Dr. Matt Swartz is a Labor Economist who has researched and published on MLB labor markets for over a decade at websites including The Hardball Times, FanGraphs, and Baseball Prospectus, as well as at MLB Trade Rumors. Matt created the arbitration salary projection model for MLB Trade Rumors, and co-created the SIERA pitching statistic available at FanGraphs. He has consulted for a Major League team since 2013, in addition to working in his day job as an economist in the cable industry. This article reflects his own opinion and not that of any of his employers or clients.
The MLB Owners and MLB Players Association have been unable to reach an agreement for the financial terms of the 2020 season, and at this point they may not reach one at all. Both sides have focused publicly on the morality of their case, each believing they have the ethical upper hand. Neither has made proposals that reflect their actual negotiating position. That the arguments have primarily focused on morality is perhaps not surprising, but it doesn’t create fertile ground for an actual substantive negotiation. I studied bargaining theory, and I don’t remember anything about how to win a moral argument. The ethics are what they are, and any reasonable person could make either side’s case if they really tried. The union seems to be winning the PR war thus far, as fans seem to mostly blame owners, but supportive tweets from fans are not convertible into currency.
At its core, what we have is the following set up: The presumptive default position, if no agreement is reached, is that commissioner Rob Manfred will order a roughly 50-game season with full prorated salaries. If the sides do reach an agreement, they may play as many as 80 games, and be able to split the associated revenue. They also may be able to add revenue through other avenues like expanded playoffs, and they could split that revenue too. Those are the gains from a negotiated agreement. They can be split in a way to make both parties better off.
Both sides have accused the other of not bargaining in good faith, but neither side has offered the other side anything they would plausibly accept. Instead we have seen the owners repeatedly try to offer players only slightly more than the same salary total as they would with a 50-game season, effectively asking for all the gains that would accrue from a negotiated agreement while leaving the players to absorb greater output and greater risk (both from the usual risk of playing baseball and the additional risk attendant to the global pandemic). The players similarly have failed to offer the owners anything that would lead to more profit than they would accrue in the event of a 50-game season with unexpanded playoffs. It is not surprising negotiations have gone nowhere.
At this point, an agreement for a better, longer season in 2020 is doubtful. But 2021 is right around the corner, and there is no vaccine for COVID-19 yet. We may not see fans in the seats in 2021, or at least we may not see stadiums filled to capacity. So we may see a replay of this argument in 2021 as well. It’s imperative that both sides recognize their position and negotiate accordingly. This acknowledgement could easily flip the script and lead to an expedited deal for 2020 already.
Let’s start with what should be obvious and unarguable.
Unarguable Point A:
Any agreement should see the players earn substantially more than they would have in a 50-game season.
Unarguable Point B:
Any agreement should see owners make more profit than they would in a 50-game season.
Nothing floated publicly has even come close to meeting these simple criteria.
The starting point here is actually fairly simple. Forget about inching towards a middle ground when neither side is willing to budge. Instead, begin by figuring out just how much extra revenue is associated with 30 extra games and an expanded postseason. Then, split it in half. The players’ salary total is equal to that half plus their prorated salaries for 50 games. Both sides may try to argue for a bigger piece of the pie, but either side would be crazy to say no to half of this revenue—which is much more than the zero extra revenue they would see otherwise. The players don’t need the owners to open their books on any more than is necessary to estimate this amount. The owners don’t need to ask the players to sign any waivers or anything else that isn’t already negotiated. Anything on top of this baseline can be negotiated after setting the above in writing and shaking hands (but not actually).
Offers could get more complicated and cover more territory. This is especially true with the risk of no fans or fewer fans in 2021, and with the CBA expiring after 2021. But the essential 2020 issue can be resolved in a fairly simple manner that makes each side better off in the short term while limiting the long-term damage to the sport. In subsequent pieces, I’ll discuss the fundamentals of baseball’s free agent market and how players might want to approach the inequities that have arguably developed over the last couple years. But for now, let’s just agree that owners, players, and fans can all be made much better off very quickly. Get it done before dinnertime.
“That’s a clown proposal, bro.”
-Bryce Harper
“You are a clown” Everyone else to Bryce Harper
If your politicians would just allow fans to attend everything would work itself out.
Yeah it’s time to start the face mask hand sanitizer giveaway nights and start letting fans attend games. We have protest and soon to be political rallies. Why can’t we have baseball?
How dumb are you guys? I mean how do you make it through the day?
Wow what a statement.
Are you looking in a mirror?
If the stupid riots have not caused a significant increase in Covid, neither will going to game.
Like restaurants less then 50% capacity, but still possible.
Every time to get in a car, there is a risk.
They did cause a rise
Bold move calling a movement to make white people wake up to understand the true racism that is transmitted everyday towards black people “stupid”.
To make white people? I guess only white people and according to your comment all “white people” are racist and need to wake up.. I’m pretty sure black people have proven they are just as racist over the past 3 weeks…
I read this and laugh, it shows how indoctrinated and inane many are, like Twoseamer here. He and his ilk only know what others tell him to be true, whilst their assertions are not tethered to facts in the slightest.
The FACT is racism is in fact real, yet it’s demonstrated by all races towards all races. The FACT is black on white crime is 10 times higher, by volume, than white on black crime. So if your assertion is that systemic racism one way exists, why ignore data that identifies the opposite to be true?
So there, I’ve proven, using data, racism is NOT solely a white person problem. We get it, you’ve been indoctrinated via MSM. Turn off the news, they’re lying to you.
Your POV is clearly written through the lens of someone with ZERO life experience. Now take your mask off, you’re the only one in the room, and go talk to actual people, you’ll soon understand how small you and your ideology truly are. Cheers!
“So there, I’ve proven”. Get over yourself.
All you have proven is that you lack the ability to understand cause and effect.
Agent P: Read this and please shut up forever until you do: amazon.com/White-Fragility-People-About-Racism/dp/…
You do realize that white individuals are arrested at nearly a 2.5x rate over black individuals and that white individuals makeup nearly 59% of violent crime while black individuals makeup about 37% of violent crime, yet a black individual is 3x more likely to be killed by a police officer than a white individual. And guess what? I didn’t get those numbers from the news; I got them from running the calculations from FBI and Census data. You wanna spew your “facts”, then at least give the numbers that matter. It is also plainly obvious that you don’t understand the definition of “systemic racism”. Name one single way that there is systemic racism against white individuals; that should be a fun way to watch you stumble over your stupidity.
mt7mlk.. I’m guessing from your comment, the ‘milk’ doesn’t stand for Martin Luther King.
@agentp Ahh yes us white people are the most oppressed people in the USA. Woe is us. Us white people are unable to get any economic opportunities and face violence everywhere we go because of our skin color…..
LMAO. You kids and your strawmen are adorable!
@agentp says the person spewing biased, unfounded propaganda. You need to take your own advice and get away from the news. But then again, I wouldn’t count those white-supremecy blog posts that it sounds like you read as ‘news’, so I guess you already have taken your own advice on that front.
The ignorance of your statement is deafening. Racism is real, and I don’t know anybody who condones it. The problem is certain politicians WANT racism because they pander to them. Wake up.
Hey guys in case you can’t remember, this is a post about the dispute between MLBPA and the MLB. Not racial injustice that dominates all other news media outlets. Please keep it that way
Is there any scenario where owners “profit” from a shortened season with limited seating for fans?
Revenue is not profit. If the owners are going to profit from a short season, thy are being stingy and they are in the wrong.
But if the owners are just trying to have a season, even though they will lose money doing it, then the players are the problem.
The notion that ticket sales/game day revenue makes or breaks teams profits is the biggest scam of them all. The teams makes more than enough money in broadcast deals, marketing, and merchandise to cover their costs. Let’s not take into account teams that own their own sports network. But I can cry poor because I just shift all that revenue to another medium so it makes my team seem like it’s losing money.
