The NFLPA Should Amend Its Jurisdiction In Its Agent Regulations

On November 5, 2025, the Court of Appeals of North Carolina upheld a lower court’s decision holding that the NFLPA did not have jurisdiction over a dispute between the corporate entities of two agents concerning their joint representation of NFL players. The decision is the result of language in the NFLPA’s Regulations Governing Contract Advisors which declares that the NFLPA only certifies and regulates individuals, “not any firm, corporation partnership or other business entity.” The Court’s decision does not reflect the reality of agent operations and furthers the concerns expressed by NFLPA arbitrator Roger Kaplan in a different case that “it is reasonable to expect that there would be a swift transition to a system in which Contract Advisors would shift to operating as such entities so as to escape the NFLPA’s jurisdiction.” The NFLPA should be looking to amend its agent regulations to protect its jurisdiction over agents.

Unions and Agent Regulation

To understand the issue, it is important to first understand the NFLPA’s authority over agents (formerly known as contract advisors) generally.

Under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), a union is “the exclusive representative of all of the employees in [the employee] unit for the purposes of collective bargaining in respect to rates of pay, wages, hours of employment, or other conditions of employment.” In other words, both employees and employers are prohibited from negotiating the terms of an employee’s employment without the union’s involvement or permission.

In sports, the union’s exclusive authority under the NLRA means, for example, that the NFLPA has the right to negotiate all of the contracts of the approximate 1,700 players on NFL rosters. Such a workload is impractical. Consequently, the NFLPA and the other unions in professional sports effectively delegate some of that negotiating authority to agents pursuant to a certification process.

In their collective bargaining agreement, the NFL and the NFLPA negotiate numerous parameters around player employment, including minimum salaries, the terms of the standard player contract, dispute resolution, benefits, work schedules, and more. Nevertheless, there is still a considerable amount of room left to individual negotiation between the player and his agent and the team, notably the annual salary and length of the contract.

The union certification process varies across the unions but generally requires an extensive background check, sometimes an exam, and the agreement to abide by the union’s agent regulations. The regulations are extensive and intended to ensure that agents represent players competently, zealously, and ethically. The unions’ authority is further cemented as part of the collective bargaining agreements, in which the teams agree not to negotiate player contracts with agents not certified by the relevant union.

The NFLPA’s Jurisdiction

The NFLPA’s Regulations Governing Contract Advisors are clear that it only certifies individuals as agents, not corporate entities. Furthermore, the Regulations require that disputes between agents (and players) concerning their activities as agents or with respect to fees owed by players that they jointly represented be resolved through the NFLPA’s arbitration process.

The scope of the regulations and its arbitration process were at issue in a complex case in 2015 between the agency of Impact Sports and one of its former employee-agents, Sean Kiernan. Kiernan had joined Impact in 2003 and, according to Impact Sports, signed a non-compete and other agreements during his employment. Kiernan left Impact Sports in 2014 to join competitor Select Sports Group. Impact Sports commenced an arbitration in accordance with the NFLPA Regulations against Kiernan and Select Sports Group alleging Kiernan had misappropriated confidential information in making the transition. (Disclosure: I was involved in representing both Impact Sports and Kiernan in matters prior to their split). Various claims and counterclaims were asserted.

In the arbitration, Kaplan first wrestled with whether he had jurisdiction to hear certain parts of the case. Kaplan determined that “any claims by an entity such as Impact or SSG are not within the jurisdiction of the NFLPA Regulations’ arbitration process because such an entity cannot be a Contract Advisor or player (who are the only classifications of persons who are within the jurisdiction of the NFLPA Regulations).”

Consequently, Kaplan held that “[t]o the extent that there are disputes over the alleged employment agreements, operating agreements and/or non-compete provisions, those disputes must be resolved, if at all, in a different forum because they are outside of my jurisdiction under the NFLPA Regulations.” Similarly, “[q]uestions of conversion, misappropriation of confidential information and/or trade secrets and claims of disloyalty/receipt of compensation from two (2) different employers must be resolved, if at all, in a different forum.”

The arbitrator consequently limited his authority in the case to deciding a dispute between Impact Sports and Kiernan about entitlement to commissions from player contracts, an issue specifically identified for resolution via arbitration in the NFLPA Regulations.

