Mike Florio calls out ‘symbiotic relationship’ between insiders and agents

So-called NFL “insiders” are turning into a PR-arm for agents, according to one prominent NFL media veteran.

On Monday, Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio penned a scathing column calling out what he sees as a “symbiotic relationship” between NFL insiders and player agents. A relationship that, during this year’s active free agency period, has been laid bare.

As many have rightfully pointed out since NFL free agency began last week, insiders have become completely shameless in the way that they report transactional news. Perhaps the most brash example of this shamelessness is when a purportedly objective journalist credits a player’s agent that negotiated a deal directly in their reporting of said deal. As Florio points out, “The General Manager that negotiated the contract was never mentioned, because team executives aren’t the sources for free-agent contracts.”

But that’s not even the worst part. It’s one thing to look past an agent wanting to get his or her name out there when providing information to an insider, but the cost of reporting these transactions is much higher than simply giving an agent a bit of publicity. Insiders are forced to report the terms of a given transaction in an almost universally favorable light.

Again, Florio reveals the terms that insiders must agree to in order to be included in the “group texts” that agents put together with a group of reporters in order to disseminate news. According to Florio, an insider must agree to “(1) reporting only the new-money average, which is always higher than the value of the contract at signing; (2) reporting the injury guarantee, which is always greater than the true, full guarantee; and (3) mentioning by name the agents who negotiated the contract.”

If those three conditions aren’t satisfied, then insiders lose access to their primary sources of transactional information.

This is, of course, horrible for the sports fan that wants to stay informed. Aside from the clear positive spin that reporters are putting on almost every single transaction, regardless of if it’s actually a good deal for a team or not, fans aren’t getting the information that is actually important in these deals such as the amount of dead money they carry. The higher numbers obviously look good for the player and his agent, but they normally aren’t representative of the actual salary cap implications the deal has for a team.

The entire relationship makes one question the use of an insider in the first place. If they’re simply going to be a mouthpiece for agents, wouldn’t it just be better to cut out the middleman and have the agents and players announce deals themselves? At least then there’s some transparency.

But that’s a pipe dream, at least according to Mike Florio.

“The ‘insider’ industry isn’t going anywhere,” he says. “But it has definitely morphed into its own category of media. ‘Insiders’ aren’t journalists. They’re external P.R. reps, whose packaging as a press release of what otherwise would be hard news boosts the outlets that employ them, while also making each transaction seem like a bigger deal. And, for the agents who drive the ‘insider’ bus (especially during free agency), it’s a way to push embellished (and, at times, fraudulent) numbers into the NFL bloodstream while also getting a free Twitter advertisement that can then be used to recruit more clients.”

The problem here is that both the insider and agent are valuable to one another, even if there’s little value that insiders provide the sports fan. Insiders gain a following and can command ludicrous salaries by reporting on transactions. And agents are able to gain notoriety and potentially attract new clients when they’re publicized by insiders, not to mention their clients’ deals are reported on favorably.

Until this cycle is broken, which it won’t be, insiders will continue to be glorified PR people (at least during free agency) rather than journalists reporting news through a dispassionate and critical lens.