David Falk

David B. Falk (born 1950) is an American sports agent who primarily works with basketball players in the National Basketball Association (NBA).

He began his career representing professional tennis players for Donald Dell's ProServ and is best known for representing sports icon Michael Jordan for the entirety of Jordan's career.

Besides Jordan, Falk has represented more than 100 other NBA players, and is generally considered to be the most influential player agent the NBA has seen.

At the start of the 80s, only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had a six-figure shoe deal for $100,000 (with Adidas), and Nike was a small player next to companies like Converse, which had virtually owned the market on basketball shoes through the 1970s.

He graduated from Syracuse University in 1972, with a degree in economics, and subsequently, George Washington University Law School, where he earned a J.D. with honors in 1975.

During his law school years, his parents separated.

After many attempts to establish contact with agents Bob Woolf of Boston and Larry Fleisher, Falk turned to ProServ's Donald Dell in 1974.

Falk attempted to get Dell on the phone for "six or seven weeks."

Finally, annoyed at Dell's seeming unavailability, Falk called Dell's office "about 17 times in a three-hour period" until Dell took his call.

When Dell informed him that ProServ was not hiring, Falk offered to work for free.

Dell consented to take on Falk as an unpaid intern while he was attending law school, finally offering him a full-time job starting at $13,000 after his graduation from George Washington University Law School in 1975.

Dell was a former pro tennis player and primarily represented tennis players, so he allowed Falk to handle a large portion of ProServ's NBA dealings.

Falk proved to be a capable agent and negotiator, as he signed the #1 NBA draft picks in 1976 (John Lucas) and 1981 (Mark Aguirre), and negotiated the first million-dollar NBA shoe deal for James Worthy in 1982.

ProServ had an inside track with North Carolina after they successfully represented a number of N.C. basketball alumni, including Tom LaGarde, Phil Ford, Dudley Bradley, and James Worthy.

After James Worthy signed an 8-year, $1.2 million endorsement deal with New Balance in 1982, also negotiated by Falk, Falk decided to make large demands to shoe companies for Jordan's services, including his own shoe line and a royalty.

"We decided to stretch the envelope', Falk said. 'Instead of calling up the companies and asking them how much they would pay Michael Jordan, we called them up and asked them to make a presentation and explain what they could do to promote him. Needless to say, this got a lot of quizzical replies.'"

They have two daughters, Daina, (born 1983) a graduate of Duke University, and Jocelyn (born 1988) a graduate of Syracuse University.

Falk has been nicknamed The Bird of Prey by former Washington Post sportswriter Tony Kornheiser.

He was also portrayed by actor Chris Messina in the 2023 film Air.

In 1984, the same year Michael Jordan entered the NBA draft, Frank Craighill and Lee Fentress, two of Dell's ProServ partners, left to start a competing firm, Advantage International.

Dell and Falk signed #3 pick Jordan, while Craighill and Fentress signed Sam Perkins.

After signing Jordan, Falk quickly made the first great deal for him: the Nike shoe deal.

Falk maintained minimal contact with his father, but remained very close with his mother until her death in 1988.

Falk lives in Rockville, Maryland with his wife, Rhonda (Frank).

Rhonda served as an undergraduate admissions counselor for George Washington University for five years.

For 10 years she worked as a production manager for a software company in Rockville, Maryland and later moved into the software publishing division and managed the distribution and sales of software through international resellers around the world.

She also serves on the board of directors of Woodmont Country Club.

During the peak years of Falk's career in the 1990s, he was often considered the second-most powerful person in the NBA behind Commissioner David Stern, and in 2000 he had at least one client on all but two NBA teams.

He was listed among the "100 Most Powerful People in Sports" for 12 straight years from 1990 to 2001 by The Sporting News, and was also named one of the Top 50 Marketers in the United States by Advertising Age in 1995.

Falk negotiated the then-highest contracts in NBA history for Patrick Ewing and Danny Ferry.

He also negotiated professional sports' first US$100 million contract for Alonzo Mourning as part of an unprecedented free agency period, during which his company, FAME, changed the entire salary structure of the NBA, negotiating more than $400 million in contracts for its free agent clients in a six-day period.

In January 2007, Falk re-launched FAME, and today serves as its founder and CEO.

He represented nine players in 2012; in the prime of his sports agent career in the 1990s he represented as many as 40 players at a time.

Falk was born to a middle-class Jewish family on Long Island, New York, the second of three children.

Falk's father had never finished high school and owned two butcher shops on Long Island, while his mother, Pearl Falk, had two master's degrees, spoke six languages, and had worked as an interpreter in World War II for Nelson Rockefeller in Latin American affairs.

Falk described his mother, a teacher and inspirational force as "a perfectionist", and called her "the biggest influence in my life", the one who drove him to achieve great heights.

"Nothing was really ever good enough. I brought home my college board scores—I think I got just under 1,400 the first time. She was crushed. She didn't understand how I could do so poorly. I think that I share a lot of those qualities. She used to have an expression that I would say is the guiding principle of my life: Always shoot for the stars and never settle for second best.'"

Falk's mother was an avid New York Knicks fan, a fact which influenced Falk's career decision upon his career path.

Longtime childhood friend and colleague, Attorney Reid Kahn, remembers Falk proclaiming that he wanted to represent professional athletes in the fourth grade.

Another high school friend noted that Falk was not good enough to make any of the teams at Douglas MacArthur High School in Levittown, New York, but that he was an ardent sports fan who frequently watched baseball games at Shea Stadium.