In professional sports, a free agent is a player who is eligible to sign with any club or franchise, i.e. not under contract to any specific team. The term is also used in reference to a player who is under contract at present, but who is allowed to solicit contract offers from other teams. In some circumstances, the free agent's options are limited by league rules.
The term came into wider use after sports leagues stopped using a "reserve clause", which provided a repetitive option for the club to renew the contract for one or more years but did not allow the player to terminate it.
Read more about Free Agent: Drawbacks For Owners, Deadlines
Famous quotes containing the words free and/or agent:
“A nation grown free in a single day is a child born with the limbs and the vigour of a man, who would take a drawn sword for his rattle, and set the house in a blaze that he might chuckle over the splendour.”
—Sydney Smith (1771–1845)
“The average American is a good sport, plays by the rules. But this war is no game. And no secret agent is a hero or a good sport—that is, no living agent.”
—John Monks, Jr., U.S. screenwriter, Sy Bartlett, and Henry Hathaway. Robert Sharkey (James Cagney)