The MLBPA’s counter-proposal to the league’s economic plan is expected to be sent this week and, according to multiple reports, it will wholly reject the sliding scale mechanism offered Tuesday by ownership. Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich of The Athletic report that the players will not budge on prorated salaries and will instead counter with a longer season — likely in the range of 100 games. Ken Davidoff and Joel Sherman of the New York Post suggest that the proposal will include more than 100 games, with Sherman tweeting separately that the union could seek to play as many as 110 games. Doing so would seemingly require pushing regular-season play into October.
It’s not clear at this point what compromises will be offered by the Players Association. Sherman and Davidoff indicate that “many” members of the union appear open to deferring salaries beyond 2020, though, which could help ownership to avoid an upfront hit. Rosenthal and Drellich detail some other potential compromises that have been “loosely” discussed.
League owners have contended that losses without fans in attendance could be so great that it’s not worth playing games if players are paid at prorated levels. A presentation was made to the MLBPA at one point in an effort to illustrate those claims, but the players’ side has remained skeptical. ESPN’s Jeff Passan writes that the union recently submitted another request for documentation providing transparency into local and national television revenue, sponsorship revenue and projections from teams. The union also did so back in March.
Clearly, the league has not accommodated that request. Max Scherzer, one of eight players constituting the MLBPA executive subcommittee, tweeted a firm aversion to even “engag[ing] with MLB in any further compensation reductions” and adding that “MLB’s economic strategy would completely change if all documentation were to become public information.”
While both sides are surely motivated to eventually resume play, both have put forth offers that will obviously be rejected by the other party. The players “essentially pledged to ignore the league’s proposal and instead offer one of their own,” Passan writes, illustrating the extent of the MLBPA’s dissatisfaction with the sliding scale. And if the league contends that prorated salaries without fans would require operating at a loss on a per-game basis, owners are likely to be equally dismissive of an expanded schedule without further salary reduction.
So, is there a middle ground to be reached at all?
The players feel that the league’s proposal effectively asks them to take an average 38 percent pay cut on top of the prorated salaries to which they’ve already agreed, as FiveThirtyEight’s Travis Sawchik recently outlined (Twitter thread). The hit would’ve been larger for baseball’s best-paid players, of course; the game’s highest-paid players would earn in the $$6-7MM range prior to postseason bonuses. League-minimum and pre-arbitration players would’ve taken a lesser hit but still received only about 46 percent of their full-season salary (92 percent of their prorated salary).
Sawchik suggests a 19 percent cut from prorated salaries would be a middle ground, so it’s perhaps no surprise that The Athletic report contains speculation about players taking an 81-game prorated salary but still playing 100 total games. That arrangement would amount to players taking a 19 percent hit on top of their prorated agreement.
The strong language from Scherzer last night casts some doubt upon whether the players will genuinely consider additional cuts, especially if the union plans to truly hold firm on its request to see additional documentation from ownership. As things currently stand, it’s hard to believe the league will consider the reported union counter any more than the union considered the owners’ sliding scale. Significant ground needs to be covered before an agreement is reached.
What do y’all think will be the public perception of players if they decide not to play?
It will look really bad if baseball is the only sport to not resume.
Even more so since baseball has the least amount of contact compared to basketball, football, hockey, and soccer. Only sport that offers even less contact than baseball is golf.
It does have 3 people within 3 feet of each other during the whole game..
There is also the crowded dugout even if they try some physical distancing.
Are you really comparing an ump, catcher and hitter standing apart from each other with equipment preventing much exchange of stuff compared to guys grabbing, pushing, holding, hitting, etc and sweating all over each other in other sports? The closeness you mention is nothing comparatively.
And a crowded clubhouse. Especially since they will have 30 plus players in an area designed for 25.
So holding the runner isn’t a thing anymore?
…and tennis and Nascar (if you consider that a sport)
States like Florida and Georgia already have youth league back playing.
and golf is a game, not a sport.
And both Florida and Georgia are surging in #s again. Too early to play sports in regular communities….
Bruce, my educated guess is you suck at golf.
lol, I golf often but yeah usually in the 80’s on the card outside of my home course. For me, anything I can play at a resting heart rate is a game not a sport.
Florida is a mess of fudged numbers.
gisntsphan12 – Georgia isn’t surging. Look at the graph attached. It looks like their numbers have plummeted, unless I’m reading it wrong:
dph.georgia.gov/covid-19-daily-status-report
Same story in Florida:
google.com/search?q=florida+coronavirus+cases&…
Nascar is most definitely a sport compared to golf.
Its an olympic sport
Time is an important factor in infection, so home plate might very well be a high-risk area, especially for the umpire and the catcher. Add to this the fact that speaking is more likely to result in spread of infection than simply breathing, and yelling/shouting (as umpires do) is even more likely to spread infection – the catcher would probably be the most vulnerable due to position/proximity and time of possible exposure.
So while baseball may not be a “contact” sport, there are definitely going to be spaces on the field where infection risk is increased.
Granted, the players’ union is a bit different from, say, the supermarket workers’ unions, given that the players earn millions, have less-risky working conditions, and so forth. Nevertheless it is indisputable that the players are carrying all of the health risks in this venture, while the owners have none. So any contempt we feel should be directed at the owners, and not the players, if the season doesn’t take place.
You ever been in the pits at a race? Its not social distancing for those guys. Just for the one guy in a car.
Georgia – 655 new cases yesterday. 628 so far today. They had 38 new deaths yesterday and 40 so far today. Still 4 hours to go in the counting. Its definitely has not “plummeted”.
What has plummeted is the rates of testing. Georgia is no longer testing you at all unless you are sick enough to be hospitalized. If you want a test, its $1500 and your insurance won’t cover it since you cannot get a prescription for a test unless you are hospitalized for symptoms. .
Florida has had 651 new cases today after 379 yesterday. Day before yesterday it was 624. The day before that it was 482. Doesn’t look like plummeting to me.
worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/florida/
floridahealthcovid19.gov/
At least Florida is allowing testing outside of a hospital.
Dugouts are irrelevant at this point as they already stated they will have the players sit in the stands that have no fans in them with empty seats between the players.
koamalu – I’m looking at the graph I posted which shows trends, not numbers. Both Georgia and Florida have trended down significantly in the last few days if I’m reading the graph right.
We don’t know that at all, actually. Because of the lack of common reporting standards, which should be demanded by the CDC, but aren’t, the states are reporting infections in their own ways. Georgia is one state that has been lumping together together viral and antibody test data, which means their infection statistics are basically nonsense. Many other states are doing the same thing unfortunately, apparently for political purposes. There are reasons why the U.S. has nearly 30% of the worldwide deaths with only 4% of the world population, and this is one of them.
no golf is A sports. World series of Darts on ESPN 8 the Ocho is not.
They can put bench players plus starting pitchers and possibly some coaches in the empty stands.
You are exactly correct. A few of the comments above concerning Florida and Georgia don’t appear to have been offered by dudes paying much attention to facts, Independent thinkers they are not..
Howsabout the number of confirmed deaths due to the disease in Georgia (haven’t checked Florida today)? Might the total number of confirmed deaths due to the disease be more important than the total number of cases? If so, the deaths are definitely trending sharply downward as of today. My state cannot verify for me what number of the total number of deaths the gov. HHS is reporting are confirmed deaths due to the disease. Very suspicious.
My daughter is seven playing softball. No testing just fun. Parents huddled up chatting away. It’s time
They really didn’t start. NBA and the NHL both are far enough along to jump to the playoffs. Listening to some of the players I say good riddance. I am a lifelong fan, but really can’t stand the nonsense they spew. This was negotiated that the numbers could change if games weren’t played in front of fans.
No it was NOT negotiated that numbers could change. Thaat is a flat out lie.
The owners knew on March 26th that there would be no fans in the stands for games. The owners had been floating ideas about how to have games with no fans since March 12th when spring training was cancelled.
They knew and they can’t even try to claim they didn’t know. The facts are out there in the public.
They signed the deal for prorated salaries AFTER they knew that games would be played with no fans in the stands.
Caps lock all you want they knew it could change with no fans in the seats.
Sorry, dude, you are not correct. The March agreement quite specifically says playing without fans requires economic feasibility and government approval. In addition, the recently released email clarification Q and A clearly demonstrates this. To say owners knew is not the case. Perhaps they suspected strongly, but nobody knew for sure. The public certainly can understand losing such a huge revenue stream demands extraordinary changes in compensation – in any business.