This is the kind of unsubstantiated hyperbole for which the internet is famous.
There is no evidence to substantiate the owners’ claim that they would lose as much money as the owners claim. We don’t know what they earn, while we know they have a history of hiding revenue from each other and the players. Teams receive less than the market rate from TV networks they (or their owners) control. They also hide broadcast revenues by calling part of the amounts paid a licensing fee for team logos and trademarks. Unless there is more transparency by the owners, there is no reason for the players not to think they are doing the same thing with other revenues like concessions and merchandise. While revenues are going to be down without fans, the players have no reason to believe that the owners haven’t been making substantial profits over the years and can easily weather this
again your asking the business owner to lose money while paying millions of dollars to their investments. that’s just plain silly
I do accounting research for a living. I’ve never looked into how much the teams actually profit. But I promise you, if the teams were going to make a killing by playing games with no fans, the season would have already started.
Billionaires didn’t get rich by being emotional and stupid. If not playing games was costing them money, they would have immediately offered players 100%. The fact that they want the season to be as short as possible is de facto proof that more games is bad for most teams financially.
Teams that don’t make the playoffs are probably going to get crushed this year. I would bet a good bit of money that regular season games will be the equivalent of burning cash for mid and small market teams.
Dpsmith. Correct. Baseball is still a business. As much as people don’t want to hear it, it is. The owners, no matter how much money they normally make, are not in it to lose money it’s just bad business. When a company is not making as much money as they thought, they cut expenses. Usually starting with payroll.
I suspect that most owners will lose money this season, but that really is not the players’ responsibility. There has never been linkage between revenues and salaries in any CBA. For decades, revenues soared while salaries have not nearly kept pace and actually declined the past two seasons.
Fans can look at this season only and say that’s not fair or reasonable, but that misses the point. The owners are claiming that they would lose money for each game played without fans by paying prorated salaries. That takes some mathsplaining.
TV revenues exceed player salaries by $1.1 billion per season. Sponsorships are fixed revenues worth another $ 1.1 billion. The biggest chunk of that is naming rights, which are not dependent on games played.
If all of that TV revenue is prorated, and the $778 million in playoff revenue is subtracted, it still exceeds player salaries, prorated. But if some of that revenue is guaranteed regardless of whether games are played, the owners pocket that money and claim a loss on the balance. Yet, they’re still getting more than enough revenue to pay the players, per game. This says nothing of their other fixed operating expenses.
Your comment about teams not making the playoffs being worse off is true in most years, but they are ironically better off this season.
Playoff revenues locally come from gate receipts, which could be gone this year. TV revenues for playoffs are all national and divided among all the teams. The non playoff teams tend to have lower payrolls and less lucrative local TV contracts, so they take less of a hit- this year.
The Yankees and Dodgers, for example, have big payrolls and big local TV deals that will both cost them a ton.
It’s silly to look at 2020 in a vacuum. Businesses suffer through seasonal losses to stay in business for profitable seasons all the time.
Mlb average salaries have dropped over the last 2 years. Just over 2%. My God. In the 5 years preceding that, the average salary had gone up 41%. The average player is still up 39% over the last 7 years. I don’t know about any of the rest of you, but the average employee at the company where I work has not seen an increase anywhere close to 39%. Is that just me?
Here is a graph showing the increase in MLB revenues vs player salaries. Your numbers are way, way off.
i1.wp.com/www.captainsblog.info/wp-content/uploads…
google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j…
Try again Patrick.
Considering we do not live in a purely socialist system, employees have no right to a certain percentage of a businesses profits.
Can you not read the graph you yourself posted Patrick? Even your graph shows that the average player salary went from $3.1 million in 2011 to $4.45 million in 2017. Care to do the math? That is an increase of 43.5% in 7 years. So I guess I was kinda wrong. Players salaries increased 2.5% MORE than I thought. Maybe you should read what you post before you post it?
Correction- business’s profits.
Why must people compare athletes to their regular everyday jobs ?
Compare them to other entertainers because that is what they are.
If a sitcom that only signs on as a mid season replacement hits big the actors/actresses get much more than 39%.
So get over hit you couldn’t throw 90 mph or hit the ball past the infield. There is no comparison to your crummy job.
Without them opening the books, how do you know what is correct.
If would real simple,but it kill there CBA 2021 arguments.
By the way, I do not know the truth either.
If you own a business then you assume a degree of risk in your investment, including the contracts you sign with employees. The employees, on the other hand, are not obligated to that risk. This is not a will to work market and contracts are guaranteed so ownership is lucky players even were understanding of the pandemic and were willing to take a reduced salary in the first place.
Woah two people went to the World Wide Web and found conflicting data. Shocking.
@GareBear in a court of law, an “Act of God” allows the court to void any contract they see fit to void. The coronavirus crisis absolutely fits under this category of events, so the only understanding that players had was that their entire contracts would be void if they didn’t make a deal.
The players are just as much at fault here by not negotiating in a realistic area that benefits both parties.
The owners, not the players, are suggesting that salaries be tied to revenues- this year, after raking in the profits for decades.
rltkc11- It’s actually the EXACT SAME DATA. One of us just does not know how to read and interpret information.
Ticket sales are not the only component of revenue tied to the stadium. First and foremost, many stadiums have billions in advertising and licensing revenues tied to the stadium. Naming rights sometimes pay less if you don’t use the stadium. Billboards at the stadium pay less if you don’t use the stadium. Revenue sharing from nearby bars, buildings, etc… the list goes on.
Going to the stadium correlates strongly with buying memorabilia… eg: fans that don’t go to games don’t buy jerseys etc at the same frequency.
There are rental revenues (eg: renting out for concerts)
Concessions revenue, and for some teams, governmental subsidies that only
happen if people show up.
Even beyond the stadium, TV revenues pay less if there is fewer games, betting/other activities also pay less in that scenario.
There is definitely a lot at stake this year. I think some aren’t being fair to the owners in that respect. But this article is also spot on in that the owners aren’t actually trying or being reasonable either.
not to mention camps and facilities in other countries for scouting
It’s both easy and overy dismissive to say “this says nothing of other costs” after listing a ton of speculative info.
First off, I don’t know anyone who read the whole tv rights deals for any team, let alone the separate contracts for NL, AL, and WS postseason. But it’s pretty certain no bidder for the rights pays before the event happens, so all that “revenue” doesn’t exist to write checks ahead of time, nor does it exist at all if the event doesn’t happen.
Second, some of that “postseason” revenue covers the 5 months of costs before the next season starts – you know, debt payments, stadium maintanence, club and mlb staff salaries, SPRING TRAINING expenses, all this that need to be paid before the next season tv rights and gate revenues kick in.
But ignore all that because it doesn’t fit the idea that tv rights, that the majority of which aren’t earned unail after the season, could play player salaries.
You know what is the more reasonable association?
That monthly gate and gameday revenue pays monthly player salaries. And you know what? Coincidentally, player salaries roughly equal monthly gate and gameday revenue.
Huh! Imaging that! Cash flow dependant expenses track the cash flow!
Reality is, the missing gameday revenue is a quantifiable loss, and proven with publicly available info.
Find a way to bridge the gap and start the season. Best guess, 81 game season saves 2.1B in player salary. Make a proposal that gives MLB 2.1B in combined savings and new revenue and they have zero grounds not to be and be too operate as normal. Albeit with risk of postseason cancellation.
Bigger playoffs may get you halfway there. Assign a value to player enhancements like micing up, and the hr derby crap (I’m not entertained by it, but some are), and you can get close enough to the added value that things go as normal
Nobody gets to read the actual TV contracts, including the players because the owners refuse to disclose that information. But the amount of the TV contracts is just as available as gate receipts and revenue from concessions and other streams.
