Allain Roy, A Career in Hockey: Player, Agent, Advisor, Entrepreneur

 

158. Allain Roy

SPEAKERS

Allain Roy, Will Bachman

 

Will Bachman  00:02

Hello and welcome to The 92 report conversations with members of the Harvard and Radcliffe class of 1992 I’m your host, Will Bachman, and I’m delighted to be here today with Al. Roy Al, welcome to the show.

 

Allain Roy  00:15

Thanks for having me, Will. Good to see you.

 

Will Bachman  00:18

So Al, tell us about your journey since graduating from Harvard?

 

Allain Roy  00:22

Well, that was quite a while ago. So for all of us, you know, I left Harvard to become a pro hockey player. So, I signed my first NHL contract out of Harvard. Was a, you know, was a very fun four years at Harvard, winning the national championship in 1989 and sharing that with a lot of our teammates and the fun part is we still get together that team every 10 years or so, and the attendance is always really good. So I’m hoping that it keeps going that way. A lot of us were in in Cambridge last year for Coach clear his 90th birthday, and there was, like a celebration of the game there. So, you know, it was a lot of fun. And there are a lot of guys that played in the team that settled down in the Boston area, so it’s pretty easy to run into them whenever I go to Harvard games. But yeah, I went to the hockey world, hockey world.

 

Will Bachman  01:23

And I think that was, that was our freshman year, right? Yes, yeah, right. Okay, so I remember watching that game with a friend of mine, and what a thrill like freshman year. What a way to start. I know that it was Chuck Hughes, right. Was our was in our class? I think, yeah, the goalie were there. Were there any other members of our class who are on that team?

 

Allain Roy  01:44

Yeah, so Chuck and I were the two goalies and we did what most teams never do, we rotated all the way through to the final to the so I played a game, you played a game all the way through, and won a national championship, which I don’t think has ever been done. And then we had Kevin sned was a class of 92 also was on that team. I’m trying to think, who else Greg? What’s Greg’s last name? We had quite a few. I think we had like maybe 592 members.

 

Will Bachman  02:21

Yeah, all right, we’ll include those links and those the names in the show notes. Okay, carry on. So you hockey,

 

Allain Roy  02:29

yeah, basically left, left Harvard to play pro hockey. Interesting enough. The year before I graduated, the team that drafted me offered me to leave early to go play in Moscow for a year, and I turned it down. I was, I was like, I don’t know, you know, I wasn’t sure if that was going to be the right move or not. So I ended up waiting until I graduated. And then once I signed with Winnipeg Jets, were the team that drafted me and who I signed with, they assigned me to, instead of assigning me to the miners, assigned me to the Canadian national team, where we were getting ready for the 1994 Olympics. So played for Team Canada for that 9394 season, got to travel the world. Played 72 games around the world. Was very, very cool, and then in 1994 was still with them for the 94 Olympics in Lillehammer. So was in lillyhammer. We basically, people say you won silver, but I said we lost gold in a shootout to Sweden. Was very cool experience to be part of the Olympics and be part of a meddling team and all that stuff. And so that was, you know, my my first real, first two pro seasons were with the Canadian national team, and then continued playing pro hockey after that, for a little while, had a couple of years in Europe. Played one year in Finland, one year in Austria, and then there was a player strike in my final year, that where I decided, okay, I went to college for a reason. It may not be to be a pro hockey player because I wasn’t going to play in the NHL. So I decided to move on from from my playing career and and got involved in multiple businesses out of, out of my pro hockey career with my ex father in law. We had, you know, we were involved in a hotel building in St Louis, Missouri. We had a fine dining restaurant. We had a tech company. So, you know, pondering my post pro hockey career, I was pondering a, do I go back to grad school? And I was thinking about either going to law school or business school. And then I was offered this job by my ex father in law to be like, Hey, I’m a serial entrepreneur. Can you help me run some of my companies? So I decided to get maybe a more interesting education going that route, which is what I did.

 

Will Bachman  04:57

1. And tell us what happened next.

 

Allain Roy  05:02

So, you know, dabbled in those businesses for a while, but really missed the game of hockey, so decided that, Okay, I gotta get back in. Do I start putting my name out there to be a front office guy, like a GM or assistant GM, or am I better off kind of controlling where I live and what I do, and getting on on the agency side. So by pure chance, I ran into a lovely fellow named Dennis polanich, playing in an alumni game, of all things after and I asked him, you know what he did? He’s like, I’m an agent, but my my business partner, the majority owner of the agency, he wants to sell the agency, and it was just at the time when I was looking to get into it. So I basically bought a very small agency in 2000 and have grown it into what is now RSG hockey, and have been, you know, an NHL certified agent for 26 years now.

