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The posting fee is only paid if the player and new team agree on a contract. When a NPB team posts a player, MLB teams have four days to submit sealed bids to win exclusive negotiating rights for the player. The NPB team can accept or reject the highest bid. The MLB team that wins the bid has 30 days to come to an agreement with the player or he reverts to his old NPB team. The posting fee is only paid when an agreement is made with the player. Last year, Oakland won the bid for Hisashi Iwakuma, but was unable to reach an agreement with him, so did not have to fork over the $19M posting fee.