Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association have had a preliminary conversation about the sport’s economic structure, report Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich of The Athletic. It’s not an official start to bargaining but represents their first known talks of any kind with the collective bargaining agreement a little over a year away from expiration. Respective lead negotiators Dan Halem (MLB) and Bruce Meyer (MLBPA) were both present, according to the report.
It’s more a symbolic discussion than anything else. Drellich and Rosenthal write that substantive bargaining is unlikely to begin until next spring. This served as an opportunity for each side to lay out diverging views of the game’s economics. It is widely expected that the sides will not be able to line up on a new deal before the expiration of the current CBA on December 1, 2026. If that’s the case, MLB would immediately implement a lockout to freeze the 2026-27 offseason.
Commissioner Rob Manfred said last winter that an offseason lockout is likely to be the new norm. While the league doesn’t technically need to implement a lockout once the CBA expires, it behooves them to do so. Waiting would otherwise give the MLBPA the ability to strike, ceding the leverage for timing a work stoppage to the players.
The 2022-23 lockout lasted 99 days. It was the first official work stoppage in MLB since the 1994-95 strike that canceled the ’94 World Series. (One could argue there was an unofficial work stoppage in 2020, when negotiations about prorated salaries delayed the return to play coming out of the first few months of the pandemic.) The ’22 lockout did not result in any forfeited games, though Opening Day was pushed back by about a week and a half. It’s generally believed that MLB will make another push for a salary cap, which the players union has maintained is a non-starter, in the upcoming CBA talks.
The previous lockout was during the 2021-2022 offseason, not 2022-2023.
Fans don’t need this just get it over with BUB!!
Fans don’t need what?
Fans don’t need a three year old handle pretending to be a world champion.
The same set of circumstances existed at this time in 1993 and the players went on strike in August 1994. I wonder if there is any appetite for them to do it again.
Lockout or salary cap players
Choose wisely.
Labor negotiations aren’t binary.
You don’t need a salary cap
You need to put a cap on deferrals, 25% payroll and it counts against cbt
You need to cap years players can earn in free agency (nba version of bird rights) where teams that hold the bird rights and offer the most years and most money
Bird rights refer to a cap and being to exceed the cap for a particular player. Without a cap there are no Bird rights.
And since the PA will NEVER accept a cap and will also NEVER accept a cap on years or contracts, the entire point is moot.
Instead of salary cap and salary floor the mlb has cbt tax thresholds
In lieu of going over the salary cap using bird rights teams can go into cbt tax territory but not be fined or have picks affected if they go over resigning their own players they have birds rights over
Tax thresholds are a joke they are the anti salary cap. When an organization has no fear of going over the top tier repeatedly you’ve created less parity in the game not more. St. Louis can’t afford what NY and LA can. A hard cap levels the playing field far more than the luxury tax ever could
TheGreatOne: But the players will never agree to a cap, and rightly so because it would make player compensation a fixed pie and thus pit players against each other for limited dollars.
Not happening.
Present value of deferred salary already counts for CBT
And must be funded by teams, in escrow.
10 year 700 mill contract is 70 mill a year not 46 mill.
It lowers the cbt tax hit
46 mil is what the Dodgers pay into the escrow account, and all they will ever pay. Ohtani is paid the 46 mil plus whatever they estimate the money to grow to over the period that it’s deferred, approximately 70 mil. It’s no different than if Ohtani invested the money himself and it grew. The growth of the value shouldn’t be counted against the cbt. CBT tax is identical and accounted for.
Yeah. I get how it works.
The point is if you agree to a 10 year 70 mill contract your cbt tax hit should be 70 mill over the next 10 years regardless how much you defer
You could defer the entire contract pay Ohtani 0 dollars every year but your cbt tax bill is 70 mill for Ohtani. Same for every player deferrals or no deferrals.
The agreed upon aav should be the cbt tax hit and tax reflective upon that
By using present value you’re turning a 10 year 700 mill contract into a 10 year 460 mill contract meaning 240 mill isn’t taxed against the cbt, despite 700 mill being the agreed to amount
Dodgers signed Ohtani to a 10 year 700 mill contract. They didn’t sign him to a 10 year 460 mill contract and promise to pay him off the cbt books 240 mill after his contract ends.
That’s not how it works at all. And as proof, deferrals will not be an issue for either the PA or MLB. Because they understand how they work and agree.
It’s how it should work. The agreed upon aav should be the cbt tax hit
Otherwise you’re just letting teams lower their cbt hit without punishment.
You can’t add extra dead years to contracts to lower a cbt tax hit but you can defer money past the life of a contract and lower your cbt tax hit.
If teams can defer and lower cbt tax hit teams should be allowed to offer 20 year deals and lower their cbt tax hit by front loading the contract. 20 years 150 mill. First 10 is 100 mill last 10 is 50 mill
If teams can’t offer 20 year contracts, front load them, and add in dead years then deferrals need to be reigned in
It is, because the average annual VALUE of the contract is $46M. The payout to the player, after a number of years of accumulating in an account, will be more.
If teams can’t offer dead years to contracts to lower cbt tax hits deferrals shouldn’t be allowed
Either you allow both or allow neither
Dead years increase team salaries for players that aren’t playing, creating situations where teams can and eventually would default for being unable to pay. They aren’t the same thing at all.
