Jalen Hurts, quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles, recently signed a 5-year, $225 million extension. This contract set an NFL record as he will be paid $51 million yearly. He couldn’t have gotten this by himself, so who is behind all of it?
This deal was done by his agent: Nicole Lynn. Lynn has been with Hurts since he started his NFL career. The 34-year-old has been incredibly successful and signed her first agent at age 26.
"So happy for my little bro @jalenhurts on becoming the highest-paid player in NFL history!" Lynn wrote Monday on Instagram. "Thank you for trusting me with something of this magnitude. I remember sitting in your old high school interviewing to be your agent. I am a dreamer, but I’m not sure I could have ever imagined THIS is where we land.”
Lynn reached out to Hurts through Instagram DM’s after his collegiate season at Oklahoma was over. Her message to Hurts said, “Hey, have you picked an agent? If not, I’d love to link.”
“A total Hail Mary,” is how Lynn described it.
Her DM worked and she has done great things ever since. Lynn was named the President of Football for Klutch Sports Group and when she joined PlayerReps, one of the top agencies of the NFL, she was the first woman. She also became the first black woman to represent a player in the Super Bowl when Hurts and the Eagles went to Super Bowl 57.
“It lights a fire in me. It does something to me because I know I’ll prove you wrong. But I saw that same fire in Nicole. She said, ‘I’m a woman. People are going to overlook me. People are going to doubt me. They’re not going to give me the due respect. But I’m overcoming it, just like you do.’ And that’s where we really hit it off. We had the same vision,” Hurts said when talking about why he wanted to work with Lynn.
Not only does Lynn work with Hurts, but so does an all-women management team. Since this is such a rarity in the NFL it has gotten lots of attention for trying to make a change and diversify sports management which is normally a male-dominated industry.
“I admire anyone who puts their head down and works for what they want. And I know women who do that daily, but they don’t get the same praise as men—they don’t get the praise that they deserve,” Hurts says. “I’ve seen that now with tons of different women in my life that are hustlers. Athletes, coaches, and women in the business world of sports. I see it all the time. And they deserve their flowers too. So if me saying something about it brings more attention to it, then I’m all for that.”
Hurts is making an impact and advocating change every day he works with his all-women team. It may be a rarity now, but women every day are getting into sports and some, like Lynn, are making big decisions that change the lives of many.
“I have a team of straight hustlers. … They get things done. And that’s how I am on the field and off the field,” Hurts says. “We’re all trying to accomplish something.”
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