Sportsnet: Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek on 32 Thoughts: The Podcast – Lots to Talk about, on an agent having permission to seek a trade for a client.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Marek: “Here’s an interesting one. Permission to seek a deal. ‘Hi Elliotte and Jeff, I had a question about trades. At times a team will “give permission” for a player to seek a deal. How does this work?
Does the player and representation contact other clubs and try to broker a deal, at which point they take it back to the general manager? Appreciate the time for reviewing my question and please keep up the great work. P.S. I tried the ribs, very good. ”
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Friedman: “Ahhh. Excellent. Good job.
Generally what will happen is, the team will tell the agent, this is what we’re willing to do. This is the parameter of what we’re willing to do for somebody. You can’t just have the agent calls up the other team, makes a deal that’s ridiculous and goes back to the team and says ‘I made you a deal, you have to take it.’
First of all, the team ultimately retains the power to say yes or no. It’s not the agent, it’s the team. The agent will reach out to interested teams and say, ‘I have permission to talk.’ The teams will check with the current and say, ‘Is this true?’ Yes. And the agent will say, ‘look, this is what I’ve been empowered to say in terms of what the team is willing to do.’
And, you know, I think the one thing is, the more clients you have. It’s a tricky thing to talk about because I don’t want to create the impression the agent mostly will say, ‘Look, I’ll give you a better deal on somebody else if you find a way to take my player.’ You’re not supposed to do that. That’s not a good thing for an agent to do.
But I think there’s no question that sometimes the more powerful an agent is, some teams, especially if they’re legitimately interested in the player, they will want to play ball with that agent.
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And I’ve seen that kind of situation happen before. And sometimes what the agent can do is, if a team says we’re only willing to do this, sometimes they can move the line and say, ‘Look, I can get this done for you if you’re willing to do this.’ And sometimes that does happen.”