“it’s pretty certain no bidder for the rights pays before the event happens, so all that “revenue” doesn’t exist to write checks ahead of time, nor does it exist at all if the event doesn’t happen”
That is speculation. No it is not pretty certain that payments are not made on a regular schedule and could very well be made ahead of time. Absolutely they could. And you don’t know about what conditions would require refunds. Have YOU read the contracts?
The whole point here is that we DONT know, because the owners refuse to disclose that information. THAT is the biggest problem right now. They want the players to take their word for it and cut their salaries on that basis.
You don’t have to match up certain revenues with certain expenses. All the revenue goes into the same account and expenses come out of the same account. Nobody is disputing the losses in gate receipts or concessions. What matters is the claim that playing more games causes more losses. They have to document that claim, or the owners are acting in bad faith. This is why they dread a grievance.
I don’t have to propose a plan that saves $2.1 B in salary. We just need to know that there is that much revenue from playing games to pay the salaries.
I’ve suggested that the owners now make a proposal to the players that pays them full prorated salaries for more like 72 games, with expanded playoffs, a playoff pool, and no grievances. That would be hard for the players to turn down.
I guarantee you the Brewers are losing money every game they play without fans this year. Maybe the Yankees aren’t but teams like the Brewers rely heavily on ticket sales to get by.
My assumption as well, ender. Not that I have any inside information, but looking at the top 5-10 TV deals I see enough money to cover assumed cost and be fine, but it goes downhill quickly from there.
Then should sell and move the team.
The notion that 4.5 billion dollars makes the difference between profit and loss is a surprise to you?
Have you ever considered attending a math class?
I don’t know. The only financial statements we have any sort of access to is the Braves and their numbers don’t support your notion. Good teams will thrive on having a season and bad teams will struggle financially.
You have very little understanding of the operational costs of a MLB team.
Can you send me a link/article that shows that the owners don’t need fans at games to make money? Not trying to argue I’ve just heard differently multiple times and would like something to base an opinion from.
How do we know if the owners don’t open their books.. therein lies the answer your looking for.
Open your books, JG. Put your tax return online for everyone to see. Ludicrous, isn’t it?
Clearly not a true fan of baseball.
Okay, don’t open your books but no one should give you the benefit of the doubt if you’re claiming you’re losing X and won’t substantiate it.
Nice snark though, impressive.
Ludicrous that you’re comparing an individual to MLB? Yes, yes it is.
Well not playing a season at all would 100% cost them money, they would make/lose less by playing it’s just a fact. There’s no way that not having baseball on TV hurts them more than having it
Do the owners really “need” to quadruple profits year after year?
If us average joes can survive an economic shutdown, these rich cucks can stand to “only” profit 1 million instead of 4
#boycottMLB
#boycottbaseball
???
Great piece. I’m looking forward to this series.
Too bad Matt is not the arbitrator instead of Manfred.
Manfred isn’t really an arbitrator, though he is expected to try to be reasonable. He’s paid by the owners.
Yes, I agree, but I’d be surprised if his ruling did not favor the owners.
The whole thing is a clown act. The players screwed themselves with the last CBA because they have an ineffective leader, and they still have an ineffective leader. The owners know that they can back the players down, and that’s what they’re trying to do. Clowns on both sides.
Meant to reply, not like. This is shallow internet narrative.
Wilner do you have an actual point to make or are you just trying to look smart here? Stick to being a bad broadcaster. You’re very good at that.
Yes, both the owners and the players are to blame on this.
Agreed. Clark screwed them hard and figured it out too late, so he’s trying to show he has the kahonies to go toe-to-toe with the owners and save his job.
No, jokers are on one side. 😉
Yes. The argument that the players are toeing the hard line to benefit future generations of ballplayers is particularly horrible. They last CBA sucked for current and future generations. There needs to be a hard salary cap/floor, and this will actually benefit the players. Quality veteran players will be able to find jobs instead of getting colluded against, competitive balance, no tanking, the minor leagues might be viable, fix the service time manipulation BS. The hard line is damaging to current and future ballplayers. I’m a lifer, but after a long lockout and this corona adjustment a lot of fans won’t come back.
Finally, a voice of reason that actually has substantive commentary. That’s not a slight against MLBTR but a macro-range comment.
I agree. Usually on this website, and on theathletic.com, one gets nothing more than superficial echoing of player agent talking points.
Perhaps that’s largely due in part because these points aren’t wrong? These players have signed contracts promising “x” amount of money. In a typical year, if revenue exceeds expectations, owners have never given players a bonus- nor should they be expected to. That said, when profit is down, you can’t turn around and ask these guys to eat part of that, either. A contract is a contract.
The burden is on the owners here to figure out their side, same as any business.
Well actually, in many businesses ‘figure out their side’ by mass firings/layoffs in order to cut losses. Is that what you are proposing? Perhaps they could play the season with a 20 man roster?
The sooner you figure out that this isn’t like ‘any business’ the sooner you will be able to have nuanced conversations about a super complex topic. Are you one of these people who likes to say “Millionaires fighting Billionaires”!!!
This article has done a MUCH better job that you could to take emotions out and simplify it down to economics/math, and while it’s probably a bit too neat, it illustrates the point perfectly.
or claim the hard ship clause and the players get zero
Why not shill for billionaires a little harder, dude? Are you under the assumption that if you do so they’ll share any of that money with you?
grow up. i know mommy and daddy taught you that you are special and rich people are bad. But they were stupid. You young people need to stfu because your opinions sound naive as hell. Own a business with employees and overhead and keep it afloat through down turns then come back to me. I bet your “fight the power ” horse dooks disappears quick.
Owners take on zero personal risk from playing more games. The players take on all the risk. The owners should gain little from having players play more games – the players themselves should reap those rewards.
However, it seems like playing more games without fans is pretty costly. None of us know exactly how costly because the owners refuse to release that information. So basically at every step the owners have stalled negotiations because they make it impossible to determine what’s actually fair.
This is entirely on the owners. The players just want to play, while being compensated for it. The owners want as much free money as possible.
Amen brother!
I’m confused on why you think the owners should release any financial information.
If the owners are claiming financial distress by paying prorated salaries they would need to open the books to document the extent of their losses
There is zero legal obligation for them to expose their financial statuses.
That would ordinarily be true. But if a business is claiming financial distress and asking labor to assume part of their losses, they need to prove that they are actually losing what they say they are. Do you really expect labor to accept management at their word? As Ronald Reagan once said”trust, but verify”
In collective bargaining, when an employer claims inability to pay (i.e. economic feasibility) they are required to document their claims (i.e. open the books). The owners have been making this claim. That’s why.
the owners should break the union. Communusm has no place in my country.
There’s another party to this that has a right to see the books opened – the taxpayers who have at least in part financed the building of the majority of the stadiums used by the league.
“So basically at every step the owners have stalled negotiations…”
They want less games; the longer the negotiation, the less games played.
Not saying that’s right, but that’s what is happening.
If there is significant risk to playing, then the answer is simple. Cancel the season. Then watch the MLBPA and. the player agents scream. A complete non-argument.
There’s risk in the Twins playing, there city will soon not have any police.
why you think gun sales are up drastically in most states
If the owners want to make the argument that there’s too much health risk to pursue a season, fine, but they haven’t made that claim. They’ve made clear their concern is salaries and Stadium revenue. So health risk becomes the player’s prerogative. They’re willing to play if they’re appropriately compensated. So again it comes down to what is a reasonable sum for the owners to pay. We have no way of knowing without the owners discoing this, so any hope of negotiation is dead in the water before talks even start.
