tober 1995) David Hall

Sports Agent Civil Case

In the world of professional sports there is a lot of drive for agents to get a piece of the action if you will. They will go to almost any length to see that they get the best players coming out of high school and that they get first pick. We all know that agents can bend the rules and a lot of times can be very manipulating in some form or another.

Technically, if a player talks with an agent about anything dealing with future plans to form a partnership with the agent and have the agent promote his or her name before they are done with their eligibility the player could lose all their remaining eligibility. I have read about many cases as has everyone else that sports has become a real money maker when talking about sports like football, and many players, coaches, and athletes will see how far they can push the envelope. Many times an agent will try to find an intermediary that can handle all of the one on one contact with the player and his or her family. The agent can talk with the coach face to face with no problem as long as no contracts dealing with his or her player are negotiated considering product endorsements etc… Even with some of this activity going on in the bigger schools in the nation, there are 100 times more schools that due abide by the rules set forth to regulate and protect the well being of the athletes under the NCAA rules.

As said in the above paragraphs there are a number of cases in which agents, coaches, and players have been involved with some kind of scandal. One of these examples of "bending" the rules a little bit was five years ago and dealt with a sports agent and three athletes. In this case in particular it involved sports agent Robert Caron and the University of Southern California. These three athletes were caught accepting gifts from Caron that would provoke the players to be more loyal to Caron and sign a contract with him. The players were found to have accepted items such as clothing, "free money", loans, and car payments just for signing agreements. The aftermath of the action taken by USC was to hold the athletes liable as well as well as the agent. Caron was then confronted with a civil suit with USC that would not last very long because of a clear objective that Caron was trying to further his endorsement of players while the players were still under NCAA regulations and procedures. The end result was a settlement by Caron that would entitle USC to $50,000 in damages. Also, Caron was under permanent injunction to forbid him from inducing USC student athletes to enter into representation contracts with him prior to the expiration of their college eligibility.

References:

Caron v. University of Southern Californ

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