r client to support his business, but that client jumped ship. Over time, the relationship between Jerry and his client becomes one that goes beyond business for both, and each of them learns that the process of their work and their ability to nurture interpersonal relationships are more important than the big money they have been pursuing.
Jerry's personal life and his professional life are closely related, and he learns the same lesson in his personal life he does in his professional one. He has been something of a womanizer, but he is planning at the beginning of the film to marry the prize package of the profession, a woman even more ambitious than he. She sticks with him only so long as he seems to be on the fast track, and then she turns against him, seeing him as a loser.
Jerry next pursues the young woman who comes with him to his new office to be his secretary, but he does so less because he has real feelings for her than because she is available. Actually, he does have real feelings, but he has suppressed them while he pursues his career goals for so long that he does not recognize them when they appear. He treats his wife the way he first treats his client--he ignores their needs as he seeks ways to achieve what he wants to achieve as an agent. He ignores his athlete when he has another client. Later, he has only this one client left, and he cannot reach the other man when he tries to explain that it is more important to love the game than to insist on the money--the money will come if the athlete loves the game and connects with his fans and other players. He cannot afford to ignore any of them.
Jerry cannot afford to ignore his fans, either, meaning his wife, her son, and himself, the self that existed when he wrote the memo and tried to change the way sports agenting was done. He does ultimately learn his lesson even as he sees his athlete learn his--both achieve success, and both know they have to ...