Hills, a venue for exhibitions. In partnership with Klutch Sports, UTA opened a new Atlanta office in March, that includes a gallery space that is open to the public. Paul discussed his focus on art in a few outtakes from the one-hour Invest Fest conversation:
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On his partnership with Hollywood agency UTA (United Talent Agency)
I had two choices. I wasn’t, you know, I owned all my business. I wasn’t looking for a partner, but what was happening was the athletes desires was changing and so I didn’t want to be somebody that’s just you know trying to figure it out in a cookie-cutter way and so I had two choices. I could either go raise a couple hundred million dollars then go and find the, the expertise for the departments that I needed to grow in. Or I can find a partner that actually came with that expertise. And so UTA was actually that. They were the partner that came with that expertise. And so I was just trying to do what was best for the, the clients. For me, I’m always thinking about, I don’t want to be the agency of yesterday. I don’t want to be too, too happy about what’s happening today. I’m really trying to build the agency of tomorrow and figure out what that looks like. And so that was my decision with UTA.
On wishing he was aware of African American artists when he was coming up
I’m on the board of LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art). …I’m on the acquisition committee with Elaine Wynn and I’m on the education committee because I wish that I actually paid attention to art class instead of playing Tonk or falling asleep. …I wish that kids understood the importance of art, back then, and I wish I knew who Kerry James Marshall was and who Sam Gilliam was and, you know, who Barkley Hendricks was, back then. Today, I own some Atlanta artists, you know, Alfred Conteh is an artist I own. I own over 100 works. But if you go across the Atlanta office or the LA office [of UTA] there’s a ton of African-American artists both figurative and abstract.
“I wish that kids understood the importance of art, back then, and I wish I knew who Kerry James Marshall was and who Sam Gilliam was and, you know, who Barkley Hendricks was, back then.” — Rich Paul
Installation view of “Black American Portraits,” Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Nov. 7, 2021–April 17, 2022. Shown, far right, KEHINDE WILEY, “Yachinboaz Ben Yisrael II” (2021). | Photo © Museum Associates/LACMA
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On educating his clients about art and collecting
I teach my kids today and my clients, as they come into the league, one of the things I do is I take them around to these museums and these galleries to help them better understand that there’s more areas to park your finances in than just clothes and shoes and cars, because all those are depreciating assets. Right? You don’t need 60 pair of jeans, although we all had them, but you don’t need that. And so, I get them to invest.
One of my favorite pieces I have is an Ernie Barnes piece that I couldn’t tell you when I bought it what price it was. …I’m not looking to sell I’m just saying… a lot of my clients are into art now. A lot of them are into different investments. …It’s one player at a time, but it’s happening and so the earlier we can do that the better. So I just try to continue to educate. I don’t know it all. I don’t pretend to know it all.
…I tell my guys, when you’re on the road, you’re in Detroit, when you’re in San Francisco, when you’re in New York, Chicago, all these places have galleries and all these places have museums. Don’t spend all your time at a hookah bar. Don’t spend all your time playing Call of Duty in your room. Get out and go to these galleries and spend some time there and learn some things.
There are museums in Los Angeles, too. At LACMA, “Black American Portraits” (2021-22) explored the history of portraiture, centering Black American subjects, sitters, and spaces. The exhibition featured about 140 works dating from circa 1800 to the present, drawn mostly from the museum’s collection. “Yachinboaz Ben Yisrael II” (2021) by Kehinde Wiley, a portrait of a young man wearing a red sweatshirt and jeans posed against a floral background, was among the works on view.
In December 2021, LACMA announced a series of new acquisitions, including the Wiley painting, a promised gift from Paul. After opening at LACMA, “Black American Portraits” traveled to the Spelman Museum of Fine Art in Atlanta. Currently, the exhibition is on view at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art in Memphis, Tenn. CT
In August, sports agent and art collector Rich Paul and Junior Bridgeman, were in conversation at Invest Fest in Atlanta with Earn Your Leisure founders Rashad Bilal and Troy Millings. Bridgeman is a former NBA Player who owned hundreds of Wendy’s and Chili’s restaurants, invested in a Coca Cola bottling plant, and purchased Ebony and Jet magazines. Paul talked about representing pro athletes, his book, partnership with UTA, and art collecting (46:43). | Video by Earn Your Leisure
WATCH MORE View full 60 Minutes profile of Rich Paul by Bill Whitaker that aired on Oct. 8, 2023
FIND MORE about the “Rich Paul Rule,” a policy instituted and then rescinded in 2019 by the NCAA, requiring agents to have a bachelor’s degree, from Sports Illustrated
READ MORE Isaac Chotiner profiled Rich Paul in The New Yorker in 2021
WATCH MORE Auction houses are reaching out to athletes who collect. Malcolm Jenkins offered his perspective on works in Phillips November 2023 sales in New York
FIND MORE Sotheby’s recently introduced NBA Auctions, focusing on game-worn jerseys
IN STORE “Yachinboaz Ben Yisrael II” (2021) by Kehinde Wiley has been reproduced on a 500-piece puzzle and a deck of playing cards
BOOKSHELF
Rich Paul’s new memoir, “Lucky Me: A Memoir of Changing the Odds,” is a New York Times bestseller. “Black American Portraits” was published on the occasion of the exhibition. Also consider, “Kehinde Wiley: An Archaeology of Silence,” a new exhibition catalog, and “Kehinde Wiley: A New Republic,” which documents a survey of the artist’s career, from 2001 to 2015.