 

Will Bachman  05:58

Whoa, okay. So tell us about that. Tell us about the services that your firm provides. I was,

 

Allain Roy  06:03

yeah, so, I mean, it’s, it’s an interesting world. And I have friends that work in the NFL and the NBA and MLB too, so I get to hear how what the other sports are like. I do love the culture around hockey, you know, I mean, I grew up, you know, since I was four years old, I’ve been playing hockey. So I know I understand that culture very well. I’ve been around a long time, and I was just looking to, you know, I was looking at what the competition was doing out there, how my experience with my agent went when I played, and I realized, hey, we could do more, we can bring more value, right? So, so I set off to, you know, build a model around hockey expertise, and, you know, top notch like boutique services, because I felt that that was lacking in the business. It felt a lot more like a volume business. And I wanted to be more personable. I wanted to be more bespoke to the athlete, and then build services around what we already did, which has come to the culmination of what I’m doing now, which is, you know, we have a platform called NRX hockey, which basically handles everything for the athlete, outside of contract negotiations and endorsements. So, you know, we, we, I married my agency almost four years ago with a company out of Minnesota called North rock partners. And North rock Partners is a multi family office. They they basically exist for those families that don’t have quite enough wealth to open their own family office, but want to have tailored services that are similar to having their own family office. So they trademarked a concept called the personal office, and I wanted to bring that to athletes. So our venture into the hockey world was was kind of like our, really, our first venture into trying to build the perfect system to bring a holistic solution to athletes outside of contracts and endorsements, because then you’re competing with, with with with agents. So what we want to do is be complementary to agents. And it’s been, it’s been very successful that that concept is called North rock X, and it basically the hockey agency that we have now acts almost as like the test lab to develop services to help supplement the lives and and simplify the lives of pro athletes in all other sports too. Oh, really.

 

Will Bachman  08:46

Okay, so this is a fascinating model. So walk us through some of the services. I was looking at some of the services online. It looks like it’s quite a range.

 

Allain Roy  08:58

So it is, yeah. So, so basically, you know what we do is, and I think most pro sports develop around the same age for the athlete, where, if you’re between the ages of 14 and 18 now, and you’re talented in pretty much every major sport, you’re going to be approached by agents, and even more so now with The nio, right, because some of these athletes are getting are getting, starting to get paid, and I L money at 1516, years old. So you’re being you’re being asked to be responsible in many ways where that that probably didn’t happen until you were 18 to 21 you know, in the past life. Now it’s happening a lot quicker, and you need the right advice around you. So what we wanted to create was a system of integrated advice where you could kind of pick and choose what what we do for you, but then have the whole suite of services and let the client decide how much they want to use of each one. So we have. Have a Tax Division, you know, that has a ton of experience with pro athletes and cross border taxes, because we have a lot of international athletes, right? So a lot of our athletes use our in house Tax Division, but in the same building, we also have estate planning, and we have lawyers that will look at, you know, prenups, wills, that kind of stuff. And also on the same building, on the same floor, we have a an investment in finance department, which will help give you advice on how to manage your money, what to do with it. And a few months ago, we just launched our first private equity fund that’s also part of the same company. And then we just keep adding layers and layers, right? We have concierge services for travel and reservations and private jets, that kind of stuff. So what you know, what I’ve been kind of, I guess, asked to develop on the north rock x side, is keep finding more and more services athletes and entertainers are looking for and bringing them in house so that we can truly say we’re a full service agency, right? Because a lot of agencies say they’re full service, but they outsource most of these services. What we’ve decided to do is bring in more value for your agent fee and be able to marry the two fees together so you get more value for your agent fee, but also more value for your financial fee. On the other side,

 

Will Bachman  11:26

you read articles in the, you know, in the press about how so often professional athletes, they’re making this huge salary, but then they have a big entourage, and they spend lavishly. And then, you know, their career ends in four years, and then they’re like, bankrupt when they’re 39 or something. Talk to us a little bit about the kind of typical economic financial situation of a, you know, maybe, like, the median player that you will serve, like, what are they making, like, you know, while they’re playing? And how do you help them? Think about, well, yeah, you’re making x million dollars, but really you can only spend this many $100,000 because we need to save for your future. And you might your career, might only last for two years or something. Talk to me about the sort of typical economics that you’re looking at. Sure.