The Texas governor has approved outside sports with fans but includes limitations. The Astros and Rangers would have to play with the roof open.
I’d say it will only look bad if the NFL does find a way to return. The NHL and NBA are in much better situations than those other two leagues.
You can’t resume a season that never started. Just sayin. Baseball was heading towards a strike anyway, so they might as well figure everything out now and start next year.
They’re not touching on the issues for a new CBA.. That’s a whole other can of worms. that’s going to take weeks or months to figure out. And right now they can’t be wasting their time with that. The focus is getting the 2020 season decided.
I don’t know why they don’t bring in a mediator, Lock themselves in a room and hammer out a agreement.. They’re wasting precious time with proposals and taking days with a counter proposal.
Especially if owners won’t give the union any financial info. What do they have to lose
?
Not to mention that baseball has already started like 3 weeks ago in Korea and is near starting in Japan. No “health issues” are stopping them. MLB stoppage is solely about the money.
not about that. If they p**s the owners off the owners will giddily do a multi year lockout this offseason
That is funny. The owners are crying about losing 25%-33% of their revenue this season. You think they want to lose 100% of their revenue for multiple seasons? Seriously?
Also, realize that by Federal Labor Law, if the players are locked out during a CBA that they can go start their own league without the owners.
I am sure that’s what they will do, start a new league. It’s a lot more than 25%, but hey, anything to beef up your argument.
They won’t start their own league. Pay would be peanuts compared to this deal.
Yeah, that’s an option. Where are they going to play? College fields? Left over minor league fields? No matter where… no fans equals no money. Not going to happen
WTF are you talking about? If the players get together with a group of billionaires to start a new league after MLB locks them out for 2021 they will get their TV contracts for the new league and teams and will make all the same money that MLB makes now with the exception of MLB Advanced Media.
The vast majority of ballparks are not owned by the team owners. .They can be leased to a new team. There are other stadiums in almost all of those cities that would be happy to host a baseball team.
You and I pay those players. The owners just take a cut in the middle. We buy tickets and concessions and the things advertisers are hawking on the TV and radio broadcasts.
So the pay would be the same or close to the same.
See my last post.
For the owners any losses accrued can be written off. Can the players do that.? I think the owners can wait as long as they want.
Well to start off with you wouldn’t have teams in LA. both teams own their ballparks. Same with the Yankees. So right there the 2 biggest markets wouldn’t have a team.. Good luck on a TV contract. And the other teams are not getting the same billion dollar TV deals.. Especially with the talent pool you’ll be watching AAA players. Not Exactly Mike Trout and Gerrit Cole. Any player that plays in this new league can kiss his potential MLB career good bye
Well it’s not that simple.
If youre the owners and you lose more money playing games than you were going to lose not playing them, you just don’t play the game.
Fishy – I think the owners want to play even if the losses are higher because of media contracts and to avoid poor public perception.
Koamalu, with regard to your “owners-losing-25%-to-33%” comment, you are delusional. If they played half a season WITH fans they lose 50 %. If they also play without fans that would be a loss of 43% of the 50%. Doing the arithmetic that leaves owners with 28.5% of total revenue (out of 100%), or a loss of 72.5%..
And as for your earlier comments about players’ health risk, we’re at a greater risk going to the grocery store.
i think it wolnt be as bad as many think. these comment sections generally represent only those with strong opinions. i dont think the casual fan will protest when the game comes back in 2021.
I love baseball and will watch even if it takes 2 years to return. But don’t undervalue the casual fan. The 94 strike really hurt the sport and both sides should realize that’s mutually assured destruction.
Some would argue they needed steroids to re-inject excitement again.
1994 disagrees with you.
Steroids happened in 1998
If they don’t play, most of us if not all on this board will be back wearing our jersey and pumped for the 2021 season and what is happening now will be old news to us and would not care anymore since baseball is back. I know I would be one of those because in 1994 it did not change my love for the game and was back when the league was back. MLB got me hooked since I was a little kid and there is no way to cure it.
the causal fan who likes baseball but not deep into it which is a good amount of, the ones who think batting average and wins is the two biggest values in a player and say the team that recently won the World Series is their favorite team but cannot name all the players on that team will not come back which now I think about it, is a good thing. Nevermind.
I’m not sure. I love baseball. Go to lots of games. But merchandise, have MLB package subscriptions, cable etc. if they don’t play this year I know I will not spend a penny on any of it. I’ll watch games when they’re on tv for free- ESPN, Fox, etc. but I won’t spend a penny on mlb
Players will be fine. There are only a few thousand people on the planet with the talent to play the game at the MLB level. You can’t replace them.
The owners on the other hand will be crushed if they renege on an agreement they made on March 26 when they already knew that no fans would be in the stands for games in 2020.
This is 100% on the owners.
Renege on what … they agreed to pay 170M and they did… the rest is contingent on having a season or not. If they don’t agree the players get nothing this year other than service relative to the season or If no games are played, each player on the major league roster or injured list would receive major league service equaling what that player accrued in 2019.
here is the relevant report as to revenue …
“Both sides are digging in. Both sides have stumbled. Owners first made the gaffe of floating the idea of sharing revenues 50-50, but never actually made such a formal proposal. ”
No season no pay for any player is what is going to be the rule of thumb according to a emergency clause in those contracts.
WAIVER OF CLAIMS
The union waives claims to additional salary or service time.
usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2020/03/27/details-o…
Rosters turn over constantly. Plenty of players who, if they wear the MLB uniforms, are, per se, major leaguers. We’d miss big names for a while, but just as with injuries, retirements, and trades, we move on quickly.
What about the perception of the owners?
Exactly. It’s clear that the strategy of ownership is to shift blame to the players. Seems to be working.
People who are capable of thinking critically will think the players are justified in not wanting to get exploited by the owners by eating a greater percentage of the losses than the the owners potentially would. People who are incapable of thinking critically will undoubtedly blame the players as being spoiled and selfish.
So if people don’t agree with you, they are unable to think critically in your opinion. Interesting take.
The players have options. Lots of them. McDonald’s is hiring. Amazon as well. They can not play baseball and do something else. It’s they’re right
I would not blame the players solely. Do some people not realize that owners make tons & tons of money on TV contracts, team merchandise (hats, jerseys, etc), advertising/marketing in & around stadiums, etc? I know the owners will take a hit but I think they’re trying to capitalize on this issue a bit too much. If the owners weren’t greedy, baseball would already have a scheduled opening day.
Well they bend over for the draft and now decided the minors was worthless so let’s see how far they can be the scum they fight against. It’s sad enough that Snell talked down common folks and they defended his message. The owners are scum to begin with. Jeter tried stealing money from NY State claiming Yankee Stadium played 7 months of the year in Florida
The issues are simple.
MLB has many lawyers. MLBPA has many lawyers.
MLB talks to its owners. Players on MLBPA boards talk to their agents.
TONS of feedback on both sides. But nonetheless, the March agreement stipulated that good faith negotiations were required by both sides if games had to be played in front of empty stadiums, or, alternate venues.
Now, let’s look at things objectively. For any cancelled game to date, BOTH SIDES LOST.
Players didn’t get paid because THEY DIDN’T WORK – not because of some imagined paycut. Owners didn’t lock them out, it’s like a force majure contract provision. If there a war and no games got played there’s no pay either.
Owners have year-round overhead that goes beyond player salary. When 80 games aren’t played, half the earning opportunity to cover those expenses is straight up lost.
Pretend you are self employed, with a $2,000/mo mortgage. You don’t work 6 months, half your earning potential. That means effectively $4,000/mo for your remaining earning window goes toward that basic expense. BOTH owners and players are in this situation. But only one side thinks they need to budge, and it’s not the players from what’s been reported.
Let’s look at MLB at a whole. Even IF gates reopen, huge IF at this point, anyone who has had anything to do with a game knows certain games bring more revenue than others – tickets cost more and advertisers pay more if the yankees, red sox, dodgers, cardinals, cubs come to town then the padres, royals, mariners, etc. With the realignment, some clubs would better weather the financial challenges than others because of thay fact as well.
Finally, books are closed. But for those who don’t understand basic finance, there’s a term called ROI – return on investment. Guys/companies investing money expect a basic return which varies by investment type. Investments that are EASY to liquidate QUICKLY bring lower return. Investments that are STABLE and low risk bring lower return. An MLB club if it were something like commercial real estate, it’s closest approximation probably would command a 10-12% ROI, and that’s PER YEAR. so the 1 billion royals would expect a return of 100-120 million per season. You KNOW that’s not happening, regardless of the closed books.