What if there is no profits after the pro-rated salaries are paid? What if there’s a loss?
It would be nice to know that information, however the owners have made it impossible to know by refusing to release it.
Atlanta Braves numbers are public and they lost $30+ million last year.
But according to ESPN, that was a paper loss. Before depreciation and amortization they actually made a 54 million dollar profit.
@ Darth – do you really believe that? Really? Or were surrounding improvements costed “accurately”?
(Edit – thanks Geo (above))
A public company owns them and they have to publish their balance sheet. This is no different than Microsoft, Boeing, or any other public company.
Also, a paper loss is still a loss since that money had to be paid. Amortization means they are paying past debts (loans etc.). I would like to see what contributed to the depreciation. Any efforts to hide or manipulate investors can result in prosecution from the Justice Department.
In short, even if we accept $54 million in profits, how far that that go this year?
The Braves built a new stadium, too, which they’re paying part of. That’s a planned financial hit now in exchange for greater gains later. Believe me, as a Braves fan, how often did we hear payroll would increase with the new stadium while we watched Markakis bat 4th. They’ve largely followed through there. I’m just stating it because the losses were planned with a plan in mind for eventual larger gains.
that 54 million was a “paper gain”. both are worth zero
They “lost money” because of a real estate deal. The players don’t have to subsidize their real estate deals.
Haha ESPN now thinks they understand the nuances of accounting. You can just remove depreciation and amoritization and claim someone wouldve made a profit. To put it in laymans terms that would be claiming that someones net income is their disposable income because you dont have to count their rent/ mortgage.
The common accounting term is EBIDTA- earnings before interest, depreciation, taxes, and amortization. Most clubs, if not all, have some debt that they have to service, but that is not typically kept on the annual balance sheet as an operating loss. The Braves had an operating profit in 2019, as did all clubs except the Marlins.
well 54 million in profits from 81 home games and some playoff games, , so less than 1 million a game. Pretty sure they’d pay players more than that this year , and if you add in no fans in the stands I can see how they’d be losing money
That same “real estate deal” is contributing money to the bottom line which IS a source of revenue that is spent on higher salaries and the like.
Don’t believe me, look at the balance sheets from the Turner field days vs the suntrust/truist park days.
You have to spend money to make money, and before the “real estate deals” atlanta was a revenue sharing recipient with comp round draft picks.
Theyre phased out of rev sharing and headed into rev paying.
That’s good for everyone, INCLUDING their total player payrolls year over year.
ESPN? The Easten Socialism Propaganda Network? lmfao!!!
Send the Wolf. (replace Harvey Keitel with Bob Costas).
done.
It doesn’t matter what this guy has to say. Don’t know how to spell a “Bronx Cheer”, but if I did I would.
Each side jockeying for position is turning this into something Barnum & Bailey would be proud of.
That was a very succinct yet thorough analysis of the owner-player conflict.
The MLBPA needs a charismatic leader who’ll stand up to the mic and cut the balls off the owners publicly. Someone who will take a stand with no concern about what is said about him. Can you imagine this happening if a guy like Scott Boras were the player rep? Don’t think so. The owners know they can roll Clark and that’s what they’re doing. For the record, I’m firmly behind the players on this one. They have to make a stand, season or no season. The CBA is almost up now anyway. Git er done.
60 game season with full prorated player compensation. 4 wild card teams per league with one game first round each and 3 game series for second round. and 7 game series the for the lds, lcs and the world series.
Ridiculous proposal, better deals rejected by both sides.
The owners will never open their books unless they are forced.
Are you saying that the owners might be less than honest?
No, I am not saying that.
Who the hell is honest these days?
Well, how about this. Owners want a cut of the players money. So in return for that cut, owners open up their books to give the MLBPA giving clear, undeniable evidence that ownership would operate at a loss.
Now THAT sounds like it should be a deal right? Oh wait, that avenue has already been rejected.
Like I said earlier: No play, no pay!
That’s a good idea but it will never fly. The players won’t step back from full pro-rated wages, even if it would give them more money in the short term. Once you let the camel’s nose under the tent, there is no telling how it will play out. This is important, because the same conversation may be happening next year, possibly with partial attendance restrictions as an added complexity.
These owners need to feed their families. A harbor full of 40 multi-million dollar yachts is expensive for upkeep.
PLEASE THINK OF THE OWNERS THEY CAN’T AFFORD TO FEED THEIR FAMILIES!1!!1!@
Ha ha! That makes me think of some billionaire coming home with a few packs of Ramen, saying, “Sorry, family, tough day at the gates today.”
Easy peasy lemon squeezy. lol
It’s too bad both sides continue to squeeze each of our lemons. lmao
Thank the stars for that and thank you (MLBTR and contributor) for boiling it down so astutely & simply. As Halos Heaven (probably not his fault he’s an evil Angel) rightly put it previously I too look forward to further contributions.
It’s a salient point that teams (and thus players & MLBPA) should also anticipate reduced attendance in 2021, and as such work on a worst case to best case spectrum of scenarios.
Anyway – always intriguing to hear from someone close to the inner sanctum, the Bond villain (Manfred?) and the unfathomably fluffy (I had to delete and edit a word beginning with p that often precedes) cat (Clark?).
Much appreciated doc!
The owners offer implies salary cap, which I suspect is the sticking point for the players.
Even as a Yankee fan, I summoned the owners need to come up with an internal revenue share for this season alone. There are too many individual interests on the owners side based on the graphs I’ve seen and Manfred has done a terrible job of bridging it (side note: he needs to be fired). There are various variables that go into the P&L that need to be cleared, inclusive of revenue AND expenses.
Owners need to share those expenses that counter the revenue (including Tv money).
Players need to recognize said expenses and account for them in negotiations. Players, after all, make significant side money through their marketing platforms which will be non-existent without playing the game.
I watched Scott Boras interviewed on ESPN during the Draft. He was asked if he was Commissioner what would he do to improve baseball. He rambled on without even trying to answer the question.It is like he does not even acknowledge owners have a role exclusive of writing checks.
They should decide what the pay is for this year, and defer the balance of player salaries to be paid when they actually have fans. Just because MLB it’s going to lose money this year doesn’t mean they won’t make it next year or the year after. Players should take the 75/85 deal and the owners should defer the balance to make them whole down the road. With the way contracts are set up, frontloaded contracts and backloaded contracts would lose the most value this year. The total value of the contact should be made whole, even if that means deferrals.
I mean it makes some sense, but the problem with deferrals are a dollar now is worth more than a dollar will be in 2023 because the cost of living usually constantly increases.
MLB told Joel Sherman that they rejected the players’ proposal for deferred salaries because they can get cheaper loans on their own if they want to defer salaries.
The players should propose 1% or even 0% deferments, but for the owners, it’s about eliminating salaries, not delaying them.
In normal businesses, employers have the right to cut employee salary expenses.
Even among pro sports MLB is unique in its fully guaranteed salaries that removes the ability of clubs to mitigate losses in this manner. Other sports a team can cut a player, pay part of the money, and take a hit against their signing cap to discourage doing so in an arbitrary manner unless absolutely needed.
Make no mistake, guaranteed contracts are dead in the next CBA. The unions behavior in this crisis made that a non-negotiable position for owners since they’ve shown their true unresonable colors and inability to act in good faith.
I guess we can close the book on professional baseball then. That’s not happening.
82/80 should work. owners will lose money, but they will have to regardless. Union knows the 100% is only a negotiating thing, and probably more than 20% comes from the stadiums.
I appreciate the effort here (and the introduction to game theory, even if not by name), but if the solution was this easy it would have happened already. Whenever someone makes a moral argument they are probably really talking about money (or power). The piece admits that in the end so we can easily dispense with any of the moral postering and recognize that it’s all about the money, for both sides.
