Coronavirus

In a lawsuit filed recently in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, a pair of fans allege that MLB, its teams, and a host of ticket re-sellers have wrongly refused to refund ticket costs and associated fees relating to the postponed 2020 season. Jesse Rogers of ESPN.com and Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times are among those to cover the filing.

The would-be class representatives cover the two groups seeking relief: one is a partial season ticketholder and the other bought single-game tickets. In both cases, it seems, full or partial refunds have not been available because MLB continues to treat games as being postponed rather than cancelled.

Reflecting its attempt to achieve class certification, the suit doesn’t just go after the specific teams and ticket agencies involved in those cases. The complaint lists all thirty teams and four ticket companies: official MLB partner StubHub along with Ticketmaster, Live Nation, and Last Minute Transactions.

We are now several weeks into the scheduled 2020 MLB season with no end in sight to the shutdown. Most of the current chatter has surrounded the possibility of returning to play without fans in attendance — an outcome that would obviously warrant a refund.

But the league has yet to formally abandon hope of a full 2020 season, providing at least partial or temporary public relations and legal cover for the fact that individual fans’ funds are still sitting in the bank accounts of these large companies. Per Rogers, the eventual plan is likely “to offer credit toward tickets for 2021 if no games are played this summer.”

While these businesses are trying to work through surprising, difficult, and wholly unprecedented issues, many individuals are dealing with yet tougher times. And there’s little doubt that the money will ultimately have to be returned if the tickets can’t be honored for the 2020 season. The ESPN report does seem to indicate that the 2021 credit scenario would be presented as an alternative to a refund in the (exceedingly likely) event that games are indeed cancelled. The named defendants have yet to respond in court to the initial filing.

The lawsuit, then, is likely to spur battles over timing and other specifics — if, at least, its plaintiffs are successful at achieving class certification. There’ll surely also be a big fight over where the suit should be heard and what law will apply. As Shaikin notes, the initial pleading asserts claims arising under several uniquely consumer-protective California statutes.

The states of Arizona and Florida have already been mentioned as possible sites for the 2020 Major League Baseball season if the coronavirus pandemic doesn’t prevent it from happening. In the event the campaign does get underway, Texas could join Arizona and Florida in hosting teams and games, R.J. Anderson of CBS Sports reports.

Anderson heard from a source that there’s “guarded optimism” this three-state plan could actually take effect. Major league, minor league and spring training facilities would all be potential spots for regular-season games, and there would be multiple contests per day in those places.

Notably, there are five MLB stadiums among the states. Texas features two big league ballparks, the Astros’ Minute Maid Park and the Rangers’ soon-to-open Globe Life Field. Both facilities include retractable roofs, which is important when considering the Texas heat and the need to guard against potential rainouts. MLB would obviously want to get in as many games as possible during what would surely be a truncated season. Fortunately for the league, Arizona (the Diamondbacks’ Chase Field) and Florida (Marlins Park and the Rays’ Tropicana Field) also have either domed or retractable venues.

It’s unclear how many clubs would be stationed in each state, nor is it known how serious the league is about this possibility. Likewise, it’s anyone’s guess whether staging any MLB games in 2020 – even without spectators – will prove to be feasible with COVID-19 still not under control. Nevertheless, with MLB guaranteed to take an enormous financial hit if a season doesn’t take place, it’s brainstorming many different ideas as it hopes to avoid a worst-case scenario.

April 20: The Reds, Marlins and Red Sox are also committing to paying baseball operations employees through the end of May, per ESPN’s Jeff Passan (Twitter thread).

April 19, 9:20pm: The White Sox will also continue to pay employees through the least the end of May, 670 The Score’s Bruce Levine tweets.

2:57pm: MLB commissioner Rob Manfred is expected to announce on Monday a decision that will allow teams to furlough non-playing personnel or reduce their pay, according to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. Beginning May 1, MLB will suspend its Uniform Employee Contracts, allowing—but not requiring—teams to take such measures. The decision will affect a group that includes managers, coaches, some front office personnel, and others.

It’s important to note that some teams have already declared their intent to pay employees through the end of May. Others may still follow suit, but the goal of these measures is that “clubs facing the most significant financial duress” will be afforded some flexibility during the season delay. So the extent to which teams will make use of these measures is unknown, but the length of the delay will likely impact teams’ thinking.

The Braves, Phillies, and Giants have already committed to paying their employees through at least May, and the hope is that many more teams will opt to do the same. Phillies owner John Middleton expressed his confidence that games will take place this year, rendering layoffs and budget cuts unnecessary. And while there’s little certainty about the timeframe for baseball’s return, we hope that other owners will feel similarly in the near future. Indeed, USA Today’s Bob Nightengale tweeted yesterday that “most teams” are expected to make similar commitments.

MLBPA chief Tony Clark spoke with Bob Nightengale of USA Today about the union’s stance on returning to play in 2020. His comments focused primarily on the pervasive ongoing uncertainty, but Clark also says he’s remaining optimistic.

On the one hand, there’s nothing new here. As Clark acknowledges, the course of the scientific, social, and political response to the virus will dictate what baseball can do and when.

“We don’t have the answers, and we don’t expect those to come anytime soon,” Clark explains.

At the same time, it’s important to understand where the chief decisionmakers stand on these matters. Clark echoed MLB commissioner Rob Manfred regarding the need to consider first the broader public needs. Testing availability is critical, he said, but “it can’t be at the expense of public testing.” And it must be determined how the virus “can be mitigated in the public arena as much as the professional arena.”

While there’s a lot of overlap in league and union interests — everyone wants to be a positive force and to get revenue moving again — there are obviously quite a few differences in situation. Playing in empty stadiums won’t be a problem, Clark says. And the union side is willing to consider some experimental measures to make things interesting and accommodate a compressed schedule.

But what of the much bigger potential issues? There’s agreement in the near term on the rules regarding player contracts, but what will happen to long-term guarantees and upcoming free agent and arbitration cases? And will players be willing to live apart from families and accept other restrictions on their personal lives if that proves necessary to holding a season?

Clark says “it would be premature to have that discussion” and adds that he doesn’t intend “to negotiate through the media.” Ultimately, he says, the concepts that have been discussed to this point lack “depth” and feature “too many assumptions” to be addressed in detail.

“Once we find ourselves in discussions with the league in terms of options and variations, we in turn can present those ideas to the players, and the players can decide what makes most sense,” Clark explains.

One of the most interesting matters coming down the pike hasn’t yet been addressed by Clark or Manfred: the expiration of the collective bargaining agreement in 2021. There was prior chatter of an early initiation of negotiations, so the sides have already been thinking about things. The present crisis has obviously required difficult modifications to the present bargaining period. It will also change the parameters of the next one. As league and union make difficult tradeoffs now, they’ll surely be considering the impacts and perhaps even beginning negotiations regarding their next overarching agreement. At the same time, sudden and vast uncertainty will make it all the more challenging to think through the future.