Alexandra Shaw is the most important agent in German women basketball: “My job is to open doors.”

It is only six in the morning when Alexandra Shaw dials into the video call. Otherwise she lives on the US east coast, in the state of South Carolina, but it is just traveling in California, west coast air sniffing. The connection wobbles somewhat, but the northern northern northern, wide grin and a shirt with the inscription “Everyone Watches Women’s Sports”, is still in a good mood.

The fact that Shaw, 41, can be reached almost around the clock- and the calls then accepts so relaxed- is also due to her job: as an agent, she represents American, Canadian, Finnish, French, Serbian, Swedish and German professional basketball players, so almost every day and night against the time zones. With the German players, it is above all the best of the best that can be represented by her: nine out of 14 players of the current national squad are under contract with her, plus players from almost all clubs in the first Bundesliga. In total, Shaw looks after around 50 athletes for the Scorers 1st Sports Management agency. Her husband Ty Shaw, who used to play basketball professionally, supports her. They convey international players to the German Bundesliga, but also players from Opladen, Berlin, Wasserburg or Nördlingen to clubs all over the world.

And there the interest in the German Exports has recently increased massively. Alexandra Shaw conveyed the Ansbacher Luisa Geiselsöder to the WNBA association Dallas Wings, for the Landsberger Leonie Fiebich a advertising deal with Nike and initiated the first use of a German player in Taiwan: Marie Gülich has been running there for the Super Basketball League for a few months and became a super-scorer. “The development is enormous,” says Shaw. “Back then I had to fight for missions, now I regularly get offers from abroad. There was really a lot.”

The fact that the German basketball players abroad are becoming increasingly popular is a development that Alexandra Shaw is also thanks to – and to take on their endeavor to play a role, the absence of which she has clearly felt during her career herself. Shaw grows up in Wasserburg, learned the “basketball background”, as she calls it, at Imre Szittya, a Hungarian-Bavarian trainer legend, in which Geiselsöder and Fiebich later train. Shaw plays in the Bundesliga for Nördlingen and Wasserburg, wins German championships and the DBBL Cup, playing almost 100 games for the German national team. Incidentally, she studies business administration, can be secretly brought teaching materials from her fellow students from Ludwigsburg and only appears to be exams in the university. “There was no distance learning at the time,” she says with a laugh.

In salary negotiations “it is simply much easier if someone for you”

What is also missing at the time: agents who understand what the players need. “We always felt the same problems with our clubs,” says Shaw. But the agents who had come to them and their teammates at the time would have had no understanding for the problems with whom the women had to deal with. Salaries too late or not paid at all; Things that were missing in the apartment provided by the association, even though they were contractually stated; Voting difficulties with the superiors if the desire for a change was great. And of course: the salary negotiations. “It’s just much easier if someone stands for you.” After Shaw ended her studies, plunges into your professional life and lets her basketball career leave, she realizes: Maybe she can be this person herself who stands for others.

“I wanted to be there for the players,” she says. In 2013 she knocks on Scorers 1st, receives green light and is allowed to build the “Female Players” area – which has not existed until then. The first clients are quickly acquired. They are players with whom she had previously trained. The national player Margret Skuballa, for example, who wants to play in France. “But the French are a very proud basketball nation,” says Shaw laughing, “and Germany didn’t even play a basketball chamber at the time. They had no interest in a player from a league that they didn’t know. We were Nobodys!” After a lot of persuasion and a few sleepless nights, Shaw still conveys the wing player to Nantes. Skuballa can establish herself there – and Shaw begins to find more customers. “I recruited a lot at the beginning, but at some point it got around what I’m doing.”

Shaw scouted, visits games, courses and tournaments, sends videos of their players to clubs, calling after the phone. She acquires the necessary licenses to convey players in Europe and the USA, finds partners in the WNBA, in the Euroleague in Spain and France, and of course in the DBBL. “It was a lot of learning by doing,” she recalls. Initially, she does this next to her regular job, works around the clock. “I wish I could have started full -time from the start.” But their salary feeds on the contracts of the players, who were at the time disappearing at the time – and have only developed slowly since then.

In the USA, a player earns almost 70,000 euros in the first year, in Europe the salaries are often significantly lower

“We don’t really have to talk about the salaries in women’s basketball,” says Shaw. She receives five to ten percent of the player salary, not included in monetary benefits such as a car or accommodation, which are often among the deals. In the USA, a player earns almost 70,000 euros in the first year, but sometimes higher salaries in Europe – they are often significantly lower – as in Germany: “There are top players in the Bundesliga who earn up to 2500 euros a month, but some are only 800 euros,” says Shaw.

Despite – or maybe just – because of the low salaries, she not only conveys her players to the clubs who best pay. “My job is to open doors. It’s about what the player wants. She has to feel good.” Especially since most of them knew that they were involved in a temporary career: “I don’t know a athlete in Germany who only plays and does not study or do an apprenticeship on the side. The women know that they do not get rich with sport. This also means that their intrinsic motivation is extremely high.”

In 2016 Shaw moved to the USA with her family, first to Indiana, then to South Carolina. She herself gets back into leisure training – and her son also plays basketball at school. Sport determines the everyday life of the Shaw family to this day: the television runs at the weekend, the tablet, the computer, the phone rings all the time, and the statistics of their players, the Shaw studies in parallel. Even if she deals with leagues worldwide: “My basketball heart is still beating for Nördlingen, I always fever. I find it remarkable what they do with their not so big budget there.” And otherwise it has remained connected to the old basketball home. It supports the Bavarian Basketball Association (BBV), designs workshops, basketball camps and marketing strategies on a voluntary basis.

Basically, she observes German women’s basketball with behavioral optimism: “Something is happening, but we are still miles afterwards.” A “huge opportunity” is the upcoming European Championship, in which some preliminary round games are played in Hamburg, as well as the World Cup, which takes place in Berlin in 2026. “But we have to further professionalize ourselves, create better framework conditions. We have to create a product that can be better marketed.” Then maybe at some point you would not always ask the question of a professional chetball player: “And what else do you do?”