Blueskies, you’re correct, in my opinion. It’s all about the money. Each side’s proposals have been about the owners saving $ and the players trying to make more. The owners, if any games are played, probably won’t lose as much as they say they will (tv revenue, and partial peripherals). But the players, and the PA aren’t smart enough to try to negotiate in good faith to make “a little more” than they will with a 50 game season. So, the owners will simply force a lame 50 game season on the players and fans. I liked the article and the simple solution proposed at the end makes sense. However, neither the owners or the PA are making
Much sense right now.
The players will seem plenty smart if you understand what they after, and it has not much to do with this season and really not a lot to do with next season either. It’s about the new CBA for 2022 and beyond and them not being stuck with a steadily declining share of the game’s revenue. Once you recognize that the real battle is not on this hill but the next one and the one after that you will see that the MLBPA’s strategy is not dumb at all, and certainly not surprising. Not recognizing this fact is where the analysis in this article falls down.
Exactly!
The players are not going to set a precedent for accepting forced revenue sharing as a form of a salary cap a year away from starting negotiations on a new CBA.
This is pretty spot on. Because the last offer by the owners was 1.5B and the prorated value for players was 1.78B. This isn’t them squabbling over 280M at this point, it is about setting up for the next CBA.
Resolution is easy…..spot on, its so easy that anything but can only be scripted reality television.
Just shut it down for the year, I’m really sick about both sides of the greed.
The only teams revenue and expenses you can look at are the Braves, and this is because they are a public company with stock rights. You can make some pretty educated guesses based off their numbers instead of guessing and giving misinformation.
Sorry, this is 2020. Reasonable compromises that address the needs of all sides are not acceptable anymore.
Tribalism is king, and it won’t change until each tribe is willing to fix itself before criticizing the other tribe.
I don’t know where this notion about all of the deals being the same comes from but it simply is not true. A 50 game schedule with prorated salaries would pay the players $1.23B. The first deal the owners offered was for $1.2B. The second deal was the goofy one where different players make different money so not sure about that one. The third deal was for $1.3B. This latest deal would pay the players $1.5B. That is not just the same deal every time. Also the games they asked the players to play went down. This last deal is giving the players roughly 38% more per game than the initial offer was for.
I’m not saying it is a deal the players should take, that is really up to them. But it has not just been the same deal over and over, that simply is not true. This latest deal would be like the players getting prorated 50 games and then another 22 games added on at roughly half pay I believe.
Somehow people think they can just lie constantly and no one will notice.
How a website gets an analysis piece that doesn’t recognize that difference is just weird.
Yes. This has been driving me crazy. People have been intentionally overlooking the “completing the playoffs” salary bump the owners have proposed. It’s fine to say it’s not good enough, but it’s not “offering 6 donuts, then half a dozen” as I’ve seen claimed.
The current offer is about equal to 57 games at full prorated salaries.
The first actual offer was a sliding scale.
The second offer was for less guaranteed money and some money shifted to the playoffs, but the salary is for the regular season
The third offer moved from 35.2 percent of full salary to 35.5 percent
The amount per game is insignificant. The owners obviously have a number in mind that they do not want to go above to pay the players and the kept proposing fewer and fewer games as they kept wasting time by making offers that had no chance of being accepted. There was some movement, but not a significant amount.
The players viewed the clause in the March agreement about discussing the economic feasibility of playing with no fans as a reference to two other paragraphs in the agreement. One is to play games beyond the end of the current schedule, which the owners will not do. The other is to expand the playoffs, which they proposed to do.
Nothing in that clause requires them to cut salaries further. It’s just not there. They were not expecting the owners to claim that they would lose money every game at prorated salaries. And they view that claim as very suspicious.
Craig Edwards at Fangraphs blows the owners claim out of the water.
blogs.fangraphs.com/a-look-at-the-gains-and-losses…
He did not consider that MLB might have some of that TV revenue guaranteed and not dependent on playing games. In which case, they may actually lose money each game, but they still got paid for the games.
IIRC, from the 2nd to the 3rd offer, the pro rata guarantee went from 50% to 70%(no playoffs) with a few less games (more total money). I agree that this is the less important number because it’s the less likely scenario, but players and pro-MLBPA commenters were tearing their hair out over the lack of guaranteed money. So owners increased the guarantee. But yeah, the 2nd to 3rd didn’t move the needle much on the top payout.
My overarching point is that each subsequent proposal offered significantly more than the priore one in some important aspect. This is in contrast with the narrative of “they offered 6 donuts, we said no, then they offered half a dozen”.
An unemotional breakdown of the issues by someone with professional knowledge of how these things work was much needed and I look forward to reading the rest of this series
Apparently an agreement was signed in March. Please correct me if I am wrong but the agreement stated salaries would be prorated, unless their are not fans in the stands. At which point the agreement will need to be adjusted. This is the owners perspective. It appears that their will not be fans in the stands or a small amount if any. So the agreement will need to be adjusted.
The players contend the agreement does not say it will be adjusted if there are not fans in the stands.
So the first issue to be resolved is who is correct on this issue.
What does the contract say about if there are not fans in the stands? If the contract does not say anything about fans in the stands, then the players are correct. They should play as many games as possible with the normal end of the season timeline. The players willingness to play additional playoff games is an act of goodwill and should be accepted graciously by the owners. Play ball!!
If the owners are correct and the agreement says it will be adjusted if there are no fans, then the players need to sit their A$$ down at the table and try to figure out a solution along with the owners.
Assuming the owners are correct lets try to come up with a solution.
My proposal would be they try to play as many games as possible. Nine games a week until the last week of September. 2 doubleheaders a week. Wednesdays and Saturdays. They are provided a roster of 30 players to prevent injuries and mental fatigue.
From a salary point of view players making less than $5 million receive 100% of the prorated salary. Players making $5 million to $7.5 million make 95% of the prorated salary. Players making $7.5 million to $10 million make 90% of the prorated salary. Players making $10 million to $15 million make 85% of the prorated salary. It would go on like this at a 5% decline on the proration for every $5 million increase in salary.
Then 1/2 of whatever was sacrificed by any specific player would be owed back to that player in 2023 when baseball will have recovered. The deferred money from 2020 would not increase or adjust the 2023 CBT total salaries for that club.
The first issue though is what did the March agreement say regarding fans in the stands?
The owners are likely correct in the March agreement. They never publicly released the agreement but there were two separate areas that were leaked in the media that specifically says they would have to renegotiate if fans were not in stadiums. There was a leaked email where they claimed they discussed it with the union and confirmed that this how it works that isn’t great evidence but suggests the owners were correct as well.
There is very little to suggest the players are right on that side of things.
I have to disagree endermlb. From a legal perspective, the agreement is what it is. The language in the agreement that specifically refers to salaries says that the players will be paid prorated salaries based on the number of games played. There is nothing linking games with no fans to salaries.
The clause which states that the two parties will discuss economic feasibility of playing in neutral venues or without fans does not require salary cuts. Further, any discussions of economic feasibility have to begin with documentation of the economic conditions, and the owners refuse to provide enough documentation to show that they lose money by playing more games. It is not enough to show that they’re losing money on the season, but that more games are not economically feasible.
The owners understand this, which is why they will pay prorated salaries if a schedule is implemented unilaterally. And there will be grievances from both sides.
The players are well within their rights to refuse to negotiate any further reduction in pay despite the vague agreement to discuss the economics of not playing in front of fans. However, one thing is absolutely clear and that is Manfred has the right to unilaterally declare a length of the season as long as it is some minimum number of games. While he is mandated to make it as many as possible, the owners and players haven’t been able to agree on how to make it mutually palatable.