Instead, pro sports teams are a status and prestige symbol as much as anything else. Like a big yacht, or fancy car. Think how much Illich sunk in the tigers beyond revenue every years seeking to bring a championship to the city, which, he unfortunately didn’t see…
Where’s all that going? Well, owners take a loss every year compared to where they could make money investing elsewhere. Even if you account for gains in valuation. Players and owners have taken losses already.
Both sides need to give. Players absolutely cannot expect to get paid their full wage for every game played under conditions where owners have to meet prorata 200% of non-player expenses out of single game revenue based on an 81 game season.
In that scenario, let’s say player salary is 60% of mlb expenses. 40% is fixed non-player costs. Use a round number, pretend that’s 162,000. In a normal mlb season, 1000 gets paid every game, 600 to players, 400 to fixed cost. We lost 81 games. Fixed costs are still there. So now, we need to pay 600 to players, 800 to fixed costs for each of 81 games. That’s 1400 instead of 1000.
But go a step further. Pretend revenue used to be 2000. If 40% of revenue is lost because tickets, parking, concessions, team stores make zero without fans, then teams now earn 1200, not 2000.
So to play the game the team owes 1400 in obligation, but takes in 1200? And that’s before sponsors and tv rights deals seek concessions based on losing premium match ups?
No you can see, if not necessarily agree with, why owners may feel justified that players need to give SOMETHING.
And in negotiations you start at the goalposts. If the owners started at the 50 yard line, and players at the goalposts, you don’t meet midfield.
Well if they get a look at every teams books, doesn’t this give the agents and players massive leverage in negotiating future contracts?
I’m In the camp that $6M is plenty of money when over 40M Americans are unemployed, and food lines in every city are becoming so long that freeway and roads have to shutdown.
These players don’t want to at least try to play?
This will ruin the sport worse than the 94-95 strike. Fans will never come back.
Just because these baseball players can’t be forced to crunch a bit in their personal life’s, it’s gross.
I can understand a $30 million dollar player not wanting to play for $6 million. Taking a massive pay cut like that to risk getting a severe case of COVID-19 does suck and probably isnt worth it. Owners always want to socialize losses and privatize gains which is hilarious and also how they became wealthy. The players are not without fault either. All in all, this is a prime example of the world today – people are greedy and money-hungry yet they dont know how to live within their means causing the greed to gradually get worse.
Throw…I don’t side with the owners, but it’s laughable to say earning 6 million while risk getting a “severe case of Covid” isn’t worth it. First off, it’s incredibly unlikely a baseball player will get severe symptoms even if they get it. Yes they can spread to others and I understand all of that…but come on, 40 million are unemployed and it’s not worth playing baseball for 6 million? Really?
I’m not saying I wouldn’t play for $6 million. That’s not the point. The point is playing for 17% of what you normally make and risk getting COVID-19 and also being away from your family. That isn’t exactly enticing. I think $6 million is more than enough for any athlete during a normal year. I do however understand the aspect of not wanting to take that large of a pay cut. I make $100k per year. There’s no chance I am going back to my office everyday for only $17k per year.
If you gave someone the chance to earn $6 Million for 4-5 months of work, you don’t get to see your family at the very least in the early stages and you might get COVID-19, a vast vast majority of Americans would jump on that. 6 million is more than some families will make in a lifetime, many would say it is worth the risk. I’m not saying players are right or wrong here, but the reality is that most Americans see it as greed. And comparing you going back for 17k isn’t an adequate comparison. The sliding scale is lower for people making lower, you can’t live well off 17k, you can easily live the rest of your life off 6 mill.
I recognize that $17k per year isnt enough to live off and $6 million definitely is. I am just saying that I understand the players not wanting to take a massive pay cut. As you said though, most aren’t taking that drastic of a pay cut. The fact is that owners and players both suck and it illustrates the greed in this world.
I think them taking any pay cut is ridiculous because salaries weren’t tied to revenue before, why should they be now? Players don’t have ownership in the team, so it’s not like they’re being paid in dividends. They’re an expense.
I wonder what the electric company would say if a team went to them and said “we’ll give you 50% of our electric bill because we’re playing games and running the stadium but we don’t have any fans so can’t pay you the whole amount.”
I’m with ThrowinChed. You have to think about it in terms of relevance to the specific person. $6M is a ton of money, no doubt, but when you’re used to making $20+ you’re comfortable for the rest of your life and don’t need the $6M for the potential issues it could cause. Especially if your making $20 a year you’ve been around a while and already have a bankroll and if smart, other investments. It’s the mid range and lower tiered guys I feel bad for.
Salaries have ALWAYS been tied to revenues. When MLB signed landmark TV deals, what happened? Salaries increased proportionally. Ticket prices increase and a percentage of that extra money is put back into players salaries as well. Just because they don’t open their books doesn’t mean salaries and expenses aren’t tied to overall revenues. They absolutely are, just as they are in the NFL, NHL & NBA.
It’s all relative. For many 100K is not nearly enough as well. Lifestyles are hard to change.
Who else is hiring baseball players and paying more than $6 million right now. If they want to go there…. let them.
Wait….. I don’t see any one hiring players to play ball in the US.
If salaries are tied to revenue, why have salaries been largely flat over the last 4 years while franchise valuations continue to explode? Not a single franchise is valued at less than a billion dollars, and yet there are teams with payrolls around $60M that are generating tons of revenue whether people come to the ballpark or not.
Check out the article that just came out about what Boras is saying. You can hate Boras all you want but it’s not exactly far-fetched to imagine that the owners are using their franchises as collateral for debt – to add more value to their franchise. Who wouldn’t do that? But obviously they’re getting caught with their pants down right now.
Salaries have of course increased over the years, but you seem to have forgotten why. It was because the union fought for it and they went on strike over it. If you think that ownership is so benevolent that the second they make an extra 5% return they turn around and give it to the players, you’re as high as you are naive.
ortsacnilrats – That’s all true, and I agree with you, but the amount isn’t the point. It’s not up to any else but the players themselves to decide what is right for them. They have just as much a right to their salary as you do yours. They have the added benefit of having a union (as do many other industries) who collectively fight for and defend those rights.
Once you start applying the standards of one person to another person’s situation, the whole thing falls apart. As I’ve said before, you can always find one person more fortunate than you and one person less fortunate than you – by your standards. The person you consider less fortunate may be perfectly content by their own standards, and that’s all that matters.
It’s not relative at all. Trying to make ends meet on minimum wage is hard. Adjusting spending so you can survive on “only” $100,000 for a year is slightly inconvenient.
Says the privileged American citizen with a computer/iphone and roof over their head. If you wrote that comment from a cardboard box on the street on someone else’s iphone I’ll eat my hat.
Do you have any idea how many people would literally kill or risk their life for a chance to make minimum wage in the US?
You know what’s harder than making ends meet on minimum wage? Making ends meet on skid row. Or making ends meet in a labor camp in China. Hopefully you can see by now that this sort of thinking just leads to a race to the bottom to determine who actually gets to defend what is rightfully theirs.
Johnnyg, what the heck is you’re point? Minimum wage and skid row are often the same. What the hell does a Chinese labor camp have to do with being poor in America? Because there people worse off I have pretend minimum wage is the same as MLB salaries? You’re talking nonsense and I’ve no idea where you’re coming from.
My point is it isn’t up to you or I to decide whether the players are justified in not accepting a pay cut. Saying that living on 100k is “mildly inconvenient” is relative to your standards.
The point of the Chinese labor camp is to illustrate the fact that while you may find minimum wage to be untenable, a person in that labor camp would love to be in that position. In other words, you can’t apply your standards to someone else’s situation.
So it’s not right to vilify the players simply because you or the average person believes $xx amount of dollars should be enough to live on. Your standard of what’s “enough” isn’t relevant!
The point here is the owners are attempting to mitigate their losses in off the field business ventures by cutting the players’ salaries. That’s not right. I don’t care how much the players were supposed to make.
If you are dead or a member of your family is dead, no amount of money is worth it.
You are obviously not a doctor. So don’t try to make pronouncements that about mortality that you clearly have no clue about.
That others are unemployed has nothing to do with the players getting paid what their contract says they are to be paid. Nothing at all.
There are about 1200 people out of 7 billion in the world at any one time that have the skill level to play baseball at the major league level. You simply cannot compare that to burger flippers being out of work. Any baseball player can flip burgers, not one burger flipper can play in MLB.
