Sports agents have to comply with many different regulations. There are state statutes, a federal statute (SPARTA), players’ association regulations, and NCAA regulations. There is not an overwhelming amount of information pushed towards incoming agents to advise them about all of the necessary rules and certifications. The easiest rules to violate without knowing it concerns the contacting of student-athletes. The NCAA and its member institutions (colleges) oftentimes do little to help guide agents. They all set up basic compliance websites, but who actually bookmarks those and visits them on a regular basis?
The University of Central Florida (UCF) is an exception from the norm. Not too long ago, I received mail (yes, it still exists separate from email) from Lisa K. Danner, UCF’s Assistant Athletics Director for Compliance. While my heart skipped a beat when I first saw who the mail was from, I was happy to find out that I had not violated any rules and that Ms. Danner was simply sending a message about the proper way to register with her school. A school actually taking a preventative measure instead of a reactionary stance…imagine that. This is how the first two paragraphs of Ms. Danner’s message reads:
Institutional control of athletics is a fundamental requirement of NCAA legislation. Specifically, the NCAA Constitution provides that each institution monitor its program to insure compliance with NCAA rules and regulations.
The University of Central Florida (UCF) requests that all athlete agents who are interested in representing its student-athletes provide a copy of their State of Florida agent license, along with copies of professional league players’ association applications for those associations in which they are members to Lisa K. Danner, Assistant Athletics Director for Compliance.
The most important line of the letter: “UCF does this to insure agents are in compliance with the state statute.” Well, I for one, appreciate it! Obviously, UCF has its own interests in mind (if an agent violates the statute, it could mean unfortunate financial consequences for UCF), but it is nice to know that at least on the surface, UCF seems to also be concerned about our well-being.
Any agent who wishes to contact a student-athlete at UCF must register by filling out this application:
UCF offers the letter and the registration form on its compliance website, and also provides some other great information, including a Football Agent Calendar, Baseball Agent Calendar, NCAA Rules Concerning Agents, and Florida Statues Regarding Athlete Agents.
More schools need to follow UCF’s lead and take a proactive stance in registering athlete agents with their compliance offices.
10 replies on “UCF’s Compliance Office Is Golden”
This is great but there are a few strange inconsistencies.
The baseball calendar requires agents to be registered with the MLBPA. However, unless there have been very recent changes, the MLBPA does not require agents to be registered until their client is on the 40-man roster.
The football calendar does not require agents to be certified by the NFLPA.
I found that odd as well. Go ahead and email Lisa Danner (ldanner@athletics.ucf.edu). Want to report back with the results of your findings?
I e-mailed her and will definitely post the response if I receive one.
I have one quick question: So say that an agent based in New York wants to represent an athlete playing say at UCF, so he has to pay that $1,000 license fee just to try to recruit him?
It’s a little more than $1,000, and yes. Want to join my crusade to change it to a federal registration system? One payment to a federal oversight agency. Stop the states from profiting on our business.
Please use the new logos that were released over two years ago
http://ucfathletics.cstv.com/genrel/050407abn.html
That is a crusade which I would definitely get behind but states may not take kindly to being deprived of revenue in this climate in which it is literally impossible to pass a tax increase.
They don’t make anything from our fees. Yet it really makes it tough for newcomers to enter our industry (at least legally).
That’s ridiculous. Especially for those that have license in different states and can’t even land an athlete. I seriously doubt that agents out there actually have licenses all over the country. There is no point! Enough with the players association!
[…] on December 2, I had a lot of good things to say about the University of Central Florida’s Compliance Office. But commentator, Jason Wolf, […]