Exactly correct, and that will be the subject of a grievance if they don’t reach an agreement. The owners will have to open the books to show that more games are not economically feasible. The fight over what documents have to be produced could be a bigger fight than the hearing itself. But there will be baseball in the interim.
That isn’t true. It’s close but you know you changed that to fit your agenda. Why can’t you be honest?
I am not sure which comment you are disputing. Everything I wrote is correct.
The March agreement. You aren’t being honest or you need help understanding it.
That isn’t an offer to help convince you that you’re wrong.. Just a statement of fact.
I understand the March agreement perfectly well. Obviously, you do not. I write and interpret contracts as a profession.
If you are inferring that the March agreement requires players to accept further pay cuts, you are simply wrong.
Much of what I was referring to above is not in the March agreement, nor did I say that it was.
Section 8 of the National Labor Relations Act requires an employer to open their books when they claim inability to pay. A claim that playing more games is not economically feasible is akin to not having ability to pay. An arbitrator will surely order MLB to produce records to defend the claims in a grievance. This is what is coming if an agreement is not reached, and why Manfred is in a panic about the players filing a grievance.
How do you, either of you, understand an agreement you’ve never seen or read in its entirety perfectly well?
We dont know how the document is structured, if there are defined terms, if related emails and memoranda of understanding are incorporated by reference, and if it’s layout allows/disallows certain language to apply to all or merely parts of particular clauses?
Also, does anyone know for certain which jurisdiction was specified for laws of interpretation purposes?
I wager not, otherwise share for the rest of the class.
You both *THINK* you know, but even that is based on assumptions you made.
And you’re both almost certainly wrong.
And for something we can all agree on – my opinion is whoever drafted the march agreement should be fired, sued for malpractice, and brought up for sanctions to whatever bars they are admitted to.
That much we can agree on. If you want to say something in a contract, SAY IT.
and we don’t have the full 17 page March agreement. What we have is the operative language that has been argued and cherry picked and broadcast through the media.
This is the most detailed account of the agreement that I’ve seen, from AP
apnews.com/dd87bcc774d608e53624594fe56fab0c
So I wrote an article about how MLB and the players could come to an agreement that would
– bring in more revenue
– expand the playoffs
– avoid grievances
– give the players full prorated salaries (so they couldn’t turn it down)
– play 72 games (more would require going into October)
– end the season by September 27
– be good for the players, owners, fans, and for the game of baseball
Here it is: blessyouboys.com/2020/6/15/21291093/mlb-owners-cou…
Thanks for the cool headed analysis, Patrick. I’ve appreciated your comments here.
Same here.
30 independent team owners and 1,200 roster players in a “union” can’t come to an agreement about something that possibly won’t exist or possibly might exist in some yet to be determined form because of a world-wide pandemic that is far from over and may not end until some yet to be determined future date because it might last as long as this run on sentence.
outside of complicating this issue one would think a FAIR RESOLUTION = what does in gate revenue represent (ie. fans attending) relative to the WHOLE revenues. if that is say 25% then MLB & Union should agree to 25% reduction from their pay. if Playoffs represents 10% of the WHOLE revenues then a further 10% of players salaries should be retained in a special fund and if playoffs are played then those monies get distributed to the players whereas if no playoffs are played then those monies go to the owners. Play whatever amount of games can be done starting as early as safely can be done BUT MUST END by end of September as usual for reg season with playoffs starting after that as usual. The timing of the schedule in baseball is extremely important. Changing/ Extending the season doesn’t work for baseball due to NFL and College football dominating once it begins from September onwards. That’s FAIR to both sides with players STILL accruing a season towards their seniority which is all important to them towards getting to arbitration & FA. FAIR given the circumstances which COVID 19 has brought on
Gate revenues make up approximately 40% of baseball revenues. Players will not accept a 40% reduction of their pay, so why not split it, 20/20 and get on with the season! Owners are losing the following:
100% of ticket revenues
100% of concession revenues
100% of in stadium merchandise revenues
100% of in stadium advertising revenues
???% of stadium naming rights (I assume these companies are not going to pay with no fans)
Proportionate % of missed TV revenues with no games being broadcast
If baseball teams can turn a profit after losing all of this revenue, then their valuations would be 2X or 3X of what they are today. There is zero doubt the owners will lose money this season as a whole, but for some reason the Players Union either doesn’t believe this is possible or just doesn’t care. In the end, the players will either need to take the hit this year, or pay for it over the years to come as owners will tighten their purse strings to make up for 2020 losses. Good luck to free agents next year, they are in for a rude awakening.
Couldn’t that also be part of the equation for guys looking at FA in the next few seasons, as to why they want all of this seasons salary? I’ve heard the pay now or pay later argument, but who’s to say the owners will still spend even if they get every concession they want from the players? I mean these billionaires are claiming poverty, as far fetched as that seems. How can you trust them if you’re a player?
Yeah that’s why I’m having a hard time believing that “opening the books” won’t lead to the conclusion we should all have figured out by now: regular season games without fans lose money.
Obviously the owners want to keep the books closed and avoid a potential bad outcome with a grievance. But yeah the valuations would be too low on MLB teams if they can still pull a profit while losing 30% of revenue.
I think the average revenue loss is more like 40% counting gate receipts and concessions.
This article at fangraphs challenges the owners’ claims of losing $4 billion and losing money on each game played.
blogs.fangraphs.com/parsing-mlbs-claim-of-a-4-bill…
Craig Edwards has an axe to grind with anything and everything that slightly constitutes “capitalism”.
You would need absurdly high profit margins on regular season games with to still profit with 40% loss of revenue. I don’t trust Craig’s or MLB’s numbers because each are clearly driving towards a preferred narrative.
obviously the proposal above is a reduction FROM whatever amount of games played this yr. ie if 81 games played then new base pay is 50% then reductions from there .. of course IF MARCH AGREEMENT stipulates a no fans monetary adjustment otherwise if it doesn’t say then owners/ Rob Manfred made huge mistake and have to live with consequences of their bad contract or further risk ruining MLB with not playing this yr. Baseball is no longer what it was pre 1994 where it was America’s game. in fact it’s now in real trouble likely requiring a WHOLE new game / rules ie 7 inning game with other aspects that make it more action and faster paced for our new INTERNET age.
Trash article. Instead of faulting the owners for playing games in the media and essentially lying about the profitability of their hobbies, the article tries to equate equal blame to both sides, and deflect from owner’s refusing to honor an earlier agreement by fear-mongering hypotheticals about the potential impact on next season. Any “fan” of baseball who is willingly choosing the owners in this dispute is not a real fan. If they honestly came out and said: hey: we don’t want to fully pocket the costs of the season without guarantees on the back end, no one would bat an eye. No intelligent individual would ever expect a businessman to accept lower profits— that’s not how good business works. They’re not in it for the love of the sport: they’re in it for the dollars. And that’s perfectly acceptable. What’s not acceptable is trying to pit the fans, who actually love the game, against the players, 80% of which (more than likely) truly love the game, for the sake of revenue that doesn’t make or break your life or your business. That’s bullsh*t.
Any more, when I see the you’re not a REAL fan if you don’t agree with argument, I stop reading.
Who are you to decide who is a REAL fan?
Especially over a ridiculous argument like “the owners just want money, the players just love the game”. If that were even in the REALM of reality, the players would have accepted an offer and started playing
Getting a deal done assumes that both parties are putting the good of the sport before their own interests, and I don’t see that line of thinking by either party.
Opening the books wouldnt even work. Look at what happens in the NHL where the owners get a huge expansion fee and claim it’s not revenue.
In MLB take the Jays who sell the broadcast rights to another arm of the same company for way less than they are worth and then claim to be a mid market team. I’m sure all sorts of other clubs would make similar creative accounting to make it look like they earn less.
