So, you-the athlete-have aspirations of playing in the professional, athletic arena. But do you know who should be assisting you at this point in your career? The answer lies within where you are in your academic pursuits.
If you are a high school student and you plan on skipping the collegiate experience, you would want to look into hiring a student-athlete, aka athletic, advisor. The student-athlete advisor will provide advice regarding to the student’s professional aspirations but will not negotiate with a professional team. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) rules relating to the student-athlete advisor are found under Article 12.
Agents are known by many names including sports agent, attorney-agent, athlete representative, athlete agent, player representative, or player agent. The agent’s role is to act as a liaison between the professional team and the athlete. Advising, negotiating, financial management, providing (or making arrangements for) equipment or training are a some of the tasks an agent would take on for his/her client. The agent will often take on the task of acting as the public relations professional, or personal assistant, when unsavory accusations or situations arise.
Attorney-agents are often regarded as being better trained and qualified to handle situations that an athlete will face while pursuing his or her professional career; this is not necessarily true as an agent gains unique expertise working with the professional teams themselves. The attorney-agent earns his/her expertise through a law school education and his/her daily practice with a variety of clients. The codes of ethics establish by the admitting state and the American Bar Association will determine how fees are charged; whereas, federal and state codes will allow the agent to properly interpret the league’s collective bargaining agreement and uniform player contracts.
Agents and attorney-agents should only be contacted at the entrance of, or during, the athlete’s professional career as having contact with one of these two individuals will impact the athlete’s eligibility at the collegiate level and possibly legal issues. Further, there are potential conflict of interests issues that as an athlete you are going to want to avoid if possible.
Conflict of interests are serious obstacles for the player and the agent. Unfortunately, seeing conflict of interests are not always as simple as it seems. This becomes especially true for agents who do not keep distinct lines in the sand when it comes to personal relationships with team owners and executives. And therefore, it is crucial that a player’s ethical boundary is similar to his agent.
The biggest clue if the player’s and agent’s ethical boundaries are the similar can be found on how the agent first approached the player. But there are other ways a player to determine where his agent’s ethical boundary is, a player should ask several questions like (a) does the agent accept favors or tickets from teams; (b) how does the agent feel about including the player in the negotiation process like seeing the offers or sitting in; (c) when would you recommend a player seek another agent’s services; and (d) how does the agent handle representing more than one player on a particular team? A player may also want to figure out: (a) does the agent recommend a player to hold out; (b) what will the agent do for me once I decide I no longer want to play professionally; and (c) has the agent ever been disbarred, suspended, reprimanded, censured, or otherwise disciplined or disqualified as an attorney, or as a member of any other profession? And there are several other questions a player should ask a prospective, or even current, agent. A player also needs to determine how he feels about an agent possible representing coaches as well as players.
On the flip side, an agent should always inform his client about any potential conflict of interests. However, like mentioned before, those conflicts are not easily seen especially in today’s market. Many people–agents included–feel it is okay to accept favors and build personal relationships in the business world. To a certain extent, building relationships are crucial to the agent’s ability to properly represent the player. An agent needs to build professional relationships with executives and team owners. But it creates a conflict of interest when the relationships become personal instead of professional.
If an agent is regularly accepting tickets or going for drinks or dinner with team owners or executives, a personal relationship has probably developed that can be inconsistent with the agent’s ability to be the best representative for his player. The agent needs to remain objective to pursue a player’s best interest in negotiations and career strategy. Just like an agent needs to be able to tell his player when the player is messing up, the agent needs to tell a player’s team when its mistreating his player. Personal relationships with teams can cloud the agent’s judgment, so the player needs to determine if he is okay with his agent’s relationship with a team. A player needs to make sure his agent–like anyone else–does not leave him open to being manipulated.