REFORMING THE UNIFORM ATHLETE AGENTS ACT: A PROPOSAL TO ELIMINATE STATE REGISTRATION

The Uniform Law Commission's Athlete Agent Committee met earlier this week to discuss changes to the Uniform Athlete Agents Act ("UAAA"). This act, having been passed in 43 States, is a series of laws that attempts to regulate sports agents. However, agents are governed by the players' union of each professional league, as they must be certified by the union to act as an agent for a player in that sport. (Note: the one exception being Major League Baseball, which does not certify an agent until they have a client on an MLB team and meet the certification criteria. Therefore, a person can act as an agent, although uncertified, to baseball players if their clients are not in the MLB.)

Despite being governed by the professional sports' unions, the UAAA imposes additional regulations for agents in a supposed effort to protect collegiate athletes and their institutions. Some of the UAAA provisions echo best practices for agents which do protect athletes, like noting on a representation agreement that the athlete will lose any remaining athletic eligibility in college. However, much of what is unique about the UAAA, as opposed to the agent rules of the professional players' unions, burdens agents with no visible benefit.

The UAAA prohibits the following conduct by agents:

• Providing any materially false information, or anything of material value to the athlete or any third party in an attempt to induce a collegiate athlete to sign with the agent
• Initiating contact with a collegiate athlete unless registered with the State
• Refusing to retain records delineated by the UAAA
• Failing to register with a State when attempting to initiate contact with a player in that State or entering into a representation contract with a player in the State
• Providing false information when registering or renewing certification with the State
• Predating or postdating a representation agreement
• Failing to notify the collegiate athlete that entering into the agency agreements voids all remaining collegiate athletic eligibility.

Violating any of the above provisions carries both criminal and civil penalties. The first of the above prohibitions, perhaps the most important, is also generally prohibited by the agent rules of the various professional sports' unions.

So what are the proposed revisions that were discussed this week?

• Expanding the definition of the term agent
• Creating a centralized registration 'clearinghouse' for agents

As far as agents are concerned, there is one primary revision that should be enacted: Abolish the State registration of sports agents.

There are a multitude of problems with the State registration system. Most glaring, the State registration system fails its designed goal to "keep the good guys in business...[and] keep the bad guys out" (Jerry Bassett, Director of the Alabama Legislative Reference Service, which drafts bills for the Alabama legislature.) As previously stated, agents are governed by their sports' players unions. Agents must satisfy a myriad of requirements in order to become certified by a particular sport. During this process, the supposed "bad guys" are weeded out, and not granted certification by the league. Of course, there will be agents that are granted certification and then break rules and laws, but there is no possible way to prevent all wrongdoers from entering the profession.

Interestingly, there is little data on who, or how often, States are disallowing agents from registering. The leagues are already undertaking the exhaustive agent certification process, which requires disclosure of much the same information as States require. Simply put, it is likely rare that any professional Players' Union, whose primary goal is the protection of the players, would certify an agent that a State rejects. 

Further, should any State employ more stringent restrictions on agents than the professional leagues do, the newer agents would likely suffer the most. Currently, a person with a four year undergraduate degree and postgraduate degree could become an NFL agent, provided they meet the additional requirements such as passing the exam. That means a 24 year old with little business experience (and fantastic connections) could hypothetically become an agent. However, a State utilizing more stringent requirements than the leagues creates higher barriers of entry,  disallowing entrants into the market.

Additionally, the UAAA's registration system is extremely short sighted. Generally, sports agents have a multi-state, if not nationwide or regional practice. By requiring an agent to register with each individual State, agents must pay a registration fee with each State that has a collegiate athlete they wish to speak with. Due to the nature of the multi-state practice, these fees quickly add up. And what do agents get from paying the fees? Nothing more than the chance to talk to athletes in the hopes that they sign with the agent. 

As it currently stands, the UAAA's registration system amounts to little more than systematic extortion. Agents who wish to be successful, which is already difficult enough, are going to pay the wildly varying fees to avoid any criminal and/or civil liability. The UAAA gives States an additional, steady, stream of income that they likely will not want to let go.

Aside from repealing the UAAA, there are two viable solutions to removing the State registration of sports agents:

• Remove the State registration provisions and retain the remainder of the UAAA
• Create a nationwide clearinghouse for the registration of sports agents- as proposed for discussion at the committee meeting earlier this week

The removal of all registration provisions will not be favored by the States as they are earning money off of the UAAA. However, the nationwide clearinghouse can be established in such a way that each State which has enacted the UAAA gets a share of the registration fees from across the country. A clearinghouse can also make the registration process more favorable to the agents as well. Certainly all of the registration information will be centralized, decreasing the need for an agent to fill out multiple applications for multiple States. This would allow registration in a new State to be as simple as paying the fee, as all enacting States would  have agreed on a single set of registration criteria. 

The State fees themselves could also be staggered, creating discounted bundles of States or a flat fee for each additional State.  There is a great deal of flexibility that could be used in creating a nationwide clearinghouse for sports agents that could make the UAAA more attractive to agents. However, this still does not ease the burden of having to essentially be certified as an agent twice, once with the professional sports league, and once with the clearinghouse.

As it stands, the UAAA's State registration model is extremely flawed and burdensome to sports agents. The creation of a nationwide clearinghouse for agents, as proposed for discussion this week, with flexible price models would reduce the burdens on agents, but still unfortunately require that agents be certified by the leagues and the States.