"Son Ah-seop and Jeon Jun-woo Player FA Negotiation Agent, Joo Kwon Player Salary Adjustment Great Reward" - MVP Sports Representative Lawyer Kang Woo-jun

Published 07 Aug.2024 14:13(KST)

"If you are not a former athlete, you need to build your career as a lawyer first before becoming an agent to succeed as a 'lawyer agent.'"

Kang Woo-jun (46, 35th bar exam), a partner lawyer at Gaon Law Firm, expressed a cautious stance about jumping into the agent market immediately after passing the bar exam. Kang said, "My experience as a lawyer working with various committees such as the Fair Trade Commission and finding weaknesses in the opposing party's arguments to rebut them was very useful in establishing my advocacy skills," adding that his diverse experience as a lawyer greatly helped his work as an agent. Kang, who is also the CEO of MVP Sports, which is growing steadily by representing 30 baseball players and one professional gamer, shared the rewards and challenges of being an agent.

[Image source=Beoblyul Newspaper]

Kang said, "It is gratifying when long-term efforts and concerns show visible results," and recalled, "I felt great fulfillment when I represented players Son Ah-seop and Jeon Jun-woo in their FA negotiations, and when Joo Kwon became the second player in KBO history in 19 years to receive a salary adjustment using the then-dormant salary arbitration system (now the salary mediation system)." The salary arbitration system is a mechanism to adjust players' salaries through KBO mediation. Although players can apply, it has been treated as a nominal system within the baseball community due to KBO's structure, which is funded by the teams' membership fees. He said his experience as a lawyer played a significant role in Joo Kwon's salary adjustment process.

He also added, "Although not widely known, I once secured a no-charge decision in a doping prevention committee procedure for a certain player," and said, "When I do meaningful work for players' rights, I feel that I made the right choice in starting this work."

Although Kang currently represents dozens of players, he faced many difficulties at the beginning. Kang said, "Recruiting players has always been the hardest part," and explained, "Most existing agents are connected through blood relations or personal ties, so it was difficult to persuade players to join a new agency led by lawyers." However, he said, "By emphasizing the strengths of lawyer agents in crisis management and successfully carrying out many tasks through professional communication with teams and the media, I gradually grew." He also mentioned that sometimes players in the community would learn that a certain player's agent was a lawyer and request consultations with him.

He said, "Compared to overseas markets, both the agent market and the domestic sports industry market are still small," and added, "We need to consider groundbreaking systems that can help the sports industry grow further." For example, in the United States, the sports betting market expanded significantly after the 2018 Supreme Court ruling that legalized sports betting in most states. Kang said, "The legal community should not just wait for the growth of the sports market and industry but seriously consider and explore various systems and legal environments that can promote it."

Kang emphasized to lawyers aspiring to become lawyer agents that an agent is not the protagonist but a 'supporter.' He advised, "Both lawyers and agents share the similarity of thinking about and solving clients' difficult problems," and added, "If you develop communication skills as a lawyer and build strategic planning abilities through litigation and negotiation experience, these can be important nutrients for becoming an agent."