Top sports manager Jerry Maguire (Tom Cruise) is fired when he suggests to his employers SMI that they concentrate on caring more for fewer clients. He starts up his own company, with only two clients - one of whom double-crosses him by returning to SMI. However, Jerry still has American football player Ron Tidwell (an Oscar-winning Cuba Gooding Jr), plus the unlikely support of fellow former SMI employee Dorothy Boyd (Renee Zellweger), a single mother who Jerry begins dating.