A professional athlete parted ways with his agent after a fully negotiated deal was on the one-yard line, signed the deal with a new agency, and the prior agent's commission was suddenly in dispute. We have defended this pattern in baseball and navigated it in football, and we know how it ends if the paper is right.
We have seen this story twice, in two sports, on opposite sides of the table. On the baseball side, our client was the original agency. An athlete the agency had represented for years was mid-contract negotiation when a competing agency, a large national player, entered the picture.
The deal had been fully negotiated. Terms were set. Dollar amount, structure, guarantees, all locked. Before the athlete's signature hit the contract, he terminated his representation agreement with our client and signed with the competitor. The competitor then filed the same deal and collected the commission.
On the football side, we watched the same pattern play out during a high-profile college revenue-share matter with a different agency in a different sport under a different set of certification rules. A young athlete, a mid-window offer, a competing agency watching the deal cross the finish line, and a clock ticking on whose paper would land first. Different sport, different athlete, same underlying dynamic.
These disputes are won and lost on two things: what the written representation agreement actually says about procuring-cause, and what the documentary record shows about when the deal was actually negotiated.
On the baseball matter, we opened the file with the representation agreement first. We pulled every communication, every draft, every term sheet, and every marker in the timeline that showed when our client had done the work. We built a documentary record showing that the economic terms of the final deal matched the terms our client had negotiated before the termination. We coordinated with certification counsel on the union-side procedural framework and positioned for resolution before litigation rather than after. The commission was recovered. The competitor's position was backed off. The record held.
On the football side, we used the same playbook in reverse. We made sure our client's documentary record was airtight from the moment the negotiation started. Written term sheets. Timestamped communications. Clean confirmation of procuring cause. When the competing agency pressured the athlete and the clock got tight, we were ready to protect the work our client had done, regardless of where the athlete ultimately signed his representation paperwork.
In both matters, the pattern teaches the same lesson. An agent protects his commission by writing the representation agreement right at the front end and building the documentary record every day after. We do both.
"My competitor tried to walk away with the money I had already made. Brandon walked them back."
— Agent
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