professional sports In professional sports, as opposed to amateur sports, participants receive payment for their performance. Professionalism in sport has come to the fore through a combination of developments. Mass media and increased leisure have brought larg ...

, a free agent is a player who is eligible to sign with other clubs or

franchises Franchise may refer to: Business and law * Franchising, a business method that involves licensing of trademarks and methods of doing business to franchisees * Franchise, a privilege to operate a type of business such as a cable television p ...

; i.e., not under

contract A contract is a legally enforceable agreement between two or more parties that creates, defines, and governs mutual rights and obligations between them. A contract typically involves the transfer of goods, services, money, or a promise to tran ...

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 offers from other teams. In some circumstances, the free agent's options are limited by league rules.

Types

Terms

Unrestricted free agent

Unrestricted free agents are players without a team. They have either been released from their club, had the term of their contract expire without a renewal, or were not chosen in a league's

draft Draft, The Draft, or Draught may refer to: Watercraft dimensions * Draft (hull), the distance from waterline to keel of a vessel * Draft (sail), degree of curvature in a sail * Air draft, distance from waterline to the highest point on a vessel ...

of amateur players. These people, generally speaking, are free to entertain offers from all other teams in the player's most recent league and elsewhere and to decide with whom to sign a contract. Players who have been bought out of league standard contracts may have restrictions within that league, such as not being able to sign with the buy-out club for a period of time in the NHL, but are otherwise not restricted.

Restricted free agent

The specific rules of restricted free agency vary among the major professional sports, but in principle it means that a player is currently signed to one team but is free to solicit contract offers from other teams; however, this player cannot sign with the competing club if the current club matches (or in some leagues, comes within 10% of) the terms of the offered contract. For a restricted free agent, some leagues require the comp team to offer to the original team one or more

picks, when an offer is not matched, as compensation for losing the player.

Undrafted free agent

Players who are not drafted in a league's annual draft of amateur players are considered to be

unrestricted free agent In professional sports, a free agent is a player who is eligible to sign with other clubs or franchises; 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 a ...

s and are free to negotiate contracts with any team. In most American professional sports, players are drafted by sequencing each team from worst to best (according to the teams' winloss records the previous season, sometimes invoking a draft lottery factor to avoid having teams intentionally lose their last games to gain higher draft position) and allowing said teams to claim rights to the top players entering the league that year. Players that pass through an entire draft (usually several rounds) without being selected by any of the league's teams become unrestricted free agents, and these players are sometimes identified simply as an ''undrafted free agent'' (UDFA) or ''undrafted sportsperson'' and are free to sign with any team they choose. The term "undrafted free agent" is most common in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

(NFL), where rookies enter directly into the NFL and do not play in a

minor league Minor leagues are professional sports leagues which are not regarded as the premier leagues in those sports. Minor league teams tend to play in smaller, less elaborate venues, often competing in smaller cities/markets. This term is used in Nor ...

system. It can also occasionally be seen in the

National Hockey League The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

(NHL), which increasingly uses

college hockey College ice hockey is played principally in the United States and Canada, though leagues exist outside North America. In the United States, competitive "college hockey" refers to ice hockey played between colleges and universities within the g ...

as a source; the

NHL Entry Draft The NHL Entry Draft (french: Repêchage d'entrée dans la LNH) is an annual meeting in which every franchise of the National Hockey League (NHL) systematically select the rights to available ice hockey players who meet draft eligibility requirem ...

usually drafts players during high school age (i.e., junior leagues), which allows overlooked players who excel at the college level or in European professional leagues to bypass the draft and sign directly with the NHL.

Legal provisions in the EU

In the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...

, the 1995

Bosman ruling ''Union Royale Belge des Sociétés de Football Association ASBL v Jean-Marc Bosman'' (1995) C-415/93 (known as the Bosman ruling) is a 1995 European Court of Justice decision concerning freedom of movement for workers, freedom of association ...

by the

European Court of Justice The European Court of Justice (ECJ, french: Cour de Justice européenne), formally just the Court of Justice, is the supreme court of the European Union in matters of European Union law. As a part of the Court of Justice of the European Un ...

established the right of free agency for

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

players in all EU member nations. The Bosman ruling has since been extended to cover other professional sports and players from Eastern Europe. Players were still tied to their clubs unless their contract ran out until the

Webster ruling The Webster ruling is a test case in association football law involving Andy Webster, a defender formerly with Heart of Midlothian football club in Edinburgh, Scotland. In September 2006 he became the first player to exploit the updated trans ...

allowed players the opportunity to move between nations, though it does not allow free players to move within the national league in which they currently play.

Usage

Association football

In professional

, a free agent is either a player that has been released by a professional association football club and now is no longer affiliated with any league, or a player whose contract with his or her current club has expired and is thus free to join any other club under the terms of the

. Free agents do not have to be signed during the normal

transfer window A transfer window is the period during the year in which a football club can transfer players from other playing staff into their playing staff. Such a transfer is completed by registering the player into the new club through FIFA. "Transfer win ...

that is implemented in some countries' leagues. If they are signed by a team, the team signing them does not have to pay any fees – sometimes this is known as "a free transfer". If a player is released from their club when the transfer window is closed, they cannot sign for another team until the window reopens. A notable case of this being

Sol Campbell Sulzeer Jeremiah Campbell (born 18 September 1974) is an English professional football manager and former player who was most recently the manager of club Southend United. He previously managed Macclesfield Town from November 2018 to August 20 ...

who in September 2009 was released from

Notts County Notts County Football Club is a professional association football club based in Nottingham, England. The team participate in the National League (division), National League, the fifth tier of the English football league system. Founded on the 2 ...

