What's the deal with the baseball union?
May 28, 2020 11:24 PM   Subscribe

In the United States, I have been reading just a little about when and how sports might start back up. This includes some dispute between Major League Baseball players and owners. But I don't see anything about any similar such dispute with any other sport. Is that because MLB players have more power somehow, or what?
posted by NotLost to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (7 answers total)
 
In the UK, there have been issues on safety with the players' union as regards the restart of football (soccer)
posted by TheRaven at 12:24 AM on May 29, 2020 [1 favorite]


It's because it's baseball season, so they will start playing almost immediately (while football, basketball, and hockey have months before they have to make decisions). It will be a shortened season, so player salaries will be prorated. The owners are begging poverty to try to cut player salaries even more, and they're doing it in a union-busting sort of way.

If the owners are being honest, it's possible they will just cancel the season rather than taking the economic losses of paying the players for the shortened season. However, there's not a lot of reason to trust the owners after their last several negotiations with the union, where they constantly cry poverty, while making billions of dollars. But ... this is an unprecedented situation so who knows, they might be telling the truth.

The current MLB collective bargaining agreement between the players and the owners expires in 2021, so nobody's real eager to make any concessions they might have to deal with next year anyway.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 3:25 AM on May 29, 2020 [6 favorites]


In general, the MLBPA is regarded as the strongest players’ union of the four major sports. There are some situation-specific factors at play (Eyebrows gave a good summary), but your impression that baseball players have more power than other athletes (at least in a collective bargaining sense) is accurate.
posted by kevinbelt at 3:54 AM on May 29, 2020 [1 favorite]


Best answer: Is that because MLB players have more power somehow, or what?

Yes, and they have since the 1970's.

The NBA and the NFL have salary caps, which are set as a percentage of overall league revenue. Player salaries are (often?) set as a percentage of the cap. So if the NBA loses 2 billion dollars of revenue, the players will see that hit their salaries, this year or next year. Also, there are at least 16 NBA teams who would like a chance to compete in the playoffs, which would be going on right now, so they have a direct motivation to get back going to finish up the season somehow. (And the league generally gets along with their superstar players more, and involves them in some of these decisions.)

Baseball doesn't have a salary cap. There are some "luxury tax" type things, and some revenue balancing, but if the Angels want to pay Mike Trout $40 million dollars, they don't have to make room or anything. The MLB owners have been trying to implement a salary cap for literally decades (this is what prompted the 1994 strike), and the players have held it off.

The league and the players agreed back in March to prorate the salaries for this season based on the number of actual games that get played. The assumption, though, was that there would be fans paying for tickets. Now the league wants to further reduce player salaries, either to a share of revenue (an opening for a salary cap) or as a bigger cut for higher-dollar players and a smaller amount for league-minimum players.

Also, despite two decades of relative peace, the league and the players association in general haven't really trusted each other much, and acrimonious public disputes are just kinda part of the process. I wouldn't worry too much about them getting something done, but it'll probably keep looking bad until at least the last minute.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 5:19 AM on May 29, 2020 [5 favorites]


Good analysis here.
posted by Melismata at 6:22 AM on May 29, 2020 [1 favorite]


The above posters did a good job of explaining the basics. I would add that because the MLBPA is not a traditional bargaining unit that negotiates the same compensation for similarly situated workers and work conditions, they only negotiate the working conditions and the rules of the league, the disparity in compensation between the various positions and the different talent levels has lead to an opening by the owners to divide the players. Add into the structural issues that Scott Boras the most powerful player agent is interjecting himself with the players union head Tony Clark and it is a real mess.

I agree it will get sorted,but it is not going to be without discord. The sausage will taste good in the end, but watching it get made may cause you to lose your appetite.

I think you will also find that, for some reason, many baseball players have been speaking out individually on social media in support of what they think is best for them or for the whole rather than in other leagues where they seem to keep the internal squabbles internal.

Now if only YouTube TV can settle their dispute with Sinclair over the rights to show the YES Network, we can get to some exciting Yankees baseball...
posted by AugustWest at 6:28 AM on May 29, 2020 [1 favorite]


while football, basketball, and hockey have months before they have to make decisions

The hockey players association agreed this week to the NHL's plan to "end" last season and do playoffs in July 2020 although there is still much to be determined. I don't understand all the underlying issues but I gather there's a fair amount of money in question if last season is just asterisked... bonus money, incentive money, TV money, trades and contracts with play-off based contingencies.
posted by beaning at 7:16 AM on May 29, 2020 [1 favorite]


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