Lockout Negotiations Another Reminder That Billionaire MLB Owners Don’t Care About The Game
The only conclusion that can be drawn from the negotiations over Major League Baseball’s’ lockout of its players is that the owners don’t care anymore about the game.
Yeah, I know—they never did.
Whether it was looking the other way during the steroid era, juiced baseballs, elongated commercial breaks between innings, or expanded playoffs, nothing is more sacred to these billionaires than the almighty dollar.
On Tuesday, the MLB Players Association rejected what they deemed a laughable offer to end the lockout, thereby ensuring that the 2022 season won’t start on time, if you believe the league’s (owners’) self-imposed deadline.
The owners don’t seem to mind that games will be lost, especially if those occur in colder April when schools are in session. They’d trade those in for more playoff games in a heartbeat, because that’s where the real money is.
Oh, but they don’t want to share such a windfall with their players.
All professional sports leagues have their issues when it comes to dealing with organized labor, but baseball has always risen far above the others on the gluttony scale. Fans aren’t asking MLB to treat its players more like partners the way the NBA does, or even revenue share like the NFL, but for heaven’s sake, can the owners stop acting like Afghan warlords, protective over their little kingdoms to the detriment of the overall structure of the league? Why is the league protecting the Baltimore Orioles, who have the means to spend more than $29.4 million on this season’s payroll but would rather finish in last place for the fifth time in the last six seasons than put money down on a competitive product that might not pay off with a postseason berth?
There are workable solutions to most of the underlying issues in this dispute because they surround dollar figures on thresholds for things like luxury taxes, minimum salaries, bonus pools, and the like. The two sides reportedly agreed on a 12-team playoff pool (up from 10) and a universal designated hitter. Can’t they just meet in the middle and call it a day?
Right—never mind. If the owners had their way, they’d take the whole pie, even the crumbs. MLB commissioner Rob Manfred, the owners’ tool, was exactly the wrong mouthpiece to speak on their behalf to lay out their positions. Did he actually attempt to cry poverty? “I think you also need to remember that the last five years have been very difficult years from a revenue perspective for the industry given the pandemic,” Manfred said at Tuesday’s press conference.
Wait, we’ve been in a pandemic for five years? I must have lost track of time.
And let’s not gloss over the $43 billion in revenue the game generated in that stretch, which ain’t chicken feed as they used to say when MLB players were at the owners’ mercy due to an unconstitutional reserve clause that bound them to one team unless traded.
If the clubs were indeed running in the red all this time, show the players the books (LOL). It’s a red herring anyway, because in almost every case, the owners’ investments in baseball franchises have increased far more than the cumulative operating losses. George Steinbrenner bought the Yankees from CBS for $10 million in 1973—even when factoring in an inflation calculator, that’s the equivalent of about $63.3 million in today’s dollars. I think owning a $5 billion-plus property has more than made the family whole over all those years of chasing superstars.
Does anyone believe new Mets owner Steve Cohen, a former hedge fund titan, would require federal assistance if he had to pay his players, especially those on the lower end of the wage scale, a larger share of the gross? It’s a useful tax write-off to him. The rest of the greedy gang are in the same boat—according to the L.A. Times, 24 of the 30 MLB owners are billionaires, with no one’s net worth below $400 million. We should all live like these penny-pinchers.
I didn’t always take the players’ side in these disputes over the years but then again, I haven’t cared enough about Major League Baseball since the strike that shut down the 1994 season more than halfway through. In an industry that depends on the passing down of appreciation from fathers and mothers to sons and daughters, I can tell you that even though my kids played in Little League and one made it through high school, none of them follow the game today even on a cursory level.
It's a shame that the owners haven’t changed their own care level when it comes to growing the game; otherwise they wouldn’t have called for a lockout at this particular juncture in our nation’s recovery when people are itching to get out and spend money on entertainment.
I do feel for those fans, especially New Yorkers who have been stuck with underperforming teams (with the exception of the Rangers) in other sports to root for, who were looking forward to this MLB season—and particularly those that need it to earn a living—so make sure you aim your arrows at the proper target if this isn’t settled soon.
Bear in mind that the best way for fans to get even is to reciprocate the owners’ posture towards them—not care anymore.