 

Allain Roy  12:17

I mean, you know, going back to the comment I made earlier about, you know, if you’re a super talented athlete at 14 to 18, you’re likely starting to get some looks and some contacts from agencies and schools, and nil money creeps in. We often talk on the on the athlete side about creating pro habits. And what that means is, you know, living your life like a pro, how you sleep, how you eat, how you train, pretty much everything that that’s going to lead to more success on the ice or on the field, we try to create those habits early on. On the financial side too, you know, because I think financial literacy, as I think it’s becoming more and more of a focus now for young athletes and their families, because they realize that if you have that dialed in, then then the rest of your life becomes a lot simpler. If you don’t have that dialed in, it’s a distraction, and the fewer distractions you have, the better you perform. So for us, you know, I’ll give you an example of it, you know, let’s say an athlete average. I think average salary in the NHL now is between three and a half and $4 million a year, right? Average lifespan is probably five seasons. So that’s great. You know, you make the NHL at 22 years old, and you have a good career, but by 30, you’re probably out of the league, right? So 22 to 38 years, you’re making 4 million a year. You know, after taxes, you’re probably making a little over 2 million a year, depending where you play. It’s it’s life changing money in some ways, but it’s not lifetime money. And I think what I like about the model that we’ve built is that we’ve lived it. We live it every day. We understand the financial timeline of an athlete versus a traditional financial timeline of like a C suite executive or a doctor or somebody that can practice their craft into their sometimes 60s, right? So as hockey player, you’re gonna make a ton of money early, then all of a sudden, now you need a second career that you have to plan for. And for us, it’s all about being able to explain that and and conceptualize it for the athlete so that they understand. Okay, we’re going to review your cash flow statements every month. This is why you should be putting this money away. The other part of what we do, that I that I love, is that our advisors are all experts in the benefit plans of each league, so the 401, K, the pension plan, because that plugs in very. While. And let’s face it, most pro athletes, if they play a significant amount of time in one of the major leagues, they do have good pension plans, you know, but, but you got to make it to 62 or 65 for it to kick in, right? So, so what do you do between 30 and 62 that’s the big question, and that’s why we exist, you know, like we create discipline, we create a pattern of living for the athletes. And, you know, they add a wife, they add a family, all of a sudden, you know, then they start thinking about a second career. And many, many athletes are really attracted to the financial world, because I think it has a bit of a similar feel. You know, it’s competitive. You often get to work, you know, with a team, that kind of stuff. So I know on the hockey side, especially, those are pretty easy conversations with most, most of our athletes. They listen well, they put into practice, you’re always going to have your outliers that you know, like a like, I see this guy spending, so I’m going to keep spending. But the locker room is probably the worst, the worst influence for bad decisions.

 

Will Bachman  16:15

So that really must require extraordinary discipline. So for someone who’s earning three like, just call it $4 million a year. There’s always a possibility their career might end after one or two seasons. So, and after that, they can get a, you know, perhaps a job in financial services. But let’s assume a regular, normal person salary of 100,000 or 200,000 or something, right? So they need to, like, how do you counsel some like, what would a, you know, kind of a safe cash spin be? If they’re, they might be earning 4 million, but they need to be spending as if they’re only earning like, 200 250,000 right?

 