Welcome to a salary floor and salary cap after 2026. You can thank the Dodgers and to a lesser extent the Mets and Yankees for this outcome.
I can’t wait to thank them. Maybe then a family of four can afford to go to a game without skipping a car payment.
It’s cute that you think owners still won’t go for the maximum profit possible. How are Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny?
You think ticket prices will be lower following a lockout? What is your basis for that analysis? P.S. attendance was up again this past season.
I didn’t say lower did I?
I also said maybe didn’t I?
Baseball is a business and in every business you have expenses and revenue. The difference between the two is the profit. We the fans are a lot of the revenue. When the price of the expenses stabilizes the revenue need not increase to maintain profit.
I see. You didn’t say “lower.”
So the family of four will be able afford to go to a game without skipping a car payment with what? Higher ticket prices? The same ticket prices as now? Magic?
Incomes increase, it’s called a raise i know I just got one. Prices level out. It’s more affordable. Everyone coming at me like I’m saying this is what will happen. I’ll leave reading the future to the rest of you but it won’t happen if the expenses of the business don’t stabilize. That’s just economics.
I don’t think you really understand the basic principles of supply and demand and equilibrium.
You want economics? Stu Sternberg bought the Tampa Bay franchise for $200 million 18 years ago.
He just sold it for 1.7 BILLION.
Running expenses be damned.
The demand costs more when the supply costs more. Not sure how anyone can intelligently argue that point. When it costs more to provide it to you then you pay more for it.
aha, I yearn to live in this price stabilized utopia you mentioned. I remember when gas prices leveled out at well. that was a time called never.
The maximum number that people will pay for it is the price. Period. Profit is dependent on price minus expenses. Price is determined solely by demand
Because the supply price is fluid. Like baseball salaries.
By that logic it’s the fans fault cause they keep paying it. Way to let ownership off the hook bud they’ll be calling you shortly for representation in the negotiations.
Are you suggesting a cap at gate prices?! It’s no one’s fault. It’s the market price that’s being paid. The Invisible Hand is what determines the price.
C’mon, this is high school level stuff and should be understood by everyone.
No one’s fault and invisible hand is something everyone should understand? It’s someone’s fault cause someone is doing it and I’ll leave you and your hand to yourselves.
The Invisible Hand is an economic term in use for a couple hundred years. Don’t bother looking it up, you wouldn’t understand it anyways.
@TheGreatOne
If I charge $1 per ticket to reach full stadium capacity of 10,000, I take in $10k. If I charge $2 per ticket to sell 5000 seats, I take in the same amount. Why I would sell tickets for $1 when it increases my stadium labor costs and expenses? What if I charge $2.50 or $3 per ticket? Will I take in more than $10k? See how that works? It’s the same principles behind stadium concessions and merchandise pricing.
Player labor costs and TV revenues have no relations to the above hypothetical.
Ticket prices are based on demand, not player salaries.
you are in for a rude awakening oh great one
TheGreatOne: If you actually believe lower player compensation would result in lower ticket and concession prices, you’re seriously too naive to be an adult.
There will not be a cap. It will not happen.
They have a whole year to work on it! Why not just start now and try to get it done BEFORE striking or locking out?
That is a logical thought, but both sides will have to feel pain before an agreement is reached. There is very little history of common sense dictating a solution before pain is endured. The rhetoric is already starting. Manfred didn’t go into the Phillies clubhouse because he thought negotiations would be smooth.
I will gladly take no baseball in 2027 if it means fixing the system. You can’t have one team raking in over 300 million from their local TV deal and then have others struggling to even hit 50 million.
I agree that there probably won’t ever be a salary cap, but the luxury taxes and the rules on deferments and salary floors need to be addressed.
The NBA and NFL have figured it out. It’s time for baseball to do the same.
48% of all national sources of MLB teams’ revenue like TV rights and merchandise are distributed equally among all 30 teams. The Local Revenue Sharing Plan takes a percentage of each team’s “net local revenue” (from local media, tickets, concessions, ticket sales, local broadcasting rights, parking, and sponsorships within a team’s local market.etc.
Be informed.
Increasing the percentage shared might have some merit. But stop throwing numbers around that are misleading.
The NBA has a tiered pay system that will not work in Baseball and the NFL has one or two high priced players per team with massive roster turnover every season. There are no lessons to be learned there.
The tv money in the NFL comes solely through nationally televised games as there are no local tv deals in Football. The NBA has the same local issues as MLB but makes up for it by having nationally televised or streamed games every night of the week spread over multiple networks ensuring that even the worst teams benefit from some sort of nationalexposure. The ratings however have been a mixed bag of decent to dreadful over the past few years
And every day of a lockout will mean some fans turn away. Some for good. MLB doesn’t need a repeat of 93/94.
They already have a good thing going, attendance up, popularity right around the world. And they’re about to mess it all up due to their own greed.
A cap, or floor, or both, isn’t suddenly going to make mediocre teams good. Cheap owners & idiotic owners will stay cheap and idiotic, and their teams will still suck. As Kerry Packer used to tell Richie Benaud, “Don’t get bitter, get better”.