Players are not employees. They are investments.
I’m sorry but your assertion that one must be living in a cardboard box in order to consider their struggle bigger than that of a MLB player is absurd. Are they going to be evicted into the streets? It’s happened time while working full time but not making g enough to live. There is a huge difference between having to budget yourself on an amount of money well more than most folks make in years and being in danger of actual eviction or foreclosure. ( of there residence not their summer home) I can’t even believe we’re discussing this.
Using your logic, team owners that are used to getting $12.5 billion in revenue but only will be getting $8.5 billion is only a slight inconvenience.
So the owners should abide by the agreement they signed on March 26 to pay the players a prorated salary based on games played.
BTW, if you own a $10 million, 5,000 sq foot home that you bought because you had a guaranteed income of $20 million per season, your upkeep on the house alone in terms of mortgage, property taxes, utilities required landscaping may be well in excess of $100k per year. That does not include things like the personal trainer, personal chef, personal hitting or pitching instructor that every MLB player at that level employs. That probably amounts to another $250k per year.
So no, going from millions to hundreds of thousands is not just a slight inconvenience. Its a crushing blow.
Who mentioned anything about deaths? Not sure where that came from. My point is there is a difference between making not enough to live securely and thinking your worth more than you’re getting. Y’all are acting like there’s no such thing as poverty in this country. Being underpaid at <$30,000 a year is very different than a millionaire being “underpaid “. Again, I can’t believe this is even an issue. Yes, the working poor have tougher lives than MLB salaried players. Are you seriously gonna deny this?
Very risky, easily diminishing skills, and with guaranteed contracts.
“Players aren’t employees. They are investments.”
Employees are investments for companies.
Nobody is denying that. Let me try to simplify.
From your perspective:
$6M salary = very fortunate, easily able to take a pay cut. What do they have to complain about?
<$30k salary = extreme poverty, untenable situation, in danger of being evicted
From perspective of skid row denizen:
<$30k salary = paying job, a roof and four walls, danger of eviction or not = very fortunate. What do you have to complain about, at least you have a home and a chance!
From Wall St executive perspective:
$6M salary = Ha…peasant.
Fishy, owners have been caught lying to the P.A. numerous times. This time they should believe them? Ownership has proved they can’t be trusted.
Baseball1010….I fully agree, but that should be left for the next CBA…both sides are screening themselves here, if they don’t play this year because of money while 40 million don’t have jobs, they will do harm to the sport that will crush it for many years
And effect there own salaries for a very long time.
The “these guys are making millions so why are they complaining just play” argument is so tired and completely pointless.
You can always find someone more fortunate than you as well as someone less fortunate than you. The fact that you’re holding your phone with a roof over your head makes you more fortunate than AT LEAST half the world. By that logic, if you went to work tomorrow and were told you have to take a 90% pay cut because times are tough, you should take it without hesitation because you’re STILL wealthier than the people working for pennies a day in poor developing countries could ever dream of being, so just shut up and take it.
To call it greed is just lazy. Is it greedy for Americans to call for a higher minimum wage? By the standards of poor, developing countries it probably looks that way. Why don’t the players all just agree to play for the average US salary of $48k? Would that make everyone feel better about their own situation now that they’ve been brought down to an average level?
People tend to have an attitude of trying to pull the successful down to an average level “because they can afford it” instead of taking ownership of their own individual situations and striving to attain a higher level of achievement. Ironically it’s that attitude that keeps them average. I for one would be disappointed if the players caved.
Isn’t there a difference between the top 90 % and top 1?Shouldn’t it matter whether you are able to live off of it or not?
Not really because people have different standards of living that are based on too many factors to even list. Even the poorest 25% of Americans would be considered incredibly fortunate compared to the poor in other countries. Americans consider clean running water a right and necessity.
The poor in developing countries would consider that an incredible luxury. The isolated tribes scattered across the deserts and jungles live off of practically nothing compared to our standards. Ironically they’re probably happier than we are!
That’s why it’s a pointless and lazy position to take.
Top level players have big houses and many people on their staff’s. If you own a $10 million, 5,000 sq foot home that you bought because you had a guaranteed income of $20 million per season, your upkeep on the house alone in terms of mortgage, property taxes, utilities, insurance, required landscaping will most likely be well in excess of $100k per year. That does not include things like the personal trainer, personal chef, personal hitting or pitching instructor that every MLB player at that level employs. That probably amounts to another $250k per year. The agent gets 5% of the original contract amount. for a $20 million player that is $1 million per year. None of that includes food, car payments, health insurance, the cost to raise kids, etc …
What you can live off of is relative,
What you can maintain is different than what you can live off of. A downgrade from a mansion is still a good home… a downgrade from a minimum wage job is a lot worse.
And you realize if they don’t play that 20M player gets nothing for the year and is a year older next year and he won’t get a guaranteed 20 million extension at the end of his deal. hmmm I guess they should hold out and get nothing then?
How much players are paid is not based on how much you make or if you have a job. Its based on the value they create and the rarity of their skill level. They cannot be replaced.
Fans will come back. In fact I would bet that season ticket sales go UP in 2021.
The owners knew on March 26th when they signed the deal for prorated salaries for the players that the most likely scenario was that games in 2020 would be played with no fans in the stands.
The owners had floated several plans for playing games with no fans in the stands starting 3 weeks before signing that agreement for prorated salaries, so its obvious that they knew then. They can’t even try to claim they didn’t know.
They still signed the current deal with the players for prorated salaries weeks after they knew that no fans would be in the stands for games.
FishyHalo – “food lines in every city are becoming so long that freeway and roads have to shutdown.”
That is happening in every city? I’ve not seen that once where I live. Where are you seeing that happening as a standard occurrence instead of an isolated incident??
1st -100th guess – CNN
Why should the players be the ones to subsidize the owners
Went to my first game in 1962. Let me give some of you younger guys a piece of advice. Spend your time learning a 2nd language or learning useful mechanical/home craftsman skills. Spend time with loved ones and pets. Read. Forget about renewing satellite radio or MLB.tv. Forget about paying $35 for parking or $10 for a hot dog. Forget about hats and jerseys; you have enough.
Eventually high schools and colleges will resume playing along with youth baseball. Satisfy your jones there where the love of the game still reigns. Both sides of this mess DO NOT care about you or this country. They are obtuse, selfish jerks who do not appreciate their blessings. They have killed the golden goose. Sayonara.
i dont think people watch baseball to watch guys with a “love of the game.” most people care more about the talent level. i for one really dont care to watch anything seriously if it isnt a top level circuit. id watch MiLB or lower levels id they were on TV, but id be much less locked into those games.
yeah Ive often thought to myself if I could travel back and have a meeting with my young self I would say be very careful with sports, it is a giant life long time suck and emotion suck, its just entertainment but it wont feel like that and you may want to consider having no interest in it at all.
Great post. I have a friend who made a New Year’s resolution in 2000 to “quit sports”, or more specifically professional sports. It was laughable at the time because up to that point he was one of the most consummate sports nuts you’d ever meet. He had gotten married and become a father over the two years prior and wanted to focus more on family and career, and really sat down and quantified the amount of time and money he invested into being a sports fan, especially baseball which he loved and played through college. He likened it to quitting smoking, which he’d done years before. He nevertheless was active in his children’s sports activities, and was a coach on his son’s knothole team. He doesn’t hate sports and still loves baseball, but doesn’t follow it. We golf a couple times a year and I fill him in on the game here and there, but you can tell he’s so far beyond it he doesn’t give a s***. Anyway, through all of these recent societal and economical struggles I’ve been thinking more myself about what really absolutely matters, bettering myself as a man and father, learning new skills, and discovering that I still have a massive hunger to absorb information. How much of my life has daily sports occupied? And most importantly, what can I do to help my friends and family right now, some of whom are seriously struggling. I’m struggling a bit too, we all are, except maybe these culprits who, most of them, have more funds in their accounts than any of us would see in twenty lifetimes. The standoff that’s smoldering right now is leaving a bad taste in my mouth, and if these men who lead lives of absolute privilege can’t put aside their seven figure differences to play some minor part in providing some much needed distraction, then that taste may not so easily fade, and maybe I’ll kick the habit too.
You sir have your feces coagulated.
I’m basically echoing your sentiment.
Why cant he follow sports without being consumed by it? I love the Angels but it doesn’t run my life. He cant watch a game on TV once a week or when he has some down time? Sports or any form of entertainment is good for a persons well being. I’m assuming he was betting on games
OK, Boomer.