Allain Roy  16:56

So they can, yeah, and that’s usually the conversation is like, Okay, what you know, what’s your lifestyle now? What could you be comfortable with? And then, then you start throwing into the puzzle, okay, well, let’s add another person. Let’s add a, you know, let’s add a third person, you know. So, so that’s why integrated advice, I think works very well if it is constantly reviewed. And when I say constantly review them, you know, I’m saying probably quarterly. Probably makes sense for somebody to sit down and say, Okay, are we tracking the right way? Are we not? Do we need to make adjustments? Because you’re right, like, there’s, there’s a spurt there where there are athletes who, you know, they’re going to make 10 to $20 million you know, throughout their career, others will make you know 50 to 200 million, right? The question is, if you’re making 50 to 200 million, but you’re you’re spending most of it, you may be in a worse situation. They got it made you know 10 to 20 So, so the discipline is the key word, right? It’s just creating systems that they can live with, that don’t make life uncomfortable for them, but that you can easily, easily transition into a post career type of life and and often the conversation is, you know, when you’re when you feel like you’re maybe three years away from retirement, you start having that conversation. Some players don’t like it, you know. And then they think, Oh, it’s just, you don’t want to talk about retirement before it’s it gets there. But I will tell you the breed of athletes now compared to 10 years ago. They, they’re planners, they, they understand that, like, Okay, this is not going to be forever. I am my own brand. Now. I’m starting to get paid for, you know, for who I am, but that will end at some point. So when that does end, how do I transition and keep my wealth growing? But also have something to look out, to look for, right look towards. Because I do have to say, having lived in this pro sports world my whole life, I will tell you, retirement, psychologically, emotionally, is a big, big step for athletes, more so than anybody ever wants to admit. You know, you’re basically going from living in a community a family of 25 or so people that you’re so close to every day, you see them at work, and all of a sudden it’s over, and you’re at home with your wife and your kids, and you’re playing golf for the first couple months, and things usually don’t go too well, right? So the more you plan to have that transition in place, the more it’s going to be easy for everybody around you, because that is where pro athletes really struggle.

 

Will Bachman  19:45

Say more about that. That’s, I mean, it’s hard enough for some, someone who’s had a full career and they’re retiring in 65 you hear that from people that you know, I used to be this important person at the office, and now I’m home. Um, but for some but it’s even worse, at least in that age, you have peers who are kind of your same age, but if you’re 29 and you just retire from pro sports, what’s your self image? What do you tell us about how you help prepare athletes for that? And maybe, what are some lessons from people that athletes that have done that really successfully.

 

Allain Roy  20:23

I would say number one is pure honesty. You know, like, sometimes it may seem a little harsh, but you do have to have that conversation of like, listen, yes, you’re an NHL player. Everybody’s great, everything’s great. People want to be around you, blah, blah, blah, when it’s over, like, a week after it’s over, most people are not going to care, you know. And unless you’re a star player and you’ve built this brand that you know will supersede anything you know beyond your your your career, that’s very rare. Otherwise, you’re just some retired hockey player, you know. And guys, guys don’t want to hear that, but, but it is, it is very true. And I think the quicker you can get to people realizing, okay, like, it’s basically, at the end of the day, it’s just a job. No, you know, no longer doing this job. So what do you want to do? And that’s why you see so many athletes trying to stay in their sport. You know, they want to go into coaching, broadcasting, you know, front office jobs, but there are only so many of those jobs and and there are only so many people that are that are really kind of a fit to do those jobs. No, not everybody can do broadcasting. Not everybody can can be a coach. So they really struggle. They tend to kind of want to hang on and want to stay in the sport, then they realize, okay, maybe this is maybe I want to get away from this and start anew. I’ve seen many clients become very good entrepreneurs, because they have that drive and they really want, like a purpose, you know, and I think that’s probably the biggest struggle for retired pro athletes is that sense of purpose is kind of completely gone in a snap of a finger, right? Like you’re, you’re basically, one day you’re waking up, you’re trying to win a Stanley Cup, and then the next day you’re waking up and you’re like, Guess I’m gonna go golf with my buddies and figure out what I’m gonna do for the rest of my life, right? But after two months or so, then you start, then panic starts setting in. You’re like, Okay, well, I can’t be doing this every day. So you know that is why I can’t stress enough that preparing ahead of time makes so much more sense. Because if you don’t it kind of what, when it kind of springs upon you a lot of a lot of athletes go into, like, deep depression, you know, and, and you speak to their spouses, and they’ll tell you the same thing. They’re like, Oh my gosh, like, You got to get him out of the house, because he’s driving me crazy. And, and this is not productive for either of us, right? Because what other people don’t understand they don’t live this lifestyle too, is like you’re used to a lifestyle where you’re on the road half the time, and if you have, you know, you have a family, wife, kids, husband, kids, and all of a sudden you’re, you know, you’re home every day. That is a shocking change for not just for you, but for everybody around you. So like, the emotional and psychological adjustment post career is is a real, real thing, and I think most people don’t really put enough deep thought into it until it happens. And then when it does, then there’s big trouble, and you gotta go to counseling and all those good things, because the other, the other big change is, all of a sudden, I’m making four or 5 million a year. I’m making zero now, but we’re still spending at the same pace. So again, planning, you know, you really have to have a long term like a short term plan, meaning the next five years, but also a long term plan, everything beyond that, until you can get to that pension fund. If you get to it right, some athletes, don’t, I mean, I see, I see some, some athletes that are just, you know, killing it in diversifying, you know, using their brand to diversify. And again, this is something that we get involved with on the private equity side. You know, we’re we will deal with some athlete only private equity funds where they want to leverage the fact that they have big names as investors. And then they go out there and they find companies to kind of marry those investors with, and and the athletes are excited about that stuff like that. Let’s face it, that’s the sexy part of investing, right? Nobody wants to hear about ETFs and mutual funds and even even equities now. Like, it’s more about, okay, what’s the next private equity deal? Who else is part of this group that I’m involved with? Like, that’s really what. They’re interested in, you know? So what we’ve done is basically developed the fund to create access to some of our athletes who probably wouldn’t have access to some of these deals, because some of these deals have like, a $50 million entry point, right? But if you, if you package everybody together, you easily get there.

