Media Coverage

Question & Answer

BY SARAH O'BRIAN

Baltimore attorney Ron Shapiro is perhaps best known for representing Cal Ripken Jr. in contract negotiations. Serving as the middleman between professional athletes and team management, Shapiro also negotiated multimillion-dollar deals for Ripken and other big-name baseball players like the now-retired Eddie Murray and Kirby Puckett.

In 1995, Shapiro capitalized on his broad experience as a negotiator by founding the Shapiro Negotiation Institute with partner Mark Jankowski. The institute offers educational seminars intended to help people improve their negotiation, communication and conflict resolution skills using a "nice guy" approach.

With the recent release of their book, The Power of Nice, Shapiro and Jankowski hope to reach an even broader audience in their efforts to educate people about their negotiation philosophy.

The Daily Record recently talked with Shapiro about his various enterprises.

You've got your hands in a lot of different business - the law firm, the sports agency, the negotiations institute and now, your new book. Regarding your role as a sports agent - are you pursuing any new clients to represent, or are you backing away from that?

The sports agency that I work with, Shapiro, Robinson and Associates, has always been a relatively small sports agency. It has represented about 30 major leaguers, a number of minor leaguers and some broadcasters. That hasn't changed. Am I personally pursuing people? I don't personally pursue people.

It's a highly competitive industry. There are people in my office who market. I continue to work hard on behalf of the clients that I represent. And that's really what I see as my job - that is, negotiating their contracts and giving them financial advice.

As somebody who is negotiating these multimillion-dollar contracts for professional athletes, what are your feelings on player salaries? Are they getting out of hand?

It's relative. Are the salaries of rock singers and movie stars getting out of hand? I just read in Variety magazine that the next wave of movie stars will be paid $27 million per picture. Is that out of hand?

Unfortunately or fortunately, we're a society that invests heavily in the entertainment industry.

For example, the president of a great university may make $300,000 or $400,000 a year and impacts on the minds of young people on a regular basis. [Disney CEO] Michael Eisner may make any where from $35 million to $250 million a year, depending on the options he exercises. Is that right?

I'm not going to say it's right or wrong, but I'm going to say the contrasts exist between institutions where we see some great social value and institutions that entertain. Out of hand? People pay the price. The dollars are there; they want to be entertained. It doesn't make a lot of sense in a pure, socially utilitarian sense of the word, but that's the way the economics of business work.

But in looking at baseball and how it's such and important part of American society, and considering the game exists for fans, you don't see the potential of pricing fans out?

I tracked the movie industry from the time in the '30s when the leading actress in Hollywood was the fourth-highest-paid person in the United States to the present day and I say to myself now [movie] tickets are $7.50; they project them to $10.00. Now a box of candy is $4. Sounds like ballpark prices almost, and yet people still go.

Am I surprised that people still go at the price that's paid to see a baseball game? There is corporate America, which supports it now in large measure. I'm a little disappointed that we're pricing the game perhaps beyond the reach of blue-collar America. But baseball does a better job offering them seats than anybody else. Camden Yards has its $5 seat and its standing-room tickets. The new stadiums try to provide lower-priced tickets. The NBA and NFL prices are higher, and they don't have so-called cheap seats that allow people who cannot afford the high-priced tickets to come to the game.

So yes, I'm concerned. But do I think they're pricing themselves out of the marketplace? Maybe 20 years ago I would have said that, but as time has passed, there has been - except for strikes - no [evidence] of that really occurring.

When radio broadcaster Jon Miller left the Orioles a couple of years ago, a rift developed between you and Peter Angelos. Then you stayed out of the negotiations between [Cal Ripken] and Angelos. How would you characterize your relationship with him now?

Peter Angelos is a consummate professional, and I try to be a professional. I don't know that I so much stayed out of the negotiation as much as knowing that Peter Angelos and Cal Ripken had a terrific relationship. And the owner had some significant decisions to make with respect to Cal. I thought it was in the best interest of everyone - since there had been some tension in the Jon Miller negotiation - for me not to play a central role in Cal's negotiation. That worked to everyone's advantage.

