Talent Agent Unknown to Curling Clients

“What the…?”

That was Chelsea Carey’s reaction to her dedicated page on the MN2S talent agency website.

“That’s … interesting. I have no idea who that is.”

Carey isn’t currently represented by any manager or agent, nor has she ever heard of MN2S and its proprietor, Sharron Elkabas of London, England.

“It’s hard enough for us to get deals, the last thing we need is somebody pretending to do it for us,” said Carey.

“If he can get me a deal, I’m all ears—he should call me, but posting this without notifying anyone is way offside.”

The MN2S website is full of talent—musicians, actors, athletes and influencers—that may or may not actually be represented by the company. This includes curling athletes, who were added to the website sometime prior to February’s Olympic Winter Games in Beijing.

Along with Carey, curling athletes with their own MN2S page include Niklas Edin, Kerri Einarson, Kevin Koe, Rachel Homan, Yannick Schwaller, Eve Muirhead, John Shuster, Jennifer Jones, Bruce Mouat, Anna Hasselborg, John Epping, Elena Stern, Brad Jacobs, Silvana Tirinzoni, Matt Hamilton, Satsuki Fujisawa, Brendan Bottcher, EunJung Kim, Rich Ruohonen, Nina Roth, Peter de Cruz, Sayaka Yoshimura, Jason Gunnlaugson, Tracy Fleury, Yuta Matsumura, Alina Kovaleva and Ross Paterson.

The pages list a minimum of 27 curling athletes representing eight nations.

TSN curling analysts Cheryl Bernard and Russ Howard also have pages.

In 2020, Star Trek acting legend William Shatner reply-tweeted Swedish gamer Christopher Alesund, who had discovered his page on the MN2S site. Shatner’s post indicated prior awareness of MN2S.

Also in 2020, a London Evening Standard story highlighted MN2S’ representation claims among ESports gamers with the headline “ESports industry figures angered after London talent agency MN2S claims to represent them.”

In 2021, a startup.info feature on Elkabas described MN2S as a global music and talent agency based in London and Miami.

“I began my career as an event promoter, putting on club nights in London as the first wave of house DJs came over to the UK from America,” Elkabas told startup.info. “This led me to start up a booking agency—which is thankfully still growing 25 years later. We’ve transformed and diversified our business dramatically over the years, working with live acts, sportspersons, actors, influencers and more while building a presence in the worlds of digital distribution and celebrity branding.”

“I’ve never had an individual agent, but our teams have tried it in the past with no success,” said Carey. “If I was an agent for a player or a team, and I’m sure those exist, I’d be livid.”

Curling athletes listed on the MN2S website that have been linked with agents or managers include Ottawa’s Homan, Winnipeg’s Jones, Japan’s Fujisawa and Scottish superstar Muirhead, who maintains a lengthy relationship with Red Sky Management of Edinburgh.

John Shuster’s U.S. men’s team signed with a new agent three months ago, and Shuster himself retains a relationship with his former agent when it comes to speaking engagements.

“Well, I’ll be darned,” said Shuster. “No, I have no idea who Sharron Elkabas is.

“It’s funny, you can search for ‘John Shuster speaking’ and most of the (results) that pop up are just like this, people I’ve never met before,” added Shuster. 

“But I know from one speaking thing I had to turn down back in May, that it does happen where somebody books it, then finds out who my agent is and tries to split the commission.

“I think that’s the case here.”

Does Carey think this is, somehow, a badge of honor for herself or her sport?

“I guess so,” said Carey. “He found my name; I’m a good enough curler to be on the list of people he’s trying to rip off.”

“It’s funny, I just came back from a speaking engagement,” said Shuster. “And I’ve got another one tomorrow. And it’s not booked through Sharron.”