Manfred Comments On Revenue Split, Offseason Pace

The current collective bargaining agreement expires in less than 18 months. It’s widely expected there’ll be another offseason lockout and contentious round of labor negotiations after the CBA wraps on December 1, 2026. MLB commissioner Rob Manfred provided some hints at potential talking points in comments at an Investor Day event for the Braves last month (as covered by Mike Mazzeo of Sports Business Journal).

Manfred said he’s making an effort to pitch the league’s message directly to individual players. “I don’t think the leadership of (the MLBPA) is anxious to lead the way to change,” he stated. “So we need to energize the workforce in order to get them familiar with or supportive of the idea that maybe changing the system could be good for everybody.”

The commissioner suggested he’s seeking out players who find themselves at the lower end of the earning spectrum to stress the discrepancy in player salaries. “10% of our players earn 72% of the money,” he said, though he did not provide specifics at that event as to how the salary distribution was calculated. “So I usually try to avoid the high-earning guy at this point, and find a younger player and say ’if you’re one of the 10%, it’s a great deal. But if you’re the other 90, it ain’t so good.'”

Manfred went on to suggest that players have lost a significant chunk of revenue over the past handful of bargaining agreements. “My first deal where I was the chief negotiator in 2002, we were spending 63% of revenue on players,” he said. “Today, we spend about 47% on players. The math means you the players are getting a smaller and smaller percentage of each dollar, and, in fact, if we had a made a deal 10 years ago to share 50-50, you would’ve made $2.5 billion more than you made.”

Unsurprisingly, his comments were met with a sharp rebuke from the MLB Players Association. The union argued that Manfred is trying to weaken solidarity by pitting players against one another. MLBPA executive director Tony Clark told Evan Drellich of The Athletic that the commissioner’s quotes contained “misleading or downright false statements.” Clark added within his statement that MLB’s “stated plan is once again to try to divide players from each other and their union in service of a system that would add to the owners’ profits and franchise values.”

There’s a general expectation that the league will again try to get the Players Association to move off their longstanding firm refusal to entertain a salary cap. Some individual owners have publicly expressed a desire for a hard spending limit. Manfred did not specifically mention a desire for a cap at the mid-June investor event (though he alluded to it in his reference to a 50-50 revenue split). Earlier in the month, he told reporters at the owners meetings that MLB had made “no decisions” on what they’d propose when CBA talks begin (additional Sports Business Journal link).

It’s easy to see how the commissioner’s comments could lay the groundwork for a salary cap push. A cap system would almost certainly involve a corresponding salary floor. That’d limit top-end contracts while arguably increasing spending on lower-tier players, closing the gap in salary discrepancy which Manfred referenced.

The commissioner also opined that MLB free agency progresses too slowly. “Other sports, they have free agency, it’s about a month. There’s lots of bidders. It’s a great marketing opportunity for the sport,” he argued. “Players have their choice of where to go. All positive. Our free agency is like the Bataan Death March. It starts the day after the World Series and in February really, really good players are still wandering around the landscape.”

There’s certainly a case that there’d be greater entertainment value and fan interest in an early-offseason free agent bonanza. There’d be little to nothing of note in the second half of the winter, but leagues like the NFL, NBA and NHL all have a frenetic few days at the beginning of their offseasons that make for an exhilarating time for fans. MLB only approximated that in the lead-up to the 2022 lockout. Its free agency is otherwise much more drawn out — save for a few fairly hectic days at the early December Winter Meetings — and arguably less satisfying.

That said, the appeal for MLB in a quick-moving free agency goes beyond fan engagement. Other leagues’ offseason activity is compressed because they all operate with a cap/floor system. Teams have a much narrower budgetary range that they’re required to hit. There’s often a firm limit on a player’s contract length and salary. There’s limited opportunity for a bidding war for the top-tier free agents, so they’re less incentivized to wait out the market than they are under the MLB system.

Many of the entertainment benefits of a quicker offseason are the results of what would be a more favorable economic system for MLB. It’s unsurprising that the league would therefore place an emphasis on them while the MLBPA diminishes their importance. Manfred has spoken repeatedly about his interest in imposing an offseason free agent signing deadline that’d hopefully lead to a flood of activity not dissimilar from the in-season trade deadline. The union has been adamantly opposed, arguing that players would lose negotiating leverage with a ticking clock and would be squeezed into accepting lesser deals. Both the SBJ and Athletic columns are worth a full read for those interested in CBA issues.