In North American professional sports, particularly baseball, football, and basketball, a free agent is a team player whose contract with a team has expired, and the player is able to sign a contract with another team. The term came into wide use after sports leagues stopped using a "reserve clause", which provided a repetitive option for the club to renew the contract for one more year, but did not allow the player to terminate his relationship with the team. The result was that a player was essentially property of the team. Baseball is a team sport in which a player on one team (the pitcher) attempts to throw a hard, fist-sized ball past a player on the other team (the batter), who attempts to hit the baseball with a tapered, smooth cylinder called a bat. ... Football is the name given to a number of different team sports. ... Sara Giauro shoots a three-point shot, FIBA Europe Cup for Women Finals 2005 Basketball is a sport in which two teams of five players each try to score points by throwing a ball through a hoop (the basket) under organized rules. ... A list of professional sports leagues: Auto racing Champcars, formerly CART (Official Page) Formula One, Grand Prix racing (Official Site) IRL (Indy Racing League) (Official Page) NASCAR (National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing) (Official Page) NHRA (National Hot Rod Association) (Official Page) Baseball Major League Baseball Minor League Baseball... The reserve clause is a term formerly employed in North American professional sports contracts. ...

Unrestricted and restricted free agency

In some leagues, distinction is made between an unrestricted free agent and a restricted free agent. A restricted free agent is a player who can sign with another team, but with one or more restrictions. For example, the player's current team may have the right to match the terms and conditions of the contract offered by another team, or the current team may be entitled to compensation in the form of money or draft picks from the player's new team. An unrestricted free agent, then, has no limitations imposed on their signing a contract with another team. An example of Money. ... A (sports) draft is a process by which professional sports teams select players not contracted to any team, often from colleges or amateur ranks. ...

Drawbacks

The economics of free agency are disadvantageous for teams; it can lead to bidding wars -- and increased player salaries means decreased team profits. Widespread restricted free agency has therefore been preferred by sports teams after they lost the reserve clause. For example, an age limit can be used to keep young and talented players from generating bidding wars, and causing high salary inflation throughout the league. Economics (from the Greek [oikos], house, and [nomos], rule, hence household management) is a social science that studies the production, distribution, trade and consumption of goods and services. ... In North American professional sports, particularly baseball, football, and basketball, a free agent is a team player whose contract with a team has expired, and the player is able to sign a contract with another team. ... The reserve clause is a term formerly employed in North American professional sports contracts. ...

Deadlines

In some leagues, free agency has deadlines. For example, under the current NHL Collective Bargaining Agreement, restricted free agents who do not sign contracts by December 1 of a given year will be ineligible to play in the NHL for the balance of that season. However, other leagues (such as the NBA) have no such restrictions. The NHL collective bargaining agreement is the basic contract between the NHL team owners and the NHL Players Association, designed to be arrived at through the typical labour-managment negotiations of collective bargaining. ... December 1 is the 335th (in leap years the 336th) day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... The National Basketball Association of the United States and Canada, commonly known as the NBA, is the premier professional basketball league in North America. ...

Effect on professional sports

Free agency has significantly changed the nature of professional sports. With free agency, teams with less revenue cannot afford to pay market-value salaries for players in high demand, and therefore lose them to other teams when they become free agents. Another impact of free agency is a greater movement of players from team to team, resulting in less "identification" of fans with their sports teams, since the roster changes so much from year to year.