Antonio Palmieri ’20, Manager of Fighter Operations at Overtime Boxing, has always had an interest in sports. “I played sports growing up and originally wanted to be an agent,” he says. He attended the University of South Carolina and studied sports and entertainment management. “But sports are hard to get into and being an attorney gave me options. My father is a lawyer, so I was around lawyers growing up. Everyone in sports deals with lawyers and going to law school would give me a leg up on the competition.”
Practical Experience
In college, Palmieri worked for Star Boxing, a boxing promotion company. “In my junior year at USC I had to do a practicum for school credit, and it had to be in a sports or entertainment job. Boxing wasn’t something I was interested in at the time, but the company was based in New York, and they took me on for the summer. We promoted a fight at Mohegan Sun at the end of the summer and I fell in love with it. I started running their social media so that I could work remotely and stay involved with the company during my senior year and then continued on through law school.”
“Working in the business you learn nuances you wouldn’t learn in school because you see how the business works in practical situations.”
“I helped draft contracts and promotional agreements with fighters, negotiate management agreements and sponsorship deals for fighters. My legal education was a great help,” he says. “But working in the business you learn nuances you wouldn’t learn in school because you see how the business works in practical situations.” He stayed with Star Boxing through law school and beyond, ultimately becoming their VP of Operations.
During the Pandemic, Palmieri had to navigate the challenges of working at a boxing company while there was no fighting. “I was still working for Star Boxing at the time, but everything was still shut down; nothing was happening. Events were shut down longer than anything else. We couldn’t have fights, so we had to think about online social events. We had fighters on the card do a Zoom call and reflect on the fights. We had to keep showing that business was open, and we were still trying to be relevant. We struggled even when we came back to live events because people were afraid to go out and fighters had been out of the ring for a year and a half.”
“We have to submit information to the state athletic commissions in each state where we hold fights, and medical records of the fighters for fight camps. We had a big problem because of the pandemic because the medical records were only good for a period of time. Everyone’s records were expired, and it was difficult to get new appointments.”
Working with Overtime Boxing
Recently, Palmieri started a job with Overtime, a company that has been in existence for less than 10 years. He got the position due to his experience with Star Boxing.
“Overtime’s original entry into market was sports media,” Palmieri says. “Then they created a league, Overtime Elite, where they would take high school basketball players and give them a platform to play. They built their own arena in Atlanta. They teach players in their league financial responsibility, nutrition, and other life skills, in a state-of-the-art facility, and treat them like elite athletes. Last year the fourth overall NBA pick was a player who came out of Overtime Elite. The company has branched out, starting Overtime Boxing in August 2023 and doing a major expansion this past winter.”
“We’re trying to build fighters up so that they become household names and bring them to the top of the sport.”
Palmieri is Manager of Fighter Operations. “We have fights scheduled this year for Atlanta and Houston, and then will be expanding around the U.S. and internationally. I work hand in hand with the matchmaker who puts the fights together, reaching out to managers, fighters and promoters. Our goal is to sign fighters exclusively to our company and then look to put them in fights, whether in our fights or fights elsewhere. Once we sign the fighter, we work to build them up through marketing advertising, and social media to get them recognized while developing their skills in the ring. We’re trying to build fighters up so that they become household names and bring them to the top of the sport.”
“We work on contracts with the managers and negotiate deals for the fighters. It is a lot of negotiation. We work with the company’s attorney to go through the contract together. It is a collaborative effort.”
How Hofstra Law Helped His Career
Born and raised on Long Island, Palmieri wanted to come back to his hometown from South Carolina, so he chose Hofstra Law. He became involved in the Dispute Resolution Society (DRS) and participated in their in-school competition, coming in first place with his partner in his 2L year.
“There’s a level of creativity that goes into negotiations. DRS helped open my mind to that and showed me how to use it to my advantage.”
He believes that experience helped him in his career. “DRS goes hand in hand with the negotiation side of what I do,” he says. “As part of the internal tournament, we had to negotiate an athlete’s contract. I had some experience negotiating from my work at Star Boxing. But participating in DRS helped open your mind to creative solutions. When you’re doing these negotiations for the first time, you think it’s all just about how much the athlete is going to be paid. You don’t think about other incentives like hotel rooms, flights, or bonuses. There’s a level of creativity that goes into negotiations. DRS helped open my mind to that and showed me how to use it to my advantage.”
He was also the vice president of a sports entertainment organization and brought in alumni to present on panels with students. “It was a great way to get insight on what you can do after graduation,” he says.
Palmieri has been fortunate to encounter Hofstra Law alumni throughout his career. “There are so many Hofstra Law alumni in sports,” he says. “Cultivating those relationships would be super helpful for anyone who wants to get into this industry.” Both the Senior Counsel at Overtime and the owner of Star Boxing, Joe DeGuardia, are Hofstra Law alumni. “I spoke with the owner of Star Boxing about Hofstra Law when I was applying to law schools, and I brought him to speak on one of the panels when I was in law school. It gave my classmates insight into what I did and why I did it, and it helped while I was in law school to have someone to discuss the experience with.”
“There are a lot of creative people who come through law school,” Palmieri says. “I did video editing, and I was a graphic designer. It was a good experience to see that you can be creative and still utilize your law degree and what you learned in law school. My legal education plays such a huge role in how I respond to situations or issues at work, even if the issue isn’t a legal issue. There are so many different avenues you can pursue to use your education and be successful.”
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