What took them so long? As sports agents, we have a fiduciary duty to act in our clients’ best interests at all times. That includes informing them of the ramifications of abusing an illegal substance. It also means that we can’t be pushing or selling performance enhancing drugs to our clients. All of us would be nieve to think that there is not a single sports agent out there who at least had knowledge that his clients were/are taking performance enhancing drugs. Perhaps, some are even actively involved in the distribution of those drugs, as well. Major League Baseball plans to find out.
An agent could be directly providing clients with undetectable cutting edge drugs and foolproof masking agents. Or the agent’s role could be as nebulous as pointing a player in the direction of a doctor or anti-aging clinic that dispenses PEDs.
The article seems to have special focus on Scott Boras, who has had a good chunk of his clients testing positive for performance enhancing drugs. The main question is: Was Boras [and other agents] naive or complicit?. Another good point raised by Lisa Olson is that, while Boras’ empire is more vast than the Sultan of Brunei’s, it is entirely possible Boras’ only connection with PEDs is circumstantial.
