Brockmeyer playing key role in success of many former Redhawks

Much of the focus on Tuesday, April 4 was on former Southeast Missouri State Redhawk Dylan Dodd earning a win against the Cardinals in his MLB debut with the Atlanta Braves at Busch Stadium in St. Louis.

With one Redhawk connection on the mound, there was another in a Busch Stadium suite in Nick Brockmeyer, the executive vice president of Republik Sports and Dodd’s agent.

Brockmeyer has represented 12 former Redhawks in the professional ranks and has seen four of them (Dodd, Joey Lucchesi, Shae Simmons, and Justin Christian) make their big league debuts.

“When you’re an agent, one of the greatest moments is to watch a player and their families go through (their MLB debut),” Brockmeyer said. “Obviously, we’ve been through it lots of times, but the other night at the game, we had a suite and we had (Dodd’s) mom and dad, grandparents, and his girlfriend in the suite with us. It was very exciting to watch (Dodd) but it’s also exciting to watch them go through that moment.”

Brockmeyer completed his undergraduate studies at SEMO and went on to law school at SLU.

“I was taking a sports law class and my professor was an agent,” Brockmeyer said. “It was kind of just a moment where I was listening to him and I was like, ‘I think I could do that’.”

Brockmeyer got his start as an agent by founding his agency, Platinum Sports.

“At first we did reality TV stars, musicians, boxers, football players, and baseball players,” Brockmeyer said. “I quickly realized that you can’t do it all and I needed to pick one thing that I knew the best and I was good at and that was baseball.”

Out of the gates, Brockmeyer said the toughest part was gaining the trust of a player and his family.

“I would sit down with a player or a player and his family and they would ask who I represent and I would say no one,” Brockmeyer said. “That’s a hard sale.”

To build a reputation, Brockmeyer started representing players in Independent League baseball, and his first two clients to make the big leagues were Justin Christian and Joe Thatcher.

“Both guys started moving through the minors pretty quick,” Brockmeyer said. “Next thing you know they’re both in the majors. It was like hitting the lottery twice in my first year.”

With both Christian and Thatcher progressing quickly into the big leagues, Brockmeyer also had to learn the ropes as he went.

“It was still business as usual, it was just a quick learning process,” Brockmeyer said. “There was a learning curve that had to happen very quickly.”

Brockmeyer, a Bell City native, feels that his connection to SEMO and the area helped build trust with the players from SEMO he has represented.

“As far as SEMO goes there’s a trust factor because I’ve represented (a lot) of the guys to come out of SEMO in the last 20 years,” Brockmeyer said. “I’m sure they're comfortable with our track record at SEMO.”

Brockmeyer merged Platinum Sports with Republik Sports in January 2021, which was founded by Rafa Nieves.

“We had a mutual interest in merging and becoming Republik sports,” Brockmeyer said. “It was kind of a fresh, new brand on the scene in Major League Baseball at the time and he really liked what we had going on the American side and we liked what he had going on the Latin side.”

For Republik sports, the goal is to continue building through the MLB Draft.

“If you have a bad draft as an agency,” Brockmeyer explained. “It doesn’t come around again for another 365 days. We always want to make sure that we have a very solid draft class to stock out stable at the younger levels.”