The Frankel case has ever since presented agents with uncertainty about which of their business arrangements with other agents are subject to arbitration. In a 2025 case between agents Aaron Henderson and Joby Branion, Branion argued that the NFLPA did not have jurisdiction over an agreement executed between the limited liability companies through which Henderson and Branion operated as agents. (Disclosure: I represented Henderson in this matter). Kaplan rejected this argument, holding that “there is no basis to exclude a dispute between Henderson and Branion from the jurisdiction of the NFLPA Regulations merely because their agreement to work together was between two (2) entities that they controlled.” Further, as described at the outset, Kaplan worried that such a ruling would enable agents to structure their affairs to avoid the NFLPA’s Regulations. According to Kaplan, “[p]ublic policy, the responsibility to protect the rights of NFL players and the interest of justice cannot allow such a development.”

Premier Athlete Advisors LLC v. EnterSports Mgt LLC

Nevertheless, Kaplan’s concerns seem to have come to fruition in the North Carolina matter between Premier Athlete Advisors LLC (Premier) and EnterSports Mgt LLC (Entersports). Premier is co-owned by Adam Seifer, an NFLPA-certified contract advisor, and Matthew Flatow, who is not. EnterSports is the entity through which agent Hadley Engelhard operates and employs agents Jim Ulrich and Chad Berger.

In 2019, Premier and EnterSports entered into an agreement through which they agreed to jointly recruit and represent NFL players and to share equally the costs and revenues from doing so. Importantly, the agreement provided that Engelhard, Ulrich and Seifer would all be identified as a player’s agent on the Standard Representation Agreement. The parties’ agreement also contained an arbitration provision that did not incorporate or reference the NFLPA’s arbitration process.

The parties severed their relationship in 2022. A dispute over amounts owed soon followed. Seifer commenced an NFLPA arbitration proceeding against Engelhard. The parties seemed to then settle their dispute but Seifer never signed the settlement agreement. Instead, Premier later filed a demand for arbitration against EnterSports with a North Carolina court in accordance with the arbitration provision of the parties’ agreement. EnterSports moved to compel the action to the NFLPA arbitration process.

Both the trial court and appeals court ruled against EnterSports. The appeals court held that “as the NFLPA Regulations govern Contract Advisors, and Premier, EnterSports, and Flatow do not fall within the definition of ‘Contract Advisors,’ the NFLPA Regulations do not govern the arbitration venue for the underlying dispute concerning fees and expenses between Premier and EnterSports.”

NFLPA Jurisdiction At A Crossroads

As Kaplan warned in the Henderson matter, there is now a risk that agents will arrange their affairs to avoid the NFLPA’s jurisdiction. For many legal and financial reasons, all or nearly all agents operate through a limited liability company. Additionally, many agents work with other agents in a variety of arrangements, which necessarily implicate their corporate entities.

The NFLPA has a strong interest in maintaining oversight of the agents it certifies to ensure that only ethical and competent individuals are representing its members. Consequently, it requires that agents submit their disputes – including concerning fee sharing – to arbitration under its auspices. Those proceedings sometimes reveal evidence of wrongdoing sufficient to discipline an agent, as is expected to be forthcoming for agent Todd France.

Notably, the NFLPA’s assertion of jurisdiction is narrower than that of the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA). The MLBPA agent regulations in various places incorporate an agent’s business entity as being subject to the regulations. For example, the regulations provide that “where one or more Player Agents own or conduct business as, or are employed by, a business entity, the term ‘Player Agent’ includes the firm or business entity they own or with which they are employed or associated, unless the context clearly provides otherwise.” The MLBPA recently used its broad authority to discipline agents and want-to-be agents associated with the rapper Bad Bunny.

At the same time, the NFLPA asserts more authority over agents than the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) does, which has looked the other way on an agent suing Malik Beasley in federal court over a marketing agreement which contained problematic one-sided language.

Many NFL player agents like the NFLPA arbitration process for a variety of reasons. Kaplan has been the near-exclusive arbitrator of such disputes for decades and many agents have gotten to know him, his preferences, and his legal opinions well. The NFLPA also covers the costs of the arbitration. Nevertheless, agents may now see a way out of that process if the law or facts do not appear to be on their side by challenging the NFLPA’s jurisdiction.

In order to continue to exercise the necessary oversight of agents, the NFLPA should amend its regulations to include jurisdiction over entities through which agents operate. Moreover, it should specify that any dispute over arbitrability should be decided by the NFLPA’s arbitrator, a common requirement in arbitration agreements. Standing pat is an invitation to gamesmanship by agents.

The NFLPA declined to comment. Counsel for EnterSports did not respond to a request for comment.