Athletes First Launches Basketball Division After 25 Years

After 25 years as one of the most dominant firms in football representation, Athletes First is launching its first-ever basketball division. The company, founded in 2001, is adding industry veterans John Noonan and Brandon James to build out an NBA and NIL practice — a move it says only became possible now.

The timing question matters for anyone in the agency business. Athletes First could have done this years ago. It chose not to.

Why wait a quarter-century?

The firm represents some of the NFL's biggest names, including Ravens running back Derrick Henry and Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott. Its President of Team Sports, David Mulugheta, is the top-ranked NFL agent on Forbes' 2025 Most Powerful Sports Agents list. Mulugheta joined as an intern in 2008 — "printing, binding packages, getting lunch orders, picking up dry cleaning" — and has spent 18 years inside the firm.

Speaking to Entrepreneur, Mulugheta said the delay came down to people, not opportunity. "We've had a lot of opportunities to start a basketball division before, and it didn't feel right until now," he said. "That's why we felt like it was the right time."

He pointed to gradual diversification as the real setup. Athletes First already runs what it considers the best coaching practice in the business — representing NFL coaches, front office executives and college coaches. Agent Scott Gaffield also represents college basketball coaches, and the firm moved into broadcaster representation a few years back.

"We're really big on culture here," Mulugheta said. Basketball only made sense once they found the right hires.

What does NIL change for the agency model?

Plenty. Mulugheta noted that when he entered the business, agents couldn't even talk to a student athlete until three years after high school. Now they can sign players at 15, 16 or 17 — which turns the job into family work.

"Now we're talking about kids who are 15, 16, 17 — for us, that means working with families a lot more, with mom and dad, because these kids are so young," he said.

The economics are the practical draw. Building financial habits years before a client reaches the NFL or NBA gives them, in his words, "a practice run at seeing how money works, how it spends, how taxes work." Current pro clients, he said, tell him: "Man, if I'd have known this when I was fifteen."

Is the NBA different from football?

Mulugheta argued the barrier to entry that once protected incumbent basketball agencies has eroded, largely because NIL lets firms build relationships earlier. He also framed the NBA as a different market entirely: "Football is huge in America and a phenomenal business, but the NBA is more of a global sport. It's a different model."

As for the transferability of an NFL playbook, he was blunt: "We're not getting into a lane we don't understand. This is literally just a different vertical of the same business we've always been in. It's just a new application."

What does this change for practitioners?

For rival agencies, the message is that a football incumbent now competes for basketball talent at the youngest NIL-eligible ages — with recruiting infrastructure already in place. For athletes' families, it means one more deep-pocketed bidder entering the market earlier in a player's career. And for Athletes First itself, the bet is that representation skill, not sport knowledge, is the durable asset.

"The sport isn't going to dictate the success — it's how we operate, how we treat our clients, and what position we put them in," Mulugheta said. If that holds, expect the firm's diversification — coaches, broadcasters, now basketball — to keep widening.