The whole cba needs to be fixed anyway. The fact that they give extra draft picks to teams considered “low revenue” is one of the dumbest things in professional sports.
that’s a problem with a CBA that doesn’t define revenues. The term in the NHL’s CBA is “HRR” which means Hockey Related Revenues.
In the case of MLB, there would be expansion, and probably revenue from gambling if they can get it. They’re “donating” to politicians to try and get a percentage of gambling revenue.
I take some issue with the “starting” point of the presumed negotiations. As pointed out by others, the starting point is that no agreement is reached and no games are played in 2020.
Keeping in mind that the presumed “agreement” on prorated salaries for games played did not take into account that there would be no fans attending games, the owners might prefer to simply cancel the season. Whether this costs the owners money in 2020 may be considered the lesser of two evils: i.e., they may want to start the negotiations for the 2021 season with the premise that whether there is a live gate must be taken into account.
If it really was easy, we’d have baseball already.
Both arguments in this article can be argued, right or wrong. As another comment said above, places like Milwaukee heavily rely on game play more than, say, a Yankees or Red Sox. There will be a divide amongst the owners on this.
That is a bad comparison. Maybe Yankees, Red Sox and Dodgers compared to teams like the Rays, Pirates and A’s that do not draw flies to the ballpark. The obvious solution is contracting a couple of the “Weak Sisters” of MLB ( the A’s and someone else ( Orioles maybe?)), eventually having a salary cap and a salary floor. The problem is not high salaries ( that is what a Free Market is about), but the fact half the teams cannot or will not offer &100m plus contracts. For example:,The Yankees have more then three times the payroll of the Rays. That needs to change.
Did you just say free market in the same paragraph that you’re talking about having a salary cap and floor?
The owners have put themselves in this position because of their stupidity — that they have stupidly, and continuously, have been over paying the players. Some of the recent years’ mega deals are simply ridiculous, starting with ARod, Albert, Bonds – take your pick.
Now all the players know this and are in the cat bird seat vs the stupid owners.
At age 34 Eric Sogard is worth $4M? that is equal to making $100,000 per year FOR 40 YEARS!
Is Jordan Zimmerman age 34, worth $110M over 5 years?
(in his last year now for $25M)
The owners are studid, the players and agents know this, and are greedily taking advantage, especially right now.
The flip side is the union was happy with an unsustainable status quo where teams were handing out objectively bad contracts. They want to whine about owners being dumb but they sure enjoyed the milk and honey… when owners start to rein in the contracts they’re throwing around, instead of innovating anything anywhere along the way suddenly the idiot union is stuck defending an indefensible position.
More importantly, the last CBA was negotiated by both parties. No one forced the union to accept it. They made that mistake and then tried to lash out at the owners for their own stupidity. It’s hard to have sympathy for anyone in that position when they would fail to take responsibility and seek to blame others.
The union should be more focused on doing a better job with the next CBA. That begins with firing Clark.
Since the players are not getting paid for the playoffs (no fans mean no pay) , the players should force the commissioner to declare the length of season, play at their prorated salary and then strike on Sept 27th.
MLB owners and players have already shot numerous toes off of their own feet. As a simplistic real-life example, I have 14 people who participate in 2 fantasy baseball leagues that have been in existence for 27 years. We are all over the age of 40 with about half of us around 55-65 years of age. We do the leagues as an enhancement to our love of baseball. We will probably be disbanding the leagues before this season starts due to some pissed off members. We will not restart anything after that. Seeing both parties piss around with negotiations at this point gives us little to no hope that they will even get anything more than a strike after 2021. In my mind, the NBA will move ahead of MLB this year and in the future and that is pitiful
The NBA is already ahead of MLB ( and I do not like basketball). This is especially true with the younger demographics. The problem is hockey ( which I love ( let’s go Islanders!) and soccer which I do not are catching up).
Mark, Jay?
Sorry to be THAT guy, but isn’t this basically MLB’s proposal? Fully fund the equivalent of the first 50 games. Everything else can be funded from what the teams gain by having expanded postseason… while adding in that the last part of that is contingent in having the extra revenue from expanded postseason??
Sure is.
It should be, but it isn’t, because the low IQ players keep whining about not getting full salary. Granted, it’s not all players and it’s not just Blake Snell, but it’s still embarrassing, though. However, it’s not just the players that are troublesome during all of this.
Great piece. Regardless of whom you may blame more in this situation. I think this hits the most important nail on the head: that both the owners and players care more about public opinion—and the ability to leverage it—than they do about actual negotiation. That has been clear from the start.
And that makes it hard to have sympathy for either party, even before you would dig deeper.
Hogcarp…. The Players have a contract and an agreement to pay them prorated salary.. they should not give up that which was agreed to in March.. The Owners.. who are businesses.. have no right to a profit.. in fact they are publicly subsidized thru the public funding of stadiums.. they own the fans a season .. ever season.. they should never be allowed to tank.. They get public money to provide baseball… not to whine about their profit levels… They should learn to live up to their contractual agreements instead of breaking them with the players and The People whose tax dollars subsidize their businesses…
Stick to whatever job you do besides this.. ridiculous
This is what happens when a struggling poet tries to teach math. If you’re going to go out and find someone who can explain this to everyone you should get someone who knows WTF they’re talking about.. This is about as deep as a discussion of what shoes the two sides wear to negotiations.
If you don’t recognize the difference between how the owners and players are negotiating you shouldn’t even be in the comment section let alone writing a story..
Clearly this guy has never run a business of any sort. Do I want baseball? Absolutely.
But so I see both sides of the debate? Absolutely.
And as a business owner, would I even bother opening if dealing with this crap? Not a chance. Just like 400,000 restaurants all across the country right now.
This was one of the dumbest articles I’ve ever read on this site.
I agree.
I don’t think this article clarified anything for anyone. It just seemed like a guy on the fringe of other baseball-friendly platforms tossing a rock into an already muddy pond.
Really bad article.
MLB in 2019: “Let the Kids Play”
MLB in 2020: “F*ck them kids”
Interesting article. However, the “unarguable” points are actually “arguable”. The reason? The word “substantially”. How big does “substantially” need to be to risk health for the players or liability for the owners?
The definition of that single word means that both the players and owners legitimately can do the exact opposite of what the author says.
The summary in here is why I’ve been on the owners side. If the default is 50 games at prorated salary then you have to look at it from that perspective.
The owners are basically saying “ok we will pay you that 50 game salary. give us 20-25 more games for that money to have a more substantial season, and then we’ll pay you more if there are playoffs/no second shutdown”
And the players are saying “how about FORTY more games and you pay us full price for all of them. Oh and we’re probably going to file a grievance no matter what.”
To me, the owners aren’t giving MUCH but they’re giving a little. The players aren’t giving up anything at all (besides length of season which is already inherently going away the longer these discussions take).
Why should the players give up anything, though?
I keep hearing that from the pro-owner side, and I just don’t understand it. Owners and players aren’t really business partners, in a true sense. It’s more of an employer and employee relationship. The player signs a contract with a team, plays for that team for the length of it, is paid, and that’s it.
The owner buys a team, and has full control over it. The players don’t get input on day-to-days operations of the team- and I’m not saying they should here. I just point it out because, again, that’s how an employer and employee relationship typically goes.
This is just why I don’t understand the pro-owner stance.
If it was easy it would’ve been done.
If they weren’t greedy it would’ve already been done. EASY as that.
#boycottMLB
#boycottbaseball
I’m thinking the owners will continue to posture that they really care about playing this year. I believe they do not for one simple reason: They will lose less money by not playing.