 

Will Bachman  25:17

So it’s kind of more more sexy for the private equity firm, if they can tell other investors this exact NHL star is one of the investors. Yeah. And then what makes people want to invest? Tell us a bit about the concierge services and other lifestyle management aspects that you provide.

 

Allain Roy  25:37

Yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s probably too, too important a part of what we do, and it shouldn’t be, but it is something that now, if you live in this world of pro sports, athletes, again, it’s about access, right? They want tickets to the World Cup of soccer this summer. They, you know, they want access to private jet services. They want to be able to get into this restaurant without stressing too much about it, just making a phone call or sending a text like those kind of things are have become part of our day to day, where, again, if you reverse things, you know, 10 years ago probably wasn’t as much a part of the conversation. And you know, every, like, every younger generation that comes in, things change a little bit, you know, like they, I mean, for example, I was talking to somebody yesterday about the use of alcohol. You know, from generation to generation for athletes, like I go to dinner with some of our 20 to 25 year old clients, they don’t drink, you know, they but that 25 to 35 they’ll have a glass of wine all day long, right? And just in that like, That’s one small example. But the demand of services and the type of services that you offer change with every generation. You know, like like, though, that younger generation now, they want access to events. They want access to concerts, way more than that older generation. They, you know, they’re, they’re, they’re a little more easily satisfied. They just want to get into a good restaurant, or, you know, you help them plan family vacations, that kind of stuff, right? Yeah, but it gets, you know, and you got players moving all the time. You got players looking for new babysitters. So it gets pretty granular, yeah,

 

Will Bachman  27:37

I can imagine how one would go about booking a private jet. I have not done it myself, but I could imagine it. Yeah, you see the advertisements, net jets, whatever you call them up. You figure it out. Tell us a little bit about like, behind the scenes of getting, like, exclusive, hard to get tickets, or, you know, restaurant, is there some secret world of concierges that have access to these sorts of things, or you, you pay enough money, or you have a big enough name, or something like, how does that behind this?

 

Allain Roy  28:06

Yeah, it that’s really how, how it kind of works. The concierge is, build up their own rep by who they represent, and then who they represent opens more doors for them. It’s kind of a snowball effect, right? So it’s, it’s very interesting. And we, we use a concierge service that that’s a ton of stuff for sovereign banks in the Middle East. And, you know, and I talking to the lady who runs the concierge service, she has some interesting stories, because sometimes the demands are, sometimes demands are over the top, right? So you can only imagine, you know, the Uber wealthy. I don’t think there’s that. I think that there’s nothing wrong for that, like, for them calling her and saying, Hey, can you, can you book Beyonce for our kids, kids party, or something like that, right? So like, like, stuff like that is, to me, it kind of blows my mind, because I like to lead a pretty simple life. But I think for, you know, for the athletes and entertainers out there who are used to this kind of service like, I don’t think there’s any demands that are out of whack. I do have to say the hockey players are pretty conservative, like they’re they’re looking for, you know, restaurants, vacations, maybe a private jet at the end of the year with the teammates, that kind of stuff. But nothing, nothing too crazy. You know, Taylor Swift’s the bane of my existence, though, because those those ticket demands, I can’t wait for her to retire, because when she’s on tour, that’s probably the highest demand is Taylor Swift tickets.

