Talent managers and representatives have been at the forefront of the entertainment industry since it became the monopoly power that it is today. These days, the Hollywood, sports and music businesses would not be remotely as strong without the work of these representatives for their clients and for these industries as a whole. With that being said, it is essential for us as students to recognize and understand current and future trends in this field of work so that we will be prepared when the time comes for our involvement in the industry.

It is without a doubt that not only will entertainment representatives be counted on to provide the influence and skill that they have been, but they will expected to do more and more as time goes on. The entertainment industry, specifically the movie and television business, has been growing at exponential rates into a worldwide phenomenon. This has called for agents and managers to take their clients’ influence international and work with studios, experts or leaders from around the world. This expansion of duties, as well as necessity for knowledge of the desires and life on an international scale, means that the job description for talent representatives is going to get a lot more intense and their influence a lot higher.

Another reason that this particular field has been trending up in recent years concerns the expansion and collectivization of the entire industry as a whole. What I mean by this is that while even twenty years ago there were various companies that represented clients, and a distinct separation between the different industries that include music, films and sports, nowadays that has all been done together. More specifically, there are now giant companies with hundreds of employees that represent thousands of people, and further interaction and representation between the different forms of the entertainment industry.

With this collectivization of entertainment companies, and a large amount of interaction and support of the various entertainment industries, the job of a talent agent would not only become more important, but more demanding as well. For example, a representative who works with an athlete client may say his or her necessity increase because perhaps their client would want to make the move into a different type of entertainment, like films of television, in accordance with what they are already partaking in. If that were to occur, it would mean that an agent or manager would have to have the essential knowledge of said industry, connections within that industry, and the influence to make their client’s wishes come true.

There is little doubt that the future for an entertainment industry looks promising. There is also little doubt that while that future is promising, there will also be a lot more demanded out of a representative from clients as well as companies looking to hire said clients. It is important for a student such as yourself to understand that the job will be challenging, but also very rewarding at the same time. All in all, future trends that we have noticed for this particular industry show that entertainment management looks like a strong field for students to enter in the future.

 

 

 

For this third blog entry, I thought I would stray a little bit from what I have been talking about in previous posts concerning education and professional logistics of entertainment management. For this installment, I want to profile a man that all of us college students looking to break into this industry should study and look up to for inspiration: Ari Emanuel. Today, Emanuel is strongly considered one of the top two most influential and powerful agents in the entire entertainment industry. With A-list clients like Mark Wahlberg, Oprah and Martin Scorsese, it is not difficult to understand why it is vital for us students hoping to graduate soon to learn about how this man came to be what he is today: a titan of the industry.

Emanuel cultivated a modest path to where he is today, with no special education or professional connections to vault him to the top of the food chain. Instead, he attended the very small Macalester College in Minnesota for his undergraduate degree, and did not pursue higher education. Instead, he decided to pursue his goals quickly and moved to Los Angeles where, like all other agents starting out, he began working in the mailroom at CAA, one of the biggest agencies in the world. After becoming an agent after 3 years, he bounced around from various agencies including CAA and ICM until leaving and starting his own management agency known as Endeavor in 1995. All of Emanuel’s professional and educational history up to today are recorded on his Linkedin page, provided here.

While all this above may seem ordinary and uninteresting, Emanuel’s true genius began with the creation of his own agency: Endeavor Talent Agency. Known as an aggressive and goal-oriented man, Emanuel decided to do anything he could to become the “King of Hollywood“. In 2004, this hope was on its way to becoming a reality when Emanuel, already with one of the most powerful agencies in the world, decided that he wanted to expand and merge with IMG, which had a large sports representation base. It took over ten years to do so, but in 2014 Emanuel helped purchase IMG for about 2.5 billion dollars and became the co-CEO of the largest talent representation agency in the world.

An article documenting this merger and the background behind it was written by Vanity Fair in March 2015 and can be found here.

“Last spring’s $2.4 billion dollar merger of WME and IMG could be Ari Emanuel’s dream come true.”

-Vanity Fair, March 2015

I feel that it is vitally important for college students like us to truly understand and appreciate what Ari Emanuel was able to accomplish. It goes to show that even with no special or extreme higher education, and an ordinary start, anyone can rise to become one of the most important people in this industry. Hard work, a concrete goal and an innate desire to achieve that goal are all things that can push us towards our ultimate desire of success in the entertainment management business. Though we still have a little bit of time left in our undergraduate lives, it is never to early to create a set of goals that we hope to achieve in our professional futures.