Wikipedia:WikiProject Sports/Handling sports transactions

Many popular sports, especially at the professional level, receive extensive news coverage. Wikipedia is not a newspaper. However, transactions involving hirings/signings, trades, and firings/releases are often considered encyclopedic for articles on a season for a league/team, or biographies of athletes and other key personnel.

When extensive coverage exists, reliable sources may report breaking news on a transaction based on anonymous sources. Indications that news is speculative include phrases such as "a person with knowledge of the negotiations says", "spoke on condition of anonymity", "has not yet signed a contract", "are expected to acquire", "cannot become official until", and "still trying to confirm details". Additionally, some sports leagues have periods where negotiations can take place, but a deal cannot become official until a future date e.g. the July moratorium in the National Basketball Association (NBA). In these cases, the transaction should not be presented as having been completed, and infoboxes should not be updated.

In the past, some unofficial transactions were not consummated due to reasons including players reneging on verbal agreements, vetoes by the league, complications with no-trade clauses, or a different transaction materializing altogether. If anything is to be presented at all, it should be limited to prose attributed to the source that is reporting the transaction. For example, "On March 5, 2013, ACME News reported that John Doe will sign with XYZ." It would be inappropriate original research and future speculation to present this as "On March 5, 2013, John Doe signed with XYZ."

A transaction can be considered official if sources report it as completed and attribute it to a named, reputable league or team official. Sometimes players that are free agents may announce their agreement to a contract before the team confirms a contract has been signed and completed. Consensus at Wikipedia articles may determine that the player should be reflected in the article as being a member of the team, even prior to an official announcement by the team. Otherwise, it may be a lengthy discussion on the distinction between an "official signing" and a player's publicly announced agreement to sign.

Examples of deals that fell through or where reports were plain wrong
Below are some pending transactions that were reported as completed, but then fell through after the initial reports:


 * Aaron Sele, free agent agreement with Baltimore Orioles, 1999–00 offseason
 * Alex Rodriguez, trade to the Boston Red Sox, 2003–04 offseason
 * Mike Lowell, trade to Texas Rangers, 2009–10 offseason
 * Chris Paul, trade to Los Angeles Lakers, 2011–12 season
 * Grant Balfour, free agent agreement with Baltimore Orioles, 2013–14 offseason
 * Wilmer Flores, trade to the Milwaukee Brewers, 2015 season
 * DeAndre Jordan, free agent agreement with Dallas Mavericks, 2015 offseason
 * Frank Gore, free agent agreement with Philadelphia Eagles, 2015 offseason
 * Hisashi Iwakuma, free agent agreement with Los Angeles Dodgers, 2015–16 offseason
 * Jay Bruce, trade to the Toronto Blue Jays, 2015–16 offseason
 * Dexter Fowler, free agent agreement with Baltimore Orioles, 2015–16 offseason
 * Bud Black, agreement to manage the Washington Nationals, 2015–16 offseason
 * Brandon Nimmo, trade to the Cincinnati Reds, 2016 trade deadline
 * Gerrit Cole, trade to the Houston Astros (the first try), 2017–18 offseason
 * Seung-hwan Oh, free agent agreement with the Texas Rangers, 2017–18 offseason
 * Josh McDaniels, agreement to become head coach of the Indianapolis Colts, 2018 offseason
 * Trevor Rosenthal, free agent agreement with the Miami Marlins, 2018 season
 * Robbie Ross Jr., free agent agreement with the Cincinnati Reds, 2018–19 offseason
 * Antonio Brown, trade to the Buffalo Bills, 2019 offseason
 * Anthony Barr, free agent agreement with New York Jets, 2019 offseason
 * The Mookie Betts trade, 2019–20 offseason:
 * Brusdar Graterol ended up traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers, not the Boston Red Sox
 * Trade of Joc Pederson and Ross Stripling to the Los Angeles Angels for Luis Rengifo fell through.
 * Michael Brockers, free agent agreement with Baltimore Ravens, 2020 offseason
 * Marqui Christian, free agent agreement with New York Jets, 2020 offseason
 * Eli Apple, free agent agreement with Las Vegas Raiders, 2020 offseason
 * Yasiel Puig, free agent agreement with the Atlanta Braves, before the 2020 season
 * Michael Brantley, free agent agreement with the Toronto Blue Jays, 2020–21 offseason
 * Tyler Anderson, trade to the Philadelphia Phillies, 2021 MLB trade deadline
 * Max Scherzer, trade to the San Diego Padres, 2021 MLB trade deadline
 * Eric Hosmer, trade to the Washington Nationals, 2022 MLB trade deadline.
 * Joe Espada, hired by the Chicago White Sox, after the 2022 season
 * "Arson" Judge to the San Francisco Giants, 2022–23 offseason
 * Carlos Correa, free agent agreement with the San Francisco Giants and New York Mets, 2022–23 offseason
 * Hakim Ziyech, loan move to PSG 2023, January Transfer Window.
 * Malcolm Brogdon, trade to the Los Angeles Clippers, 2023 offseason
 * Hakim Ziyech, move to Al-Nassr 2023, Summer Transfer Window.
 * Harry Maguire, move to West Ham United 2023, Summer Transfer Window.
 * Shohei Ohtani's "flight to Toronto" and agreement with the Toronto Blue Jays, 2023–24 offseason
 * Kliff Kingsbury's hiring as offensive coordinator by the Las Vegas Raiders in early 2024
 * Eric Kendricks, free agent agreement with the San Francisco 49ers, 2024 offseason.