Peter and Cal built a stronger relationship, which they continue to have to this day. Cal got the contract we thought he deserved, and the Orioles got the player that they wanted. Whatever happened in the heat of a particular negotiation certainly carries no residue over on my part. It's a professional relationship.

You are on the committee trying to lure the Olympics here for 2012. While it's worth a shot, many people say it's a long shot. What's your gut feeling on it?

I'm a believer in long shots. I don't think it's such a long shot, by the way. If you look at the two cities, Washington and Baltimore together, and what they offer in the context of existing stadiums so that the environment doesn't have to be upset - that's a real important factor to the Olympic committee. There are the existing arenas, the diversity of the population, the airports, the travel facilities.

This megalopolis that we live in - Baltimore, Washington - may end up being the most attractive of all the candidates because of its geographical positioning. So people may deem it to be a long shot, but the only long shot is that we have to wait a long time.

For the sake of our readers, explain to me what Shapiro Negotiations Institute is.

The Shapiro Negotiations Institute is the culmination of 30 years of my life in law, sports, and the community. I have been practicing a philosophy of negotiation that many said wouldn't work, particularly in the sports arena, that I believe has worked well for my clients and worked well for myself.

Our book that we just came out with is called The Power of Nice: How to Negotiate So Everyone Wins - Especially You! I believe that the philosophy of negotiation is something that ought to be spread in the corporate world. It can allow two things to happen: People can make better deals and they build even better relationships so that they can make more deals. The Shapiro Negotiations Institute is an opportunity to spread that word.

I joined with a wonderful partner, Mark Jankowski, who is a generation younger than I am and brings another perspective to the Institute. He is one of the most creative human beings I have ever met.

Do you find yourself often convincing companies that they need to go through your seminars, or are you approached more often?

We're approached very often. What I find fascinating is that I give a speech somewhere and a chairman or CEO or a director of corporate education is in the audience, they immediately pursue. They say, "Look, we've had negotiations training but it's always been confrontational negotiations training or 'don't leave a penny on the table' negotiations training and I'm a believer in building relationships as well as making deals."

Obviously my philosophy is win-win, but it's not wimp-wimp. It's not 'Even- Steven win-win;' I believe in a big win and a smaller win.

What kind of growth goals do you have for the Institute?

Mark Jankowski and I got together and said we're going to practice our passion; we're going to teach; we're going to get a lot of satisfaction; and we'll make a good living out of it. I don't know that we projected major growth goals. But what happened was that after the first year, we realized we had a tiger by the tail, that people were demanding our services and variations of our services. So now I would say our growth goals are not insignificant. We're a company that projects growth of at least 50 percent to 75 percent a year. We've enjoyed that from the beginning, maybe even more in some years.

We want to be a major player. I think our vision simply stated is to help individuals enhance their business and personal lives by improving their negotiation, communication and conflict-resolution skills. In negotiation education in America, I think we're now the best, but we're not the biggest. Our goal is to be the biggest. To do that, we're analyzing options such as long-distance learning techniques. Our book has come out, so we're reaching more people than ever with that. Our video is soon to come out. Audio is going to come out too. We're looking at the Internet, newsletters. And we're also carefully looking at additional trainers to help us achieve our mission.

Do you have a time frame that you're trying to accomplish this?

The time frame is based upon a strategic plan that we're building. I would say that currently within five years we hope to have achieved the kind of goals I've discussed with you.

Regarding your book, The Power of Nice - what's available in it that people couldn't get by attending one of your seminars?

I think what's available in it is much of what people could get in our seminars. But it's complementary to the seminars. I'm not going to suggest that you couldn't go to a seminar and pick up on our philosophy and techniques, particularly if it's a two-day, advanced seminar.

But the answer is: Books are in front of you. Books can be opened and re-opened and analyzed. And the book reaches many more people. The book is based upon a lot of my experiences - not only on my successes, but my mistakes as well. I'm a great believer that you learn from your mistakes as well as your successes. It's also a training manual. It's got checklists, games, exercises so that you can practice what we preach in the book.

So the book is kind of like a seminar, but they reinforce each other rather than one serving as a substitute for the other.