, just after a month from signing on a free transfer. He signed for his former club

Arsenal An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, or issued, in any combination, whether privately or publicly owned. Arsenal and armoury (British English) or armory (American English) are mostly ...

in January 2010 during the winter transfer window, after spending a few months training with the team to maintain his fitness.

Australian Football League (AFL)

The

Australian Football League The Australian Football League (AFL) is the only fully professional competition of Australian rules football. Through the AFL Commission, the AFL also serves as the sport's governing body and is responsible for controlling the laws of the gam ...

introduced free agency at the end of 2012, after having had a brief "ten-year rule" in 1973 (when it was known as the Victorian Football League). Out-of-contract players who are not within the top 25% paid players at their club will become unrestricted free agents after eight seasons of service at one club. Out-of-contract players who are within the top 25% paid players at their club become restricted free agents after eight seasons, then become unrestricted free agents after ten seasons. Clubs receive compensation in the form of draft picks for the loss of out-of-contract free agents, but players who are delisted become unrestricted free agents, regardless of length of service, and clubs are not compensated for the transfer of such free agents.

Major League Baseball (MLB)

National Basketball Association (NBA)

National Football League (NFL)

The NFL's current free agency system was introduced on March 1, 1993. ;Exclusive-rights free agents Exclusive-rights free agents (ERFAs) are players with two or fewer seasons of service time and whose contracts have expired. If their team tenders a qualifying offer (a one-year contract usually at league-minimum salary) the player has no negotiating rights with other teams, and must either sign the tender with the team or sit out the season. ;Restricted free agents

Restricted free agent A restricted free agent (RFA) is a type of free agent in the National Football League (NFL), National Hockey League (NHL), or National Basketball Association (NBA). Such players have special restrictions on the terms under which they can retain ...

s (RFAs) are players who have three accrued seasons of service and whose contracts have expired. RFAs have received qualifying offers from their old clubs and are free to negotiate with any club until a deadline which occurs approximately a week prior to the

NFL Draft The National Football League Draft, also called the NFL Draft or (officially) the Player Selection Meeting, is an annual event which serves as the league's most common source of player recruitment. Each team is given a position in the drafting o ...

(for the deadline was April 15), at which time their rights revert to their original club. If a player accepts an offer from a new club, the old club will have the right to match the offer and retain the player. If the old club elects not to match the offer, it may receive draft-choice compensation depending on the level of the qualifying offer made to the player. ;Unrestricted free agents Unrestricted free agents are players with expired contracts that have completed four or more accrued seasons of service. They are free to sign with any franchise. ;Undrafted free agents Undrafted free agents are players eligible for the

but were not selected; they can negotiate and sign with any team. ;"Plan B" free agency Plan B free agency was a type of free agency that became active in the National Football League in February 1989 to 1992. Plan B free agency permitted all teams in the NFL to preserve limited rights of no more than 37 total players a season; if a player was a protected Plan B free agent, he was incapable of signing with another team without providing his old team the first opportunity to sign him again. The rest of the players were left unprotected, liberated to negotiate contracts with the rest of the teams in the league. Eight players sued the NFL in U.S. federal court, stating that Plan B was an unlawful restraint of trade. In 1992, a

jury A jury is a sworn body of people (jurors) convened to hear evidence and render an impartiality, impartial verdict (a Question of fact, finding of fact on a question) officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a sentence (law), penalty o ...

found that Plan B violated antitrust laws and awarded damages to these players.

National Hockey League (NHL)

In the

(NHL), between 2005 and 2008, the age of unrestricted free agency declined from 31 to 27. Under the old collective agreement, which expired in 2004, draft picks were awarded as compensation when a team lost an unrestricted free agent; however, under the current CBA teams losing unrestricted free agents do not receive any compensation. In addition, any player at least 22 years of age who has not been selected in the

can sign with any team as a free agent. Any player who is not entry-level, but does not meet the qualifications of unrestricted free agency becomes a

restricted free agent A restricted free agent (RFA) is a type of free agent in the National Football League (NFL), National Hockey League (NHL), or National Basketball Association (NBA). Such players have special restrictions on the terms under which they can retain ...

when his contract expires.

Major League Soccer (MLS)

Players eligible for free agency are 24 years of age and older with five MLS service years and are out of contract or have had their option declined.

Major League Rugby (MLR)

Major League Rugby Major League Rugby (MLR or USMLR) is a professional rugby union competition and the top-level championship for clubs in North America. In the 2022 season it was contested by thirteen teams: twelve from the United States and one from Canada. Off ...

, a player can be signed by any team as a free agent at 18 years old as long as they don't enroll in college. In case they do, they have to wait for MLR Draft at 21 years old.

Deadlines

In some leagues, free agency has deadlines. For example, under the most recent

NHL Collective Bargaining Agreement The NHL Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) is the basic contract between the National Hockey League (NHL) (32 team owners and NHL commissioner) and the NHL Players' Association (NHLPA), designed to be arrived at through the typical labour–m ...

, restricted free agents who do not sign contracts by December 1 of a given year will be ineligible to play in the

for the balance of that season. However, other leagues (such as the

National Basketball Association The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United S ...

) have no such restrictions on signing periods in season, despite having
free agency moratorium
in the offseason. In Europe, players can only move during

s—during the close season and halfway through the league season. There are exceptions for unsigned professional players in the lower divisions.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shalke 04 Terminology used in multiple sports Major League Baseball labor relations National Hockey League labor relations Sports labor relations