Tigers use creative contracting

Few areas of contract practice are more difficult than that of employment contracts for high-profile athletes.  Added to the normal difficulties of reaching agreement are problems added by salary caps and the necessity for all unusual clauses to be blessed by the appropriate labor unions.

The Detroit Tigers are getting good reviews for their work in developing innovative contracts that manage to protect the team while giving enormous amounts of money to the players. The contract for new Tiger Magglio Ordonez, for example, will pay him an amount somewhere between $6 and $105 million—depending on how things work out.  A story in the Detroit News has an interesting discussion from the point of view of the player, the agent, and the team.