 |
NFL player reps could vote this month on a proposal to cut the maximum fee agents can change.
Photo by: GETTY IMAGES |
NFL Players Association player representatives may vote on reducing the maximum fee that NFL agents can charge players from 3 percent to 2 percent later this month at their annual meeting in Hawaii, player leaders said.
If there is a vote, “it’s going to be close,” said Lorenzo Alexander, NFLPA executive committee member. “I know it’s going to be tight,” he said.
But Alexander, a free agent linebacker who played with the Raiders last year, and Giants long snapper Zak DeOssie, another NFLPA executive committee member, both said there was a chance there would not be a vote on the issue. The NFLPA has been studying whether to reduce the maximum fee since its annual meeting last year, and players are well aware and concerned about potential consequences.
“The point is not for us to try and put anyone out of business,” DeOssie said. “We are simply just entertaining the idea of what could possibly happen if we reduced the fees. If we could still maintain the same caliber of representation with the 2 percent ceiling, then we would potentially go with that route. There is a lot of risk involved in that, and we want to make the membership well aware before we vote on such a thing.”
Player reps will take up the matter for discussion at the annual meeting in Maui and decide whether to vote. The 32 player representatives would vote, and a majority is required to pass the change.
The meeting is scheduled for March 16-21, and although a date for the possible vote on agent-related matters has not been set, it is expected it will occur at the end of the meeting.
The potential change has been a matter of speculation for months, and was the subject at a volatile NFLPA agent meeting at the NFL combine, where agents and members of the NFLPA raised their voices at one another other.
“I would describe it as passionate,” DeOssie said.
When NFLPA Executive Director DeMaurice Smith started the meeting by asking the agents if they had any questions, an agent asked about the rumored fee cut. Smith, according to multiple agents, asked the agent where he had heard the information, rather than answering the question, which set agents on edge.
“It immediately elevated the level of heat in the room,” said one agent who was there. “Now an intense interchange went on.”
The discussion involved questions about whether the NFLPA was going to cut the fees and whether the union had held a meeting about it with about 15 agents at its headquarters in Washington, D.C., in November. “It was so heated at times it was really hard to sit there,” the agent said.
Another agent said that people appeared to be angry and that people on both sides raised their voices, but “nothing crazy.” Agents requested anonymity, saying they were not authorized to speak publicly on union business.
Asked whether agents and NFLPA members at the meeting raised their voices, Alexander replied, “Oh, yeah. And I was a guy who raised my voice, because I was getting frustrated, because I was hearing the same banter back and forth.”
Alexander said, too, that the agent who asked the question of Smith “kind of threw a backhanded jab at De, saying there is a rumor going through the media” about the fee cut, rather than asking him about it outright.
But the questions and comments from agents over the reduction in fees, as well as what has been known in the business as “the secret agent meeting,” went on for more than an hour, Alexander said. Agents wanted to know, among other things, why certain agents were invited and others were not. Agents were also upset that they had no voice or vote in rules that affect them, many agents said.
One agent, Chris Turnage, a partner in United Athlete Agency, a firm that represents 24 players in the league, volunteered at the meeting to be a spokesman for agents on issues affecting them.
Turnage said last week that he was organizing a committee of agents to help provide agents with a forum to present ideas and thoughts to the players association.
Both Alexander and DeOssie took issue with a Nov. 10 meeting they had with 15 agents being described as “a secret meeting.” But the agents who were not invited to that meeting said they never got a chance to talk about the issue of a fee reduction or even find out whether it was actually on the table until the meeting at the combine Feb. 25.
Agents argued at the combine meeting that they do many things for players other than negotiating contracts. Some said that, with the competition in the market now, they would be forced to quit being agents if the maximum is reduced.
“They stressed that to us vehemently,” DeOssie said. “Our reaction is sympathetic.”
But there are players who want to save money on what they spend on agents, DeOssie said.
The NFL agent fees are the lowest of all the team sports. The maximum fee in the NBA is 4 percent, and the NHL and MLB do not limit the fees agents can charge, but the norm is 4 percent to 5 percent there.
Alexander said he paid both of his agents 3 percent and was happy to do so. “But some people in our union don’t feel that way,” he said. “It comes up [at the NFLPA player meeting] every year. Guys talk about is there some way we can cap it or lower it,” Alexander said.
At the same time, Alexander said, the thing he is most concerned about is not knowing whether reducing the fees to 2 percent would drive some of the most talented agents out of the industry.
“That is what my fear is,” he said. “If that happens, that’s when you start hurting your own players.”