Walnuts – Why is calling someone a “Boomer” even a thing? Is that supposed to be an insult, and if so, how is it an insult? BTW, I’m not a Boomer, just curious cuz I see that a lot on here.
They are who we thought they were.
Here’s a proposal:
Cancel the season.
Youre obviously a rich team like the yanks
Why would the Yankees want to cancel the season. On paper, they are one of the favorites to win it all. Also, they invested in Cole and want the player they paid for now not at some later point.
It seems more likely the junky teams with large contracts would like to get a breather on paying guys who no longer perform. However, even they may be worse off since they lose a year of developing young players (not to mention service time).
its like this. my team didn’t try for cole, stras, rendon. it only has windows that it tries to win, which is egregious to me. if 3-5 years are lost because of this, they instantly sell again
@kreckert, you e been saying the same comment over and over again, and WE GET IT: you’re a self-hating fan, so get over it and stay out of a sport you don’t even like.
I know, he’s one of the most annoying posters here. He must be a Baltimore fan.
Astros lucked out.
No one will care about their crimes next year
I don’t blame the players who are asked to take huge cuts without seeing any documentation regarding revenue loss. The owners will see dramatic valuation drops if no season occurs. Do 100 games with a 20% cut and deferrals. It really isn’t rocket science.
If the owners aren’t going to open up their books then why should the union renegotiate?
to prevent a 3-5 year stoppage
How would that cause a 3 to 5 year stoppage?
Because once the books are opened the players and the union will draw their own conclusions on how much teams can afford to pay players. And that alone will dictate players salaries. Very bad things will come of opening books.
heater – I agree that the owners are not obligated to open their books to the players. I still don’t know how anyone can assign a specific 3 to 5 year shutdown of baseball if it happened. That seems like an arbitrary speculation…that’s all.
What part of “private business” do you not understand? Public companies (stocks) file reports for all to see. Companies that don’t want public investors keep it to themselves. It certainly gives them an advantage when negotiating. However, the lack of transparency comes at a cost, as we see here.
If their argument is that the salaries are too costly, why should the union take their word on it?
I think the 81/100 offer from the players is incredibly reasonable.
I’ve read comment repeatedly defending ownership for running a business, taking a profit etc which is also entirely reasonable. It is wise to retain some of this profit in liquidity.
Sooner or later your business will take a hit. I appreciate the players costs and the fans revenue stream as income aren’t even numbers, but billionaires should and will have liquid assets for contingencies like this, just like ALL of us try to plan for the unforeseen.
Since when does running a business mean you post a profit every single year? The owners have been making more than their fair share the last 5 years. Time to see some of the risk that comes with owning a business that requires 40,000 people to show up every 1-2 days….
“The owners have been making more than their fair share the last 5 years.”
How do you know, Sbay22?
The fact that a small market team like the Royals sold for $1 billion should be a hint that the owners aren’t struggling to make a profit.
Sbay22 – “The owners have been making more than their fair share the last 5 years.”
What would you set their “fair share” amount at? Why is being rich considered bad? I’ve never worked for a poor guy.
So do away with the draft, any sort of salary cap, and any sort of control years? Each side makes what it can in a completely free market?
Everything in this comment is fine except for the liquid assets part. Few companies, let alone baseball teams, have the amount of cash you are suggesting one hand. Where Apple has roughly $207 billion on hand, it is a publicly traded company and worth about $1.3 trillion. This is about 15% of cash relative to value. Few companies keep that much cash. Some companies are even face serious cash flow issues such as Tesla.
.
The owners are claiming that they will lose nearly $4 billion by playing games without fans. Roughly $130 million per team. With an average value of $1.6 billion and rising even with the lockdown, the teams certainly have the ability to cover the loss. They don’t have to have the money liquid to cover that, just some of it. Any organization with revenue of $400+ million and a value of $1.6 billion that has billionaires as the owners has the ability to borrow to cover losses that would be temporary.
Even I have been able to borrow money to cover my losses during this situation so that I could continue paying my employees for the limited hours they are working.
forbes.com/sites/mikeozanian/2020/04/09/despite-lo…
Agreed, the owners should save for these scenarios. But just to stem off future complaints: this means that it’s advisable for ownership to be frugal in Free Agency. especially with 5+ year commitments.
Note to players….if you don’t play, you will also get a prorated salary….0 %!
And the owners get 0 revenue if they refuse to let the players play. It’s a 2-way street.
And the owners getting zero is much better than them losing tens of millions.
the unknown – how much will owners lose if there are zero games on TV? The losses may well be much greater if there are no TV revenues.
They were never in danger of making negative revenue. They left out billions of revenue in that proposal. Stop believing everything billionaires tell you. They do not a have your best interest at heart.
los olney – Why are rich people always assumed to be bad? How have you been wronged by a billionaire since you sound like you have experience?
But the owners can withstand that. Most of the players can’t.
They know that.
They won’t get zero dollars. They’ll get their portion of the $170MM advance payout which was agreed to back in March. It’s not much compared to what they’d have earned in a normal or even prorated season, but it’s not nothing either.
Yea… but that money ran out last week, so the players get nothing more unless they come to an agreement.
That money runs out May 31st.
Say what you will about the owners or players, this is still a business. No one operates a business to lose money, and no one works to make less than they think they’re worth. The players will have to blink first. If there is no season, they won’t be paid, but the owners would rather have no income than lose money. No one has to like it. It’s just business.
The owners will still lose money even if there’s no season – there are other expenses beyond salaries that cannot be avoided.
Which is why they don’t want to pay the players what their counter offer is.
It’s sad that this was all forced on the League and players and nothing they did themselves. Perhaps they should go to their state and local governments and exercise their 5th Amendment rights.
Great, one of these guys. Yes, the government tried to keep people safe. We need to go protest.
No, I’m not “one of those guys.” But there is a common law argument to be made regarding just compensation and the takings clause. Moreover, there are severe equity issues where government forced some sectors to close and not others.
So, keep your politics out of it. Let the big boys concentrate on the legal discussions.
If the choice for an owner is to not play a season and lose $20Mil or to play a season with pro rated salaries and lose $40Mil, it’s more attractive to cancel. Maybe the owners are just lying about the numbers to save on player salaries or the economics for a fanless season are ugly. Hard to say what the actual numbers are w/o the books.
That tactic does not work in the long-term when owners feel a backlash for cancelling a season. They do not want that.
if the owners cancel the season cause of moneythe players will sue in court and win.
You are absolutely right, just here for the comments. The owners haven’t been successful by making bad business decisions. Players are like the rest of us, should have a rainy day fund to sustain through any downtime.
@toooldtocare
“Players are like the rest of us, should have a rainy day fund to sustain through any downtime.”
But owners aren’t like the rest of us, don’t need a rainy day fund and shouldn’t have the contingency fund which you are extolling for the common man?
Just because you own something – and it once made a profit for you – doesn’t mean you have the right to profit from it ad infinitum.
@A’sfaninLondonUK, I was merely relating players to employees. In my 41 years in the energy business, I knew I was responsible for my own financial situation. Unless contractually obligated, and even then could be litigated, owners like employers have no legal responsibility to do anything other than what is under contract. Now, if you throw in moral responsibility, then whatever they add is strictly voluntary.
@just here for the comments
Have you just seriously written “the owners would rather have no income than lose money?”
I could agree that they might lose less money by not playing, but either way, no income will result in loss, no?
The owners knew on March 26th when they signed the deal for prorated salaries for the players that the most likely scenario was that games in 2020 would be played with no fans in the stands.
The owners had floated several plans for playing games with no fans in the stands when spring training was cancelled which was weeks before signing that agreement for prorated salaries, so its obvious that they knew then. They can’t even try to claim they didn’t know.
They still signed the current deal with the players for prorated salaries after they knew that no fans would be in the stands for games.
If the owners signed a deal stating ‘pro-rated salaries with no fans’ the PA would have leaked that to public. There just wasn’t any such deal.
Exactly. I even read the clause ( though it’s a bit vague) that’s gives the owners the right to renegotiate if games are played without fans.
just do the deferred money for the ammount of games they play and be done with it. that is a great compromise proposal. maybe backload the deferrals more for the more experienced players (who really shoudlnt complain when they get their multi-millions, as long as they do)
Deferred money is just a salary reduction by another name unless you believe inflation will be 0 and you would have an investment return of 0 over the period of deferment..