 

Will Bachman  29:44

Yeah, so hockey players like Taylor Swift, oh yeah. Tell us a little bit about for a professional hockey player. Let’s say you know, not necessarily the most famous player, but someone in the middle of the range, right? I. What is their I don’t want to use the word entourage, but what is their like? Virtual team look like. So your firm plays a couple slots in that their agent to negotiate things with their team, as well as with their endorsements, and you’re helping with the financial advisor. What are the other sorts of people that they might either have as a contractor or as an employee, like social media manager or others. I’m curious like, what the virtual team looks like for someone like that.

 

Allain Roy  30:29

I would say out of the four major sports, hockey is probably the most simple, stripped down system of support of the four major sports because in football, basketball and baseball, I’ve seen quite a few of these, what they call themselves business managers. So you know, there’ll be an agent, and then the agent’s responsibility will be contract and endorsements. Then there’ll be a business manager who basically helps kind of manage the agent and the financial advisor and the accountant and everybody else, right? And that’s also kind of a little bit where the NRX hockey platform came from. Is like, Okay, well, let’s find a way to integrate all those services into one fee and the agent or the business manager can actually plug and play with us, you know, and that that that’s where that concept came from, because you look at like the other three major sports, like, you know, there are athletes who are paying their agent, they’re paying the business manager, they’re paying their chef, They’re paying their personal trainer that lives with them. They are, you know, usually have a social media or kind of brand director, you know. So right there you’ve got five people on your payroll. It seems like a lot, and is it all effective? I don’t know. You know, like at the end of the day, like it’s, it’s all a matter what the athlete’s looking for. But, and then in the hockey world, usually have your agent and your financial advisor, and that’s it, you know, yes, you’ll have an accountant involved and that kind of stuff. But there’s the business manager concept has never worked in the hockey

 

Will Bachman  32:20

world, are they doing all their own tweets? Or do they often have their own social media person?

 

Allain Roy  32:25

90% do their own tweets? Really, I’d say maybe more. Yeah, the one thing I’ve learned about hockey players is they don’t like to pay the bill very often, so they’re a little cheap. So if there’s a way they can get it done cheaper, they always do, and the cheapest way to do it is to do it yourself, or have somebody close to you do it. But, yeah, I would say, like, as far as social media goes, probably the hockey guys are the most authentic, because they are really doing it themselves.

 

Will Bachman  32:54

Interesting, interesting. Okay, tell us a little bit about just the business side of building your your company and about, you know, thinking about how Who do you? How do you hire? How do you evaluate talent yourself for your own firm?

 

Allain Roy  33:09

Yeah, for us. You know, I set off in 2000 trying to grow this agency, but looking for service first, but also deep hockey background people, not necessarily that they had to play, but at least being in the game, on the management level, coaching level, so they understand the game better. It’s a lot easier to recruit if you have a deep understanding of the game than it is to just be like, hey, I’ll do your contract because I’m a good numbers guy, right? But again, I bootstrapped this thing, you know, from two employees to now we have 18, going on 20 employees, you know, in North America, and we have partners all over Europe. So, so there is, you know, I to me number one is culture. Culture fit is the key. If I bring in somebody and it changes our culture in any way, that person’s probably not the right fit, you know. And the other, I guess, mantra I kept telling myself as I was building this thing is most agencies are built with a compensation system where every everybody’s pretty much on his own, you know, you eat what you kill, yeah, and but that also breeds a very difficult culture, because you’re competing with your own with your own teammates, basically. So I just, you know, I decided quite a few years ago, like 50 years ago, to move our comp system to more of a base comp with some team bonuses, but also individual bonuses, to take the onus away from I just represent these guys. They’re my guys. I don’t care about the rest of the crew, right? We’re trying to find. Foster very much a team atmosphere and and I think that’s led to a lot of our success, because as we recruit, we could tell the families of the players and the players themselves feel like, okay, like you guys really do have, like, a team culture, right? Because it is definitely an industry where it’s a very individualized type of job, you know, like you just go out there and you rarely help each other. So, you know, we have constant team calls. You know, every two weeks, everybody’s on board, and everybody understands what’s going on, bless you. But also, but also, it helps, kind of keep everybody educated. You know, I’ll give you an example, like these days with the N i l landscape changes every, almost every week. You know, there’s something new going on with n i L. So being able to communicate with your whole team about the changes in n i l not only makes us better, but you also get feedback from somebody who’s living in Boston, and I’m out here, I’m out west, or somebody that’s in Canada, right? And, and you kind of hear basically how the whole industry is viewing

