‘[Q:] Reasons for franchising Peerless: [A:] "We still feel we can sign him. We wanted to have more discussion. We’re hopeful that the discussion starts to be two way instead of one way. The only way we could do that, the only way we could guarantee that we could do that was to put the tag on him. Our intentions are still to try and sign him to get a long-term deal done, and we’ve been very upfront with the agent right from the beginning. We’d like to keep Peerless, but it has to fit within the framework of what we’re trying to do."’