Owners should offer to pay players a % based on however much % they actually receive in revenue compared to their 2019 totals.
Ticket sales, concessions sales, souvenir sales, etc arent being made this year.
If players want to play 110 games that’s fine. But pro rated salaries don’t make much sense if fans aren’t coming to games. Part of paying players is to attach fans to the stands.
im sure if owners were to prove they are making x% of their normal profits this year, then players would take x%, but if they wolnt open their books there is no reason to believe they are making only x% and not y or z%.
That would require them to open their books which they will not do
That isn’t an option because the owners won’t open their books, and even if they did, they would argue over what is shareable revenue.
There isn’t time for that now, anyway.
The owners knew on March 26th when they signed the deal for prorated salaries for the players that the most likely scenario was that games in 2020 would be played with no fans in the stands.
The owners had floated several plans for playing games with no fans in the stands when spring training was cancelled which was weeks before signing that agreement for prorated salaries, so its obvious that they knew then. They can’t even try to claim they didn’t know.
They still signed the current deal with the players for prorated salaries after they knew that no fans would be in the stands for games.
The owners should uphold their end of the agreement they already made.
You have posted the same thing about 5 times now, but keep ignoring the relevant language:
“…the Office of the Commissioner and Players Association will discuss in good faith the economic feasibility of playing games in the absence of spectators or at appropriate substitute neutral sites”.
Yes, both sides recognized the issue of economic feasibility with no fans. And, they agreed to discuss that in good faith. I don’t know why you keep insisting this isn’t an open issue in light of this language.
Until the owners open the books, I’m going to support the players on this one. The players have earned their contracts and there’s no reason for them to take a pay cut on contracts they’ve agreed to. Players are assets. They are not employees. Owners invest in players in order to put a product on the field to generate revenue.
If having fans accounted for a big enough percentage of the revenue that the players are being asked to take that much of a pay cut then Tampa Bay, Miami, Pittsburg wouldn’t exist
Those franchises have famously low player payrolls.
One of a few reasons why none of these teams top $100m payroll very often.
I can understand folks not being too sympathetic to the player (millionaires playing a kids game etc.) – however the League is being disingenuous – not sharing the whole financial picture.
Hard to cry being poor and losing money if you do not present the whole picture
I can understand the players skepticism about the owner’s losses and their position about full negotiated salary prorated for the reduced season.
However, they need to open their eyes to the world outside of baseball. Hospitals (including very good ones like the Mayo Clinic, Stanford, and U Washington) are unilaterally cutting pay on contracted staff – not just ones sitting at home with closed clinics and no elective procedures, but the ones on the front lines caring for COVID patients in ERs and ICUs. There is no negotiation, demands to see the books, or refusal to work.
As front line medical care workers have to take a cut in contracted pay because of the economic crisis, it does not stand to reason baseball revenue won’t suffer without a gate and day of game sales. As a life long Mariners fan I hope some sort of season can be played, but as a front line medical care worker, I think there are larger concerns in society besides this disagreement between MLB and the players.
So if the owners don’t need to open their eyes to the reality of being a front line medic, why should the players?
I see your point but your argument isn’t valid. A baseball player didn’t choose baseball to cure the sick (despite the histories of – for example – the Jimmy Fund) and in the same way my sister didn’t become a psychiatrist in order to traverse the green monster.
You’re absolutely right that there are (always) larger concerns in society, and it is an outrage that contracted healthcare workers in “regular healthcare/surgeries” are losing money – a sick joke that they are paying twice.
I don’t understand – or have misunderstood – the subservience towards billionaire ownership because I can’t see an Andrew Carnegie amongst them. Can you?
The owners claim that they’ll lose money for every incremental regular season game with pro rated salaries and no fans. The players offer is to play more games. There is no middle ground forming on this one. Unless they take 82 game salaries for 100 games, which wouldn’t be pro rated.
Maybe they could televise 80 games to a large group of penguins on a 1000 mile treck back to their young that dont have cable or satellite TV? I would recommend they have a lot of fish commercials.
Or better yet maybe we could play the games in Greenland or Antarctica where the COVID death rate is very low and labor is non existent.
who cares anymore. hockey and basketball are starting up in a month.
MLB is trying to figure out a way to get fans paying to watch these games- besides the regular revenue. They both are money hungry
Typical collective bargaining negotiations other than all of the information being “leaked.” Bottom line: MLB, players, Union, and agents want a season to be played — SHOW ME THE MONEY! They will find a middle ground — there is too much at stake to wipe out the 2020 season.
Where was that picture of Tony Clark above taken? Looks like a Food and Grain store where they sell Purina Chow.
Why don’t they do prorated salary based on games played less the percentage of stadium revenue/total revenue. That seems fair to me if there’s no one at the games.
The owners are not opening their books. They are giving some information, but not all. Why would the players believe that the owners are telling the truth when they won’t show the players the numbers?
Travis Sawchik’s concept of paying the players in an 81-game schedule (half their salaries), but playing 100 games sounds like a reasonable meeting ground for negotiations. Owners are going to allow the season to be cancelled if they will lose more playing games than cancelling. Players aren’t going to accept a 69% pay cut (about where the owners are). There is going to have to be a middle ground or we won’t have a season.
That is not acceptable. Why? For reasons I mentioned earlier. 1:,Safety. If players like Blake Snell do not want to play 82 games because of safety then why play more? Unless it is really about more money. Football. I mentioned in Tampa Bay the choice is Rays/Orioles or Brady and the Buccaneers. What do people think the most people will choose? Same for Kansas City, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Dallas, Baltimore, Detroit, and San Francisco. Basically every city except maybe New York, LA, Boston and St Louis.
But all kidding aside this confrontation has been coming for a long time. The sport of baseball will go on. It’s just a matter of when and who plays and how much money everyone gets. It’s sort of like the joke what do you call a period of time in history when everyone is puzzled? Strumped.
The owners knew on March 26th when they signed the deal for prorated salaries for the players that the most likely scenario was that games in 2020 would be played with no fans in the stands.
The owners had floated several plans for playing games with no fans in the stands starting 3 weeks before signing that agreement for prorated salaries, so its obvious that they knew then. They can’t even try to claim they didn’t know.
They still signed the current deal with the players for prorated salaries weeks after they knew that no fans would be in the stands for games.
They have no excuse. Now they are just being greedy.
They are asking the players to take all the physical risk AND take on more than half the financial pain.
The owners have more to lose by not having a season. The players take on more risk BY playing.
If the owners will abide by the contract they ALREADY signed, then we will have baseball. That may mean the players salaries are deferred into 2021 and beyond, but they players are either going to get the money that the owners agreed to in March or there won’t be any baseball in 2020.
Either way, all the blame for this situation falls on the shoulders of the owners.
If the players plan is 120 games ( as proposed by Scott Boras) ( thus more money for players then the March Agreement ) with no playoffs, that is wrong, and the guilt meter shifts from 90% guilt owners to 50/50 both. The original deal was fair to both sides, but now both sides are trying to take advantage and get extra things advantageous for them, and with more than 100,000 people dead on this county and millions out of work they are both wrong.
That is Scott Boras’ plan, not the players.
The issue is the owners reneging on an agreement they made with FULL knowledge that games would most likely not be played in front of fans in 2020.
An agreement they signed after they had floated several plans for playing games with no fans in the stands for weeks prior to signing it.
The owners have no excuse for trying this heavy handed BS now. .
They knew it was likely, but was that the agreement? No, it was -seemingly-only if there were fans. Honestly, if the players are so sure in their interpretation of it, why not take it to the courts?
The owners KNEW that there would probably not be fans in the stands for games in 2020 since spring training was cancelled and in the weeks prior to signing the agreement with the players on March 26th the owners/MLB/Manfred put out several plans for playing games with no fans in the stands.
The agreement the owners signed had no contingency for lower salaries in it if the games were played in the way the owners KNEW they would have to be played.
The agreement is up on May 31st. The players have no reason to “take it to court”. They just do not have to agree to play for less money than they agreed to in that contract. Period.
Does anyone else suspect that a lot of this stalling might be somehow attributed to the cable/streaming networks coercing ownership to string things along? Think about it, the second they cancel the season millions of viewer subscriptions are instantly dropped. I know outlets like MLB.tv will give you a full refund, but you can’t exactly tell your cable provider that the only reason you have them is for your local team’s games and expect to get your money back.
