In the US and in Australia, distribution was via an involuntary device called a draft, long since declared inhumane by the United Nations and now outlawed. Once a year, owners would sit in conclave and each in his turn would assume virtual ownership of young ballplayers, always reserving the right later to trade them away. Once, a slave so acquired and indentured would have been called a chattel. Now they were called "stars", even "champions".

The system also gave rise to a new currency, called the pick. These were used to "buy" footballers and basketballers, but also were independently tradeable and came to have their own floating value, making for cash-and-kind deals between owners. In a particularly peculiar example, a "pick" granted to the Brisbane Lions in 2010 was subsequently traded four times and in 2014 still had not been spent.

As a corollary to the pick, each athlete was required to carry for the rest of his active life a tag, as vivid and indelible as any of his then compulsory tattoos. This might read, at one end of the spectrum "No. 1" or "first round", and at the other end "rookie". This was to facilitate judgments about him and his progress, and could be factored into subsequent deals for him. At length, these tags evolved into supermarket form, "$9 million" for one, "$7 million" for another, for instance.

Immediately upon being drafted, a process of indoctrination would begin, by which the young man would be dressed in a garment he might previously have loathed, feign instant kinship with peers he did not know and learn chants and mantras extolling the virtues of an organisation he might once have abhorred. This rite was conducted for the benefit of patrons and fans.

A distinguishing feature of sports slavery compared with other forms is that once conscripted, the athlete could expect to be extravagantly paid. This made the system glamorous and highly attractive to young men (they were nearly all male) of the time, and bought their complicity once selected.