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 agent, free and/or agent:
“We are no more free agents than the queen of clubs when she victoriously takes prisoner the knave of hearts.”
—Mary Wortley, Lady Montagu (1689–1762)
“I expect that any day now, I will have said all I have to say; I’ll have used up all my characters, and then I’ll be free to get on with my real life.”
—Anne Tyler (b. 1941)
“The agent never receipts his bill, puts his hat on and bows himself out. He stays around forever, not only for as long as you can write anything that anyone will buy, but as long as anyone will buy any portion of any right to anything that you ever did write. He just takes ten per cent of your life.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)