It’s not often that you’ll hear people lauding the Lone Star State as a bastion of progressive (some might say anti-business) legal thinking, but we’re here today writing this article because of just such a thing.  If there’s one thing that Texans love more than their free markets, it’s collegiate sports.  And if you read the tea leaves of its lawmakers on its latest bill sent to Governor Rick Perry on Wednesday, they’re getting a little sick and tired of the agents, runners and other assorted hangers-on getting their grubby hands on Texas’ amateur athletes and jeopardizing their eligibility.  What’s left unsaid in the name of protecting the athletes is that the public doesn’t like the prospect of UT football or Baylor basketball, to cite only a couple of the state’s many D-1 universities, having to face NCAA-mandated vacations of great seasons down the road if those schools inadvertently use ineligible players because of agents’ influence.  From the Austin American-Statesman:

Texas is Taking the Lead in Punishing Unethical Sports Agents

If Gov. Rick Perry signs it into law, agents who lure college athletes into contracts with improper benefits and gifts that cost an athlete their NCAA eligibility could face felony charges and up to 10 years in prison. […]  The bill by Rep. Harold Dutton, a Houston Democrat, requires agents to post a $50,000 bond with the state and be certified with a national professional sports association. Agents would be banned from providing anything of value to the athlete or their family before the athlete completes their eligibility.  The bill also requires individuals, not corporations, to register as agents, and includes so-called “runners,” who are sometimes hired by agents to contact athletes or their families on their behalf.

According to an AP report from 2010, some 42 states have laws on the books restricting the contacts and influence that agents can have with NCAA athletes, but the regulations are largely toothless and only rarely enforced.  The report found that Texas was one of the few states that had punished unethical agents, assessing a total of $17,000 in fines during the previous two years, a substantial number to most of us but pocket change to the agent who signs a star athlete to a professional deal.  It’s certainly no secret that the state of Texas is ripe with talent in all three major American sports at the amateur level — football, basketball, and baseball — so agents have a clear incentive to befriend future stars very early in the hopes that they eventually sign with them when they eventually turn pro.

Read the rest of this entry »