I have MLB TV ( yearly contract) and I am asking for my money back real soon.
yeah I’ve set a June 10th deadline, basically seven days before my bill is due. If nothing is decided by then my cable is toast one way or another. My wife wants me to haggle with them because they’re our internet provider as well, maybe we can catch them on their heels and get cable for dirt cheap for several months.
Why wouldn’t you just ask for your refund now and then rebuy it when/if the season actually starts. That’s what I did. Cancelled back in March. Then again that’s right when my renewal date was so maybe your tying your decision to that as well?
Imagine that you own a business that’s only open 162 days a year. If that business stays closed for all 162 days you still have expenses to pay of $1M. Because of reduced revenue, if you open, you won’t make a profit, but it will cost you an additional $25K a day. Would you open? Probably not. You’d just stay closed until next year and hope things are back to normal.
Many restaurants choose to not reopen in a lot of areas. With the 25-50% capacity rules….. they would not make enough money to be profitable being open. They chose to wait to reopen
I saw a comment above theorizing players could start their own league if there was a CBA lock out. This is a really interesting idea considering the economics of the game. Very few teams actually own their stadiums. Owners have been loathe to invest their own money into stadium projects because it hamstrings owners’ ability to threaten to move the team in future negotiations and puts a strain on short term cash flows.
It would be pretty fun to see an article investigating the creation of an entirely new league using the existing publicly owned stadiums and how that might look or how the threat of that might look.
That is very possible. See the NCAA and Power Five Conferences and their possible divorce. The way it would happen is the “Haves” Yankees, Dodgers, Red Sox, Cubs, Nationals, Mets, Giants, Cardinals, Angels and White Sox would break away and leave the “Have Nots” like the Rays, Pirates, Orioles, Indians and A’s behind. Teams like the Reds and Padres would fall in the middle with their status to be determined. Guess what? That is what will likely happen in Minor League Ball with contraction:
It would likely be a league with 100% revenue sharing and entirely new TV contracts. The TEAMS would be gone with new teams being formed. That would be the outcome of a lockout in 2021 by the owners.
If they start a new league, who’s gonna pay them to play?
You will. Same as it is now.
Through TV contracts the new league gets and through ticket sales in 2021 and beyond.
That’s not even remotely how it works. All businesses need the capital to start up. So much of this nonsense is based on some very odd misunderstanding of simple economics. Gotta live in the real world. Can’t have a business without an owner and capital.
Doubt they could lease the stadiums. The owners own the leases.
Doubt they could come up with the TV contracts, etc.
Doubt they have the capital do it.
Lawsuits would stop it from happening.
Baseball would be dead.
I will never side with the owners. Ever. Even the Black Sox actions were somewhat justified when you look at how they were treated by ownership. I just hope the players are looking out for the lower paid guys which it seems like they are.
My 2 cents: I side with the players. The players and owners signed contracts prior to Covid that should be honored. The fact that the players have already stepped up and given the owners prorated salaries is more than enough give from the MLBPA. It’s time for the owners to step up and honor the players wishes for stringent health and safety protocols to protect players and staff and their families. Once that’s done the owners just need to bite the bullet and start the season.
I have been a die hard baseball fan for almost 60 years. If the owners and players don’t come together…and soon…I will never return.
Doctors, nurses, first responders and other volunteers, ran headlong into NYC and other hot spots…for free…to help fellow citizens.
If these self entitled a holes can’t figure out a way to split up billions of dollars amongst themselves then I have no room in my life for any of them.
I will be happy to support another industry instead of spending my hard earned dollars on them.
dsid, who’s kidding who? You’ll be back next year with a smile on your face.
no I’m right there with him. It took me about 10 years to come back after ’94. If the league hasn’t learned from that, especially at a time like this then they don’t deserve fans’ hundreds to thousands of dollars a year. I’ll support my nephew’s little league team and a couple of the local colleges and try to follow my alma mater more closely. Like once you know how to cook for yourself restaurants become overpriced and overrated.
If the players agree to take an implied 17% reduction of their pro-rated salaries (by playing more games and driving more TV revenue), I think the owners will seriously consider this. About 35% of team revenues are tied to stadium income (tickets, parking, concessions and in park merchandise sales), so this 17% proposal appears to split the losses 50/50. The only unknown is whether or not TV revenues are guaranteed. TV stations are struggling to find advertisers and sponsors for games so if TV revenue comes down then this is probably a no-go for the owners unfortunately. Also, there will need to be a concession that if games are canceled due to COVID breakouts then pay gets proportionally reduced as well. Let’s hope we can get there and see some baseball this season!
Considering all the back and forth in regards to the March agreement, I’d hazard a guess that even if the two sides DO come together and compromise, the document that will be drawn up will very specifically spell out the consequences for any “what if” scenario they can imagine. I’d hazard a second guess that this will take more than a few hours…
TV station revenue is way up right now. Go try to buy advertising and you will see its much higher right now than it was this time last year.
If games are cancelled due to COVID-19, the owners need to eat the money and pay the players. The PLAYERS are taking the health risk of playing.
You and I are at greater risk going to the grocery store.
If they wait until NFL camps get underway, no one will care, myself included. Time’s almost up, MLBPA.
If you didn’t care and care a lot you would not be here commenting.
#yaketymac
I have been a MLB fan for 50 years and love the game like all of us.
50 years does not make my opinion better but just old, ha ha
The only reason I mention it is that if the players don’t play this season when the country needs a distraction more than anytime in my life then the hell with all these players, the hell with them!
“League owners have contended that losses without fans in attendance could be so great that it’s not worth playing games if players are paid at prorated levels.”
So, the owners would rather lose billions in franchise value rather than absorb a short term loss….?
No chance. Call that bluff and laugh.
Baseball is already facing a demographic cliff. A lost season could push it right over.
The owners know this, but are trying to get anything and everything they can. The players see this, which is why they are telling them to get lost.
If those franchises lose a bunch of value that means future player salaries will as well.
If anyone reads the comments of Scott Boras you get the opinion that both Blake Snell and Max Scherzer are parrots of Boras which makes me wonder if Tony Clark has any power to negotiate a contract, ( that both sides can live with its even if they do not like it) or is he simply a puppet.
Interesting to hear “open the books” to the union and comparing it to other sports; however, one crucial item is being missed and that’s those other sports have a salary cap. If the union wants to see what’s in those books it would cost agreeing to a salary cap, which I don’t see the players agreeing to. They’d want both the books and no salary cap.
The simplest solution is a salary cap and a salary floor. But neither Boras or the Oakland A’s want that ( for different reasons of course).
The only possible way to have either a cap or a floor is to have 100% revenue sharing. Do you think that the Yankees who have $400 million more in revenue per year than the Rays, Pirates, Marlins, or A’s would be willing to give up a few hundred million a year? Yeah, I don’t either.
The other things the other sports have is a national TV contract and 100% revenue sharing.
In baseball most of the revenue for teams comes from local TV contracts and visiting teams do not get half of ticket sales and none of the other local revenue such as concessions, parking, TV advertising money, and in stadium sponsorship.
50/50 revenue split = a salary cap. That is what the MLB owners asked for and were laughed out of the room about. The owners still would not open the books. They just wanted the MLBPA to trust them.
I would challenge Boras to actually sit down with the Commissioner and have a give and take about realistic ideas that will help players and owners alike, and take the time to listen to the concerns. of the other side. Why? While it is true, there is no game without players, there is also no game without owners and fans.
100% agree with you Yankee. It’s economic suicide to not believe there’s ever a tipping point. Eventually they’ll have to come together, but will that be too late. Just as I’ve seen comments about letting some teams go under. Does anybody really want to see smaller markets die, least of all the union who would then lose jobs. You hit it though, super agents like Boras are really running the show and the union execs are merely figureheads.
This is gonna be a mess for a while.
Without the billionaire owners, the players have no one to sign the grossly high amounts they signed for. So yes there is no game without the players. There also is no money being paid to them without the owners..Both sides have to come to a fair agreement . Scott Boras is a pig, great negotiator , he knows it goes hand in hand here
The only way to deal with Boras is by playing hardball. A rare time Boras admitted he was surprised was over Gerrit Cole. Before the Winter Meetings the Yankees came across country and demanded to meet with Boras and Cole in Boras’s Office. That is something he does not like doing ( he prefers playing waiting games and having others do the negotiating).. But the Yankees meant business and later on made him do up the contract himself ( he and Hal Steinbrenner battled man to man), to get it done. Although he got Cole a great contract you could tell Boras was not happy at the signing. Why? Because the Yankees dictated to him and not the usual Boras sets the terms:What is the point? It is not about finance with Boras it is about control:
Bull. Boras made the Yankees come to his office where he always meets with teams. That way they are on HIS turf.