Their biggest expense is players’ salaries, which they won’t have to pay if there’s no baseball. All the lost revenue (TV, parking, concessions, tickets etc.) are indeed lost opportunities for revenue. The big difference is, there’s no out of pocket cost to the owners. So, yeah, it’s lost revenue, but they aren’t writing those checks.
Fact is, the only checks they are writing these days is to pay full time club employees, and they can eliminate 75% of those with layoffs. Everyone else who stays on board (President, GM and even the person who answers the phone.) takes a 50% pay cut until normalcy returns.
I doubt, after you eliminate salaries of your uniformed employees (Players, manager and coaches) the total salaries for the other people working in the building adds up to $20 million. Probably less.
Twenty million is a small price to pay to stay in business for owners who have seen the value of their teams skyrocket over the past decade into the hundreds of millions . And in a few cases, a billion or more.
You know how other countries are looking at America right now and laughing at the ridiculousness of a petty, two-party system of morons? MLB is a microcosm of the absolute stupidity of taking a side and digging in at all costs, with no concern for hearing or even considering other perspectives. Well done MLB.
Does the Average American really care what foreign countries think about anything? They have their own lives to think about.
When it comes to the Long Game, it matters a lot.
The problem is these negotiations have less to do with this season and more to do with the next CBA negotiations. At this point my guess is a strikeout or lockout is inevitable.
And there you have the truth it has nothing to do with this season it is all about the cba negotiations at this point an arbitrator should step in provide the numbers and mention to both the owners and the players this is what will be on the table that I have drawn up take it or leave it..
You have owners idiotically stating MLB is not profitable you have players especially higher paid players stating they are fighting for the future of baseball and those in the minor leagues which is laughable in itself the owners don’t care what the average fan wants and the players don’t care about those below them its about greed.
Baseball does not come back this year next year won’t be different millions of fans will be lost , owners will lose a lot of money and players that are set to be free agents end of this year will now see a very low salary no way teams will justify giving them say Mookie Betts $30 million per year he now may see somewhere along the lines of $22 million per year.
That is my opinion. Watch Torkelson, Martin and Wells and see if they sign? Why those three? They are members of “Team Boras”‘imagine Boras advises those players not to sign for $100,000 this Season?That could make things get far worse, real fast.
It doesn’t matter who’s at fault. The industry will suffer far greater long term losses with no season than they would have lost this year had they played.
It’s a very simple proposition.
Only the individual owners know at what point in terms of games played and at what payroll cost each can break even with only media revenue…no fans, no concessions, etc. Each market and situation is different, so the owners as a group have to figure how to even out the number of games and media revenues so that all the franchises remain financially viable.
The owners already have those numbers, and have balanced them against the losses incurred if no games are played. They may agree to breaking even, but they will not agree under any circumstances to lose more money by playing.
Owners will not allow those numbers to be made known to the players or the general public…nor should they. They always have and always will make public professions of poverty. Ignore them.
On the other hand, the players always have and always will profess their love for the game. Ignore them, too. With very few…a minute number…exceptions, it’s about money.
Each of us fans would say how much we love cleaning out sewers, if somebody would pay us $4.4 mil a year to do it.
If those numbers, whatever they may be, are met…and the safety arrangements are agreed on…there will be a season. If not, there wont be.
“Unarguable Point B:
Any agreement should see owners make more profit than they would in a 50-game season.”
So, if there are two plans….
A) a plan that sees the owners break even or make only a small profit, but preserves their relationships with the players, their media partners and, more importantly, the fans
or
B) a plan that allows the owners to make extra profit but causes serious harm to their relationships with any or all of the players, their media partners and the fans
…you are saying they should choose B?
There is another possibility (which is why the owners will not play), is the players take them to arbitration and demand pay for not 114 games but 162 games ( and actually get it). If they do not play because of the virus (see the Cowboys and Texans players),’they have a plausible excuse.
I agree with that. I was going to write another A) or B) question asking whether they should open themselves up to huge legal liability (from Covid lawsuits, player grievances, whatever) in order to squeeze out a little extra profit, but my post was long enough already.
My point is the idea that profit and profit alone should guide their motives is both highly simplistic and still wrong.
There’s no way they get full pay through arbitration. No court or arbitrator is going to grant a full contract through an “Act of God” situation.
Not gonna happen this year. Too complex to resolve so many issues. And the virus is still lurking around. Best to wait for next year.
Agree with his inarguable points, but disagree on the split of revenue. It should be a split of revenue minus variable costs involved in those 30 extra games. If you have to pay a grounds crew for those 15 extra home games, that eats into the revenue. Same with ticket takers, security guards, etc. The fixed costs, such as interest on any team debt, ought to be absorbed by the owners because it’s unaffected by these extra games.
Logical negotiating course in that we have an agreement of sorts in place on fifty games and we can simply use that as a starting point and divide revenues/costs sharing up over the additional games. The real problem may be that there are more than eight owners that do not want a season at all (if reports are true). We also likely have brinkmanship related to the future 2021 CBA taking place. We can likely overcome the brinkmanship, however if there eight owners that want to nix a 2020 season that will likely be immovable.
I can actually see where eight owners may just not be on board with a season. Say I put a large portion of my disposable cash into COVID-19 investment, donation, and my other assets (employees in businesses that make less, yet there are more of and therefore more expensive) and I will see a downturn in real estate investment/sales/lease. Add on to that my future tax expenses are in the air a bit with an election upcoming and may cost me a good bit more. I may decide this asset is okay for year as its employees and value will whether the storm without further money put towards it. It starts making negotiation difficult when we run into outside influences we can understand and see as more logical.
As for comparing to other sports, well, they weren’t the first to be challenged with the pandemic and are still negotiating new revenue streams and details, while not missing their actual season/prime income stream season.
And we also have government involved in stadium leases, etc. We know they are broke or have overspent elsewhere and may not want to spend on baseball right now.
The problem with your great article Matt is that its logical.
And were not seeing any understandable logic coming out of these negotiations.
Wondering what were missing?
Why would both sides not want to work this out?
This is what gets lost, and it was a slow change, that we live in a different sports world.
A LOT of teams, in every major sport, are no longer family owned with owners that love the sport. They are conglomerates or owned by multiple owners that want the prestige of being a sport franchise owner.
Now combine it with athletes that have been coddled since high school. People have been throwing them praise and an assortment of goodies, legal and otherwise through college and the minors. They make millions. They have zero touch on the fans or reality of what the real world is unless they lose it all and become an average person again.
Baseball is going to pay a huge price and a lot of these people won’t see it coming because they think they will throw on a new season and the fans and bucks will keep flowing. They are just not seeing this will be 1995 part two, but worse because they won’t see or acknowledge the issue. That is until their own pocket books are hit.
I think it’s almost inevitable that this situation ends in calamity for both sides. They’re fighting over the same territory and not budging much. It’s almost a law of nature that each sports league will have a nasty labor battle every 25 years where they both end up losers.
I’ve been reading way too much about this dress rehearsal for the next CBA. I took the same macro-economics courses we all took as freshmen…took those required philosophy courses too….so I’m as messed up as everyone else.
Can we agree that there’s no such creature as an un-wealthy owner? Can we also acknowledge that there are no MLB players who qualify as paupers?
Every owner ‘probably’ has some concept of financial loss. Most are probably insured at some level against revenue loss.
So PAY THE BLOODY PRO_RATE and GET ON THE FIELD! If the teams take it on the chops this year (which they will) they’ll make it up next year. For Pete’s sake, the owners have kited deferred payouts for decades but can’t get down with deferred income?
All this is going to be televised. People buy their swag online not IN LINE. My apologies to the hot dog and beer industries…you’ll get over it.
This whole pissing contest is getting old….REAL old.
Oh, btw ESPN….Sosa played for the White Sox too. We got George Bell back in the trade. Stick THAT in your documentary, Skippy!