Federal Regulation of Sports Agents: Sports Agents Responsibility and Trust Act (SPARTA) (CRS Report for Congress)
| Release Date |
June 9, 2003 |
| Report Number |
RS21538 |
| Report Type |
Report |
| Authors |
Janice E. Rubin, American Law Division |
| Source Agency |
Congressional Research Service |
Summary:
H.R. 361 , the Sports Agent Responsibility and Trust Act (SPARTA), would make
certain activities of alleged or actual sports agents -- providing gifts or cash, inducing a student
athlete to sign an agent contract, or providing questionable information concerning the athlete's
possible professional prospects -- unfair practices to be regulated by the Federal Trade Commission
(FTC). Witnesses at hearings emphasized the far reaching consequences of frequently "unethical"
or "unscrupulous" conduct of sports agents in pursuing and soliciting student athletes; such conduct
can subject student athletes to penalties including loss of student eligibility and possible loss of
scholarship money, and their colleges to sanctions (monetary penalties, forfeiture of games in which
an ineligible athlete played, tarnished reputations). The agents involved, however, generally face
no punishment for their offenses because, according to SPARTA's primary sponsor, only 35 states
regulate agent conduct at all; of that number, 18 have statutes that are considered less than "tough":
a federal law would, he says, provide a "uniform Federal backstop" to supplement the current
patchwork of state laws, but "not supplant" them. (1) H.R. 361 was
reported favorably
by both the House Commerce and Judiciary Committees, and passed under suspension by the full
House on June 4, 2003; it is currently pending in the Senate Commerce Committee. This report will
be updated as necessary to reflect further Congressional action.
1. Â Representative Osborne, speech on House floor, May 1,
2003, Congressional Record, daily ed., May
1, 2003, H3621. The numbers vary from source to source, for either the total number of states
having any,
or stringent regulation of athlete-agent registration and conduct, or those which have enacted the
Uniform
Athlete Agents Act (UAAA), but all agree that they are low; some states have enacted the UAAA
as
substitutes for their own, existing statutes.
