He also negotiated professional sports' first US$100 million contract for Alonzo Mourning as part of an unprecedented free agency period, during which his company, FAME, changed the entire salary structure of the NBA, negotiating more than $400 million in contracts for its free agent clients in a six-day period.

[2][8][18] Falk described his mother, a teacher and inspirational force as "a perfectionist", and called her "the biggest influence in my life", the one who drove him to achieve great heights.

[8] Longtime childhood friend and colleague, Attorney Reid Kahn, remembers Falk proclaiming that he wanted to represent professional athletes in the fourth grade.

[25] After many attempts to establish contact with agents Bob Woolf of Boston and Larry Fleisher,[20] Falk turned to ProServ's Donald Dell in 1974.

[21] ProServ had an inside track with North Carolina after they successfully represented a number of N.C. basketball alumni, including Tom LaGarde, Phil Ford, Dudley Bradley, and James Worthy.

[2][20] In 1984, the same year Michael Jordan entered the NBA draft, Frank Craighill and Lee Fentress, two of Dell's ProServ partners, left to start a competing firm, Advantage International.

[20] Jordan himself was initially reticent; throughout college he had worn Converse because of the company's endorsement deal with Tar Heels coach Dean Smith, and off the court, he wore Adidas.

[31] Jordan already had a standing offer from Adidas for $500,000, and Falk demanded that Nike match the figure in addition to the revenue percentage.

[14] Falk allowed Nike to establish Jordan's primary image, then began splitting it up among other advertisers, including Coca-Cola, Chevrolet, Gatorade, McDonald's, Ball Park Franks, Wilson Sporting Goods, Rayovac, Wheaties, Hanes, and MCI.

[9][32][33] Falk's ideas stretched to all areas of the marketplace, including a fragrance (called simply "Michael Jordan") made by the Beverly Hills designer Bijan, which was cited as the best-marketed product of 1996 by the American Marketing Association.

'"[10]Due partly to Falk's tenacity and partly to Michael Jordan's own professional success and personal magnetism, Jordan became "indisputably the most powerful and effective endorser of products in American history, ... (making) the business of hawking products more lucrative than playing the game.

He split with ProServ and Donald Dell to establish his own company, Falk Associates Management Enterprises (FAME).

"[9] Falk and partners Curtis Polk and Mike Higgins soon propelled FAME to the top of the NBA player representation business.

Falk was also the agent of "nearly half" of the union's 19-member negotiating committee, including Alonzo Mourning, Juwan Howard, and Dikembe Mutombo.

[6][49] Though his presence in negotiations was already assumed, Falk publicly stated in an article in The New York Times, on October 31, 1998, that he would "roll up his sleeves and exert as much influence as he (could) behind the scenes,... (planning) to take a more proactive role in ending the lockout.

"[36][51][52] The game was played on December 19, 1998 in the Atlantic City Convention Center, featuring 16 All-Stars and drawing a crowd of about 6,000 people.

NBA Commissioner David Stern accused Falk and Arn Tellem specifically of "holding the deal hostage" to reap benefits for their high-end clients.

[50] Fellow player agent Harold MacDonald disparaged what he saw as Falk's excessive influence on the union's president, Patrick Ewing: Every time I see Patrick say something, it's almost like watching the Energizer bunny", said the agent Harold MacDonald, who represents Derrick Coleman and Terry Mills.

"[20] The lockout finally ended just 29 hours before the cancellation of the entire NBA season after the players overwhelmingly ratified the latest deal put forward, 179-5.

[54] Falk's client list, with Michael Jordan its centerpiece, made him one of the primary movers and shakers in the NBA, able to leverage teams into agreeing to his terms on contracts and trades.

[55] Minnesota's General Manager, Kevin McHale, was greatly embittered about the trade, and has been quoted as saying that "If a nuclear bomb dropped on earth, two things would survive: roaches and David Falk.

[12][56] Falk apparently made threats to the Knicks that he would move Glen Rice to the Miami Heat if they did not consent to trade Ewing, who supposedly wanted out of New York.

[29] By the end of the 1995 NBA lockout, Falk controlled enough top players that he was seen as "dictat(ing) the structure and the economics of the entire league,"[2] so much so that during one six-day period in the summer of 1996, he negotiated six contracts—for Jordan, Alonzo Mourning, Juwan Howard, Kenny Anderson, Dikembe Mutombo and Lee Mayberry—worth more than $335 million.

[14] Falk was not well-liked around the league,[29][33][53] with even NBA executives acknowledging that they felt he held a disproportionate amount of power.

[2] As the negotiator behind four of the five largest contracts in team sports history and the pre-eminent agent in the NBA,[20] Falk was a contributor to the spike in player salaries that saw the average NBA contract rise from $330,000 in 1984, the year Jordan was signed, to $4.5 million in 2001, when he stepped down as Chairman of SFX Sports Group.

In that environment, a Michael Jordan, Alonzo Mourning, Juwan Howard, Shaquille O'Neal and Patrick Ewing bring in the fans.

It is true that Michael Jordan was the person who in the end actually did the deeds, went on the court and hit the final jump shot again and again, but it is also true that David Falk helped revolutionize the process of representing a basketball player, going into a team sport and creating the idea of the individual player as a commercial superstar.

The Falk Center's inaugural event was a panel discussion on issues in contemporary sports at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

[65] In 2014, Falk and Patrick Ewing announced a $3.3 million donation to the John R. Thompson Jr. Intercollegiate Athletics Center under construction at Georgetown University.

"[63] Falk executive produced a number of sports-related films, including Space Jam, which teamed Jordan with a number of Looney Tunes characters, Michael Jordan to the Max, the critically acclaimed large-format feature, and the Sports Emmy Award-winning On Hallowed Ground, a documentary on the history of the Rucker Park Basketball League.