 

Will Bachman  36:07

all the changes happening within it. So explain that in il to us for

 

Allain Roy  36:11

someone, yeah, so, so national image and likeness is, is one of those things that I think it I think it’s a positive for college athletes. But man, there’s a lot of negative stuff that could kind of come out of it in the long run, because you’ve got n i L in sports now, athletes are able to be paid for the use of their image and likeness, especially when they’re in college. So that’s really turned what it’s really done like, to be honest, is it’s turned college sports into really a pro league, you know, because now athletes get paid, they now have, you know, another big problem, which is the an open portal, meaning that athletes, if they’re not happy at the school they’re at, can just switch schools. And there are times, you know, depending on what sport you play, there are times during the year where the portals open and you decide you’re not playing enough, or there’s a quarterback ahead of you and you don’t think you’re going to get past them, then you can just leave. Right? So you combine paying athletes with the ability to leave without making a trade or paying anything, you know, any kind of penalty to leave. You’ve got a system that breeds zero loyalty, and as much as you try to avoid pay to play, there’s a lot of that happening too, right? Because when, when he when they allowed n, i, L, the NCAA had no choice, because the athletes had started realizing, okay, why are, why are football coaches making 8 million a year and I’m getting a scholarship, and that’s it, right? Yeah, so they started realizing what their value was. So once that genie is out of the ball, it’s not going back in. The problem is, it happened so quickly that it was not very much governance, because the NCAA, when they allowed it, was probably at its weakest point, because they lost that $23 billion settlement to go all the way back 15 years to pay athletes, and all of a sudden, now it’s okay now, now you can get paid. Well, who’s going to review the deals to say that, to make sure that they’re kosher, right? Because once you sign an N i l deal, supposed to present it to your school, and then the schools get presented to the sports department, and then there’s another governing body called N i l go, which is Deloitte and touch, and they’re supposed to review the deals and stamp, stamp them yes or no, right? And the problem is, you have so many deals in the system, they can’t get to them. So then the big programs are like, well, we can’t wait for an IL go, because we’ve already promised all this money to these guys, so we’re just going to do it. Then you also have, like, individual nil deals where I can go to some alumnus from Harvard and say, Listen, my players going to Harvard. Would you do an N i l deal for him for a million dollars, and he’ll do some appearances for you and some social media posts, and if n i l go says, yes, and that player gets paid, right? So, so it’s a it’s the Wild West is a so for us, it’s exciting. It brings opportunity, but it brings complete chaos, because now we’re looked upon as, okay, now I need some kind of some kind of counsel from you guys as to what’s fair market value. Is this contract, you know, is this a good contract, or is there, you know, some pitfalls in this contract, but also, what’s this going to look like a year, two years from now? And nobody really knows. So we’re all flying blind a little bit. There’s a lot of money going around, but it’s going to change sports for all sports, for all athletes, you know, and it’s and it creates great opportunities, but once you start. Bringing in money, and you have the door wide open, you’re not going to be much loyalty. Or, you know, there’s going to be some, some unsavory characters that slip in every time.

 

Will Bachman  40:14

I’m sure I could, I mean, I I could keep asking questions for hours about this world of sports and being an agent and services. But I did want to sort of offer the opportunity anything else that you want to tell us about, like over, over in your life, over the past three decades, outside of, outside of RSG and NRX hockey.

 

