Director, Octagon Football
Mike is an attorney, a Certified Public Accountant and an NFLPA Certified Contract Advisor with over 25 years of experience representing NFL players. Considered one of the top contract negotiators in the business, Mike's ingenuity and contract creativity started in the early 80's as part of his partnership with Leigh Steinberg. While with Leigh, Mike was responsible for negotiating several of the highest value contracts in professional football history. Wanting to provide his clients a higher level of personal attention and personal service, Mike started his own firm which later became Sullivan & Sperbeck. In 2000 S&S was acquired by Octagon. In 2001, Mike's contract negotiating expertise was again celebrated when he created a new contract structure using guaranteed salaries to secure a second signing bonus, called an option bonus. This structure allowed players to overcome certain CBA restrictions to earn millions more guaranteed dollars within the salary cap. This contract structure, as well as another of Mike's precedent setting concepts ("one-time-playtime bonus"), have been used in almost all top round draftee contracts and high profile free agent deals. Mike was a high school All-American quarterback, accepting a football scholarship to Oregon then Villanova, where he received a degree in Accounting. He received his law degree from Villanova Law School. Mike currently works out of our San Francisco, CA office.