The Winter Meetings were in Boras’ back yard. His offices are in Orange County and the Winter Meetings were in San Diego, 90 miles away..
Watch the video of the Cole signing presser. Boras was ecstatic. He just made more money than you will in a lifetime. youtube.com/watch?v=d53dSwh0KLA
You really are clueless.
You and I and the TV networks pay the owners who pay the players salaries after taking their cut of OUR money. Owners are easily replaced. Most don’t even own the ballparks their teams play in. You and I do.
Players are irreplaceable. There are only a couple thousand people on the planet with that level of skill in the sport.
You can bet that more than a few billionaires will step up to help start a new league if these owners are dumb enough to continue to strong arm the players and lock them out in 2021.
One of the most revealing things about Scott Boras cane from Zack Britton. Britton was ( and still is) a Boras client. When Britton was cleaning out his locker, he ran into Brian Cashman and he said “You may not believe me but I want to come back.” He talked to Boras and said he likes the Yankees and wants to return. Boras said if you go somewhere else, you out can go to the Hall of Fame. Britton said I do not think I can. He ended up of course, returning.,The point is if Boras would lie to his own client, it shows he cannot be trusted.
Anybody who thinks the agents are looking out for the player is not thinking realistically. In Boras’ case it’s always been about himself. This is why I love what some hockey players do and negotiate for themselves. They know what they want, and I’m sure have financial and legal representation to advise. They may get less on paper but when you figure out the fees agents charge they end up ahead financially and in peace of mind. Watching agents never made sense to me when one looks at it logically-the players end up working and being subservient to the agent vice the agent working for his client. Britton is a good example and there are many more out there.
Anyone who believes that players don’t hire agents on a voluntary basis isn’t thinking realistically. You may not like Scott Boras, and I may not like Scott Boras, but clearly lots of athletes do and hire him just the same, and it probably isn’t because he has collections of compromising photos of them.
Voluntarily perhaps but the pressure that is forced on them to do so is immense. If you don’t your not one of the club. Further, just like any predator, agents will strike at the weak points. There’s a lot of things humans do voluntarily that may or may not be in their best interest. If an MLB player tried to avoid this well entrenched process there’d be a price to pay.
The big point is the agent-client paradigm has gotten so ridiculously skewed when the player works for the agent as opposed to the other way around. Hence agents are now running the whole thing and the union is just a figure head. Whether I like Boras or any agent is neither here nor there.
Yeah, they’d pay a price, in lower salaries. This is why they hire agents, not out some mysterious form of peer pressure. You can keep repeating the idea that the players now work for the agents but that won’t make any truer and it sure won’t make it more logical. I mentioned Boras because you mentioned Boras. He’s the agent everybody loves to hate. Except for the players, and if they do, they have lots of other choices in hiring an agent.
Cherry-picking in there, and not looking at my whole post, but that’s okay. Ultimately without saying it, it was said …. in reality the owners are negotiating with the agents through the figurehead that is the union.
I still don’t get your point. It’s abundantly clear to me at least that the MLBPA is both responding to and making proposals to the owners over how or if this season is played, and several of the players who are involved with these negotiations have made public statements without having to clear them with their agents. So has Boras, in his usual look-at-me way, but it seems even some of the players close to these talks would like him to put a sock in it.
I give up.
Just bag the season and we can see how things look next year.
Im not understanding, a bunch of players are concerned about their safety with an 80 game schedule that was prposed but they are going to counter with a 100 game season?
Play a 100 game season to get more pay, thats ok. But play less games with a cut in pay and they are concerned with thier safety. Hmmmmmm…
I am all for 100 games, let’s get this thing done.
One thing being lost in all of this is that the fans really hold the power. Without the fans, there are no owners and no players. So I would advise those parties to not pi** off the fans by protractedly arguing over money at a time when so many are hurting. Said differently, I dare the owners and players to cancel the season. Go ahead and see what happens.
Just to put a little perception here
If there were no ramifications for them would minor league players come up to play?
Owners need to open the books. Enough with 1916 tactics.
Just get a deal done. 82 game or 100 games. I dont care. I’m hoping to go to wrigley field for a cubs game in late August I want baseball
Being completely honest about the MLBPA, even if the “books” are open I don’t see any one of the members able to interpret the subtleties. There’s a hell of a lot more to it than reading the profit and loss statement.
They need a competent financial advisor in their corner. They need this person to run cash flow analyses on the individual franchises, which picks up where the P & L leaves off in that it shows organization’s ability to meet monthly or yearly debt requirements.
Finally, a great starting point for all of the required information is Forbes. All that is lacking from that site is terms of each franchise’s deb, as total debt principal amount is available. Having been in business for a few decades, banks or financial institutions generally don’t lend for longer than seven years. So some enterprising financial analysts could approximate debt service requirements of the teams by merely averaging things at five years. There is so much posturing right now I doubt anyone on MLBPA’s side has even gotten that far.
I’m sure they’ve gotten much further along than that. These are billion dollar negotiations. Nobody walks into them chewing bubble gum and saying aw shucks. The real main event here isn’t 2020, it’s 2021 and beyond. The players know they are seeing a declining share of game’s revenues, a trend they want to reverse. The way they do that isn’t by looking at Forbes and estimating, it’s by getting into the real books where they will find the real numbers. The resistance of the owners to giving them that look pretty much tells the entire story.
The Forbes numbers provide the closest to the “real books” that anyone will get. And for a franchise such as the Braves, who are publicly owned, It would probably be the real deal.
Because it was the Braves I did cash flow analysis on them. Their total debt as of the end of 2019 was $378,000,000. Amortizing at 5% a.p.r. over 5 years shows an annual debt service of $ 85 million per year. Their operating income was $ 92 million leaving a net positive cash flow of only $ 7 million. So the Braves are not “rolling in dough”, so to speak.
The point is, the pertinent data is mostly available. No privately-owned business, as is the case with most of the other franchises, is not going to “open their books”.
What MLB needs is a salary structure. You’re not currently seeing this garbage with the NHL, NFL, or NBA. The problem with MLB is the system, or lack thereof.
No, the closest to the “real books” that anyone will get are the “real books” kept by the team owners. You (and Forbes) can estimate until the cows come home and still not be closer than the general neighborhood. The teams can have any number of other sources of income, from partnerships, to licensing, to real estate, etc. that you can’t include in your numbers because they are not known.
We also don’t know how much media revenue the teams are losing on a per-game basis so it is fundamentally a guess (and probably a very wrong guess) to assume that if half of the games are played they lose half of their revenue. It will vary by the teams and the terms of their individual media deals, which we don’t know. The solution to this is for the teams to disclose enough of their revenue picture to build some level of trust between ownership and players. They only have to do this if they want to avoid another round of labor unrest that could finish off the game for good. Otherwise, they can just keep on doing what they’ve been doing.
I do agree on the need for structural change, not just in salaries but in other areas. Looking at how poorly other problems have been handled recently I don’t see the owners being able to agree on anything of any substance. This is the source of baseball’s problems.
And some of those other sources of income are sources owners are entitled to by virtue of taking the personal risk of being in business. These guys personal guarantees are all over everything they do. And default on the basis of personal guarantee means potential loss of personal assets.
It’s business and business is always about risk versus reward. If they are willing to risk it all their collective rewards should be great. It’s their reward for taking high risk.
Whether they are “entitled” to it or not is irrelevant. The point is ownership is playing hide the pickle on revenues, and expecting the players to go along. We know that isn’t going to happen, so what is the point?
The Texas governor has approved outside sports with fans but includes limitations. The Astros and Rangers would have to play with the roof open.
At this point, I am doubtful there will be a 2020 season. Of course, there is still a chance. Hope a compromise gets worked out. If not, the Cincinnati Reds still did well this past winter trying to build a playoff team for 2020. I give them an A for effort. Great disappointment if the season is not played, but good try. However, I do not think it is prudent for the Reds to continue to spend on high priced players and lose millions of dollars when it cannot be predicted that all the fans will be able to come to the park even next year. I expect the reality will set in that maybe this is not the right time for the owners to try to contend in 2021 for the World Series. They need to set back the rebuild for a time when all Cincinnati Reds fans can fill that beautiful stadium and see the team win their first World Series in 30 years. Tough to swallow, but it is what I think they should do.
A baseball fan here for over 65 years. Cancel the season’