## Facts

- Speakers of Sport, Inc. was a sports agency representing professional athletes, including Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez.
- Beginning in 1991, Rodriguez and Speakers entered a series of one-year representation agreements that were terminable at will.
- In 1995, ProServ, a competing agency, met with Rodriguez and stated it would obtain “between $2 and $4 million in endorsements” if he signed with ProServ.
- Rodriguez terminated his at-will relationship with Speakers and signed with ProServ.
- ProServ did not obtain significant endorsements for Rodriguez; about a year later, Rodriguez left ProServ and retained another agent, who soon negotiated a five-year, $42 million playing contract with the Texas Rangers.
- Speakers sued ProServ, alleging ProServ’s endorsement statement was fraudulent and induced Rodriguez to end his relationship with Speakers.

## Issues

1. Whether inducing a client to end an at-will agency relationship, based on a promise of future endorsement opportunities, constitutes tortious interference with a business relationship under Illinois law.
2. Whether the endorsement promise supported liability for promissory fraud or for deceptive practices under the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act.

## Decision

- The Seventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment for ProServ.
- Because Rodriguez’s agreement with Speakers was terminable at will, ProServ could lawfully compete for him unless it used independently wrongful means.
- The endorsement statement was not actionable promissory fraud because Illinois generally bars promissory fraud claims absent a broader scheme to defraud; an isolated unfulfilled promise was insufficient.
- Without actionable fraud or other wrongful conduct, Speakers could not establish tortious interference.
- The Illinois Consumer Fraud Act claim failed because the dispute was a private competitive conflict between sophisticated businesses and did not involve consumer-oriented deception.

## Legal Principles

- Under Illinois law, inducing termination of an at-will relationship through ordinary competition is permissible; liability for interference requires wrongful means beyond competitive solicitation.
- Illinois promissory fraud is actionable only when a promise of future performance is part of a scheme to defraud; a single broken or exaggerated promise, without a pattern of fraudulent conduct, does not suffice.
- A claim under the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act generally requires consumer-oriented deception affecting the marketplace, not merely a private dispute between competitors.

## Conclusion

The court held that competition for an at-will client is lawful absent independently wrongful conduct, and that Illinois does not treat a single unfulfilled promise of future endorsements—without evidence of a broader fraudulent scheme—as actionable promissory fraud; accordingly, Speakers’ interference and consumer-fraud theories could not survive summary judgment.


Speakers of Sport, Inc. v. ProServ, Inc., 178 F.3d 862 (7th Cir. 1999)