Sports Agent Career
Possibly the most high-profile sports agent in Australia, Nixon established his sports management company, Flying Start, in 1994 after eight years of teaching physical education at Carey Grammar. Since then the company has grown considerably to become one of the leading sports management companies in Australia. Nixon was a pioneer of group marketing of prominent athletes in Australia with his Club 10 team of AFL players, which included Gary Ablett, Sr., Wayne Carey, Jason Dunstall, Tony Lockett and Garry Lyon. He is widely acknowledged as a major leader in the innovative marketing of athletes and has been rated by The Age newspaper as the fourth most influential person of the past decade in the AFL. Flying Start’s players includes Matthew Richardson, Ben Cousins, Nick Riewoldt and Tom Hawkins. Nixon started a fitness club at Docklands Stadium, where he also co-owns the Locker Room Bar and Cougars Sports Bar with Michael Gudinski. He also commentates AFL on radio station Triple M and has been awarded the Australia Day Sports Medal for services to sport by the prime minister. He has entered the education business with Flying Start providing online courses, including "How to be a Sports Agent".
In 2008 Nixon began a well-publicised campaign to escalate the Irish experiment and set up a formal system for recruiting promising young Irish Gaelic footballers for AFL teams. The plan was criticised by many Gaelic football officials and players, including Sydney's Tadhg Kennelly. Some consider that the campaign, which included screening camps in Ireland in August 2008, will result in a talent drain from Ireland to Australia, something that Nixon refutes.
Read more about this topic: Ricky Nixon
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