Lack of diversity isn’t typically used to describe baseball in America because there are players from all corners of the earth that come here to play, but gender diversity is lagging big time. Major League Baseball is still a boys club, and there’s no sugarcoating it. There are only four female coaches working for MLB teams, one general manager, zero managers, and zero owners. There’s also very few women working as reporters or play-by-play announcers. ESPN, for example, only has one female baseball reporter/analyst currently employed. There are a variety of reasons for this, ranging from sexism and stereotypes regarding female involvement in the game to women feeling like they aren’t qualified or good enough to take an active role in the game, but it only takes one brave woman to pave the way for others and change the way the game operates and the way it is perceived. The most recent example of this is Rachel Luba, the founder, and owner of Luba Sports Agency.
Rachel Luba comes from humble beginnings. She attended UCLA, where she competed on the gymnastics team, and later graduated with a degree in communications in 2013. Luba continued her education at Pepperdine Law School and graduated in 2016. A year later, Luba landed her first professional baseball job when she was hired by the MLBPA to work as a lawyer in player arbitration cases, having represented 22 cases and winning 12 of them from 2017 to 2018. In October 2019, Rachel founded Luba Sports Agency and became the youngest certified female baseball agent.
Luba’s first client was Trevor Bauer. Luba successfully negotiated a one-year $17.5 million arbitration deal that kept Bauer with the Cincinnati Reds for the 2020 season. This deal became the second-highest arbitration deal in MLB history. Bauer continued to use Luba as his agent following his Cy Young winning 2020 season and landed a record-breaking deal with the World Series Champions Los Angeles Dodgers. Rachel successfully negotiated a deal that will Pay Bauer $40 million in 2021 and $45 million in 2022. That will make Bauer the highest-paid player in MLB history. This deal is obviously a big win for Bauer and Luba. With this deal, Luba has crushed the “boys club” mentality in the business of baseball.
Rachel Luba also represents baseball free agent Yasiel Puig, UCLA softball catcher Paige Halstead, and several MLB coaches. Luba also made it onto the 2021 Forbes 30 under 30 list of sports figures.
Now that Rachel Luba has shattered the glass ceiling, hopefully, her example will lead to more women getting involved in the game of baseball at the major league level.
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