Allain Roy  40:36

You know, I always enjoy going back to campus. I’m actually going, next week, I’m going to go see Dartmouth play Harvard. So, you know, I’m excited to go back there. I always go by Pinocchio was for a slice before, and those guys are still working there, which is crazy. The guys behind the counter, like, right two thirds of those guys are still there. I don’t know what they’re eating there, but anyway, it must be the pizza. You know, I’ve got two kids, both went to TCU, both graduated, live in, live in, live in Dallas. You know, my job is kind of my lifestyle, you know, basically I, you know, I’m a bit of a workaholic, but I get to travel the world. I get to go to the Olympics in two weeks, and we’ll have 1212, of our clients in the Olympics. I get to go watch them play and, you know, participate in that stuff. So Harvard and hockey have been very good to me, you know, like it’s, it’s changed my life in a very good way. I would say, you know, that the causes that I champion the most probably mental health, especially for athletes and and our Agency launched a mental health initiative that other agencies now are starting to bring in something that people have a hard time talking about, especially in the in the world of pro sports and hockey and football, because supposed to be all macho, and you’re not supposed to talk about your feelings, but at the end of the day, you know it the level of anxiety that athletes put up with is extreme, and the tools to be able to deal with that anxiety not Everybody’s equipped to have, it, especially now with social media, because everybody has access to you all the time. I think, you know, being a pro athlete 20 years ago, where you could just do your job, go home, and nobody would bother you or gone, and it’s always in your face, and it’s, it’s very hard for a lot of athletes to deal with. So for us, you know, we were trying to champion that, forcing those conversations, you know, being able to just like the guys that retire, and we were talking about earlier that you know that need to shift their their mindset, because now their life is going to be different when you become a pro athlete, your your mind is going to get beaten up because You get paid on performance, and you get criticized every second of every day. So not everybody’s built to deal with that stuff. So for us, like you know that that’s one part of the sport that we’re really trying to help grow and bring attention to, is is, you know, more less stigma towards mental health and more conversation.

 

Will Bachman  43:20

Tell us about any courses or professors that you had at Harvard that continue to resonate with you and in some way, oh,

 

Allain Roy  43:29

you know what? Like, most people would never pick this class, but I took astronomy with Dr Latham and Dr Gingrich. I think that was who was teaching it amazing class. And Gingrich actually worked on the atomic bomb when he was like so he was a 17 year old getting his PhD at Princeton, was recruited by the US government to go work on the Manhattan Project. And unbelievable, class, they had a panel where they brought in some other people for the Manhattan Project, and we got to ask questions like, great experience, then another great class. And I can’t remember the professor’s

 

Will Bachman  44:16

name, and how did that affect you? Do you kind of just have a greater appreciation of the night sky, or, you know,

 

Allain Roy  44:22

oh yeah, it was just, honestly, just hearing how that whole project got off the ground and who they recruited, and how they brought everybody into the middle of the desert. Didn’t tell them anything. Basically, didn’t know why they were there, and then hearing when they did the test, the test of the bomb, and then all look at each other and realize, what have we done that was like, you could hurt a pin drop, right? Because, like, Just hearing that panel and hearing the emotion, like, we’re all here to help the country. We’re doing something good. All of a sudden, boom, you’re testing the bomb. You’re. Look at each other like, holy shit, like, this may not be a good thing, right? And it’s too late. I thought that was an amazing class. Another class I took, I can’t remember the professor’s name. It was the history of genocide. And this professor, unbelievable professor, and we studied pretty much every genocide in human history. And then the last class, he tells this story about, you know, being in a concentration camp. And, you know, it told the story about, you know, the this kid was, you know, this family was getting murdered, you know, and then they dug the graves. Family was getting murdered. He was like begging this general not to kill his family. General kicked him in the face, blah, blah. Then he said, you know, it was his turn to go stand in front of the grave to get shot. And the these Mongolian Russian soldiers showed up and saved them. They killed all Germans, saved them. And then at the end of the story, he said, well, that little boy that got kicked in the face, that was me, and he was telling us how he got to go to Auschwitz, to Auschwitz, to the Nuremberg trials, and got to testify against that general who was still alive that got arrested. But like, Where else would you have classes like that, right? Like, like, crazy stories and like, like, to me, like those classes probably stuck with me more because of the personality that of the teachers, and, you know, the passion that they had, but I understand the passion they had, because they lived it right, right? Because I we were there when Spike Lee was given his class, remember, and everybody’s trying to get into that class, and had to meet, like, in a secret place, like, but, I mean, there was so many great professors, it’s crazy.

 

Will Bachman  46:57

Al, where can listeners find you and your firm online? Where would you point them if they want to learn? Want to learn more,

 

Allain Roy  47:04

we have North rock partners. Is the name of our firm in Minneapolis, the family office, RSG hockeydotcom. Is the website for our agency. And within North rock partners, we have North rock X and NRX hockey, but all those can be found at that North rock partnersdotcom website, too. Amazing.

 

Will Bachman  47:30

Al, thank you so much for joining today and sharing your story.

 

Allain Roy  47:34

No problem. Thank you. You.