Jaymee Messler

Less than a year after leaving an agent for whom she had worked for her entire career, Jaymee Messler has created a revolutionary platform for athletes across sports to tell their own stories in their own voices.

Messler is president of The Players’ Tribune, a digital platform she launched with Derek Jeter last October upon his retirement from baseball. Jeter was a client of Excel Sports Management, where Messler was chief marketing officer. She had spent her sports career there working for Excel founder and NBA agent Jeff Schwartz. Since launching, The Players’ Tribune has featured 300 athletes and 600 pieces of unique content, and in July, the site had 2 million unique viewers. “We really started it to be able to empower athletes and to create a forum where athletes could have their creative voice and to share stories with their own agenda and know that everything they say is 100 percent what they meant to say,” Messler said.

Messler made her name in the business as a marketing agent, helping first Schwartz’s and then Excel’s other athletes (Jeter is a longtime client of Excel partner and MLB agent Casey Close) market themselves and create brands.

One of the biggest obstacles she has faced, Messler said, is getting athletes represented by other agencies to work with the site. But she’s made strides in that regard; only 20 percent of the 300 athletes featured have been Excel clients.

“We are really looking towards the future and creating these relationships with different people across every agency and having people understand this is a separate company,” Messler said. “Having people understand that was the biggest challenge, and I think we have really gotten there.”