Major League Baseball and the Player's Association have hit another impasse during negotiations in order to start the 2020 season. The question circling around social media, is who's fault is it? Do you side with the players? Or do you side with the owners? I was not really sure where I personally stood on the matter, but I am here to tell you why I am now siding with Major League Owners.
First, it will be important to note why the two sides have yet to come to an agreement, and why the season is nowhere near starting. The players currently want full prorated salaries no matter the amount of games they play this season. In the owners last offer to the players, the MLB offered a 76 game season, with prorated salaries based on 75% of the players pay. That deal included playoff pool money and no compensatory draft picks for signing players. In my honest opinion, the players should have taken that deal. The word around, and what can be seen from some MLB players twitter accounts, is that when you take a deep dive into the proposal, nothing has really changed over the last couple of months. Reds Pitcher Trevor Bauer explained it as offering a dozen donuts as two 6 packs of donuts. I 100% understand where the players are coming from but the optics are just terrible. They seem to be fighting for minuscule dollars in retrospect to what they make, during the worst pandemic the world, and this country has ever seen. I have heard people throw the argument of "well when we go back to work we aren't asked to take a pay cut", no but we also aren't asked to work 25 hours a week either. The MLB season is usually 162 games, if somehow they played in the 60 to 81 range amount of games, the players will at most be playing 50% of the games they normally play. Why should they get paid their contracts in full? How is that fair to the owners? Who are losing money with no fans in the stands, no concessions etc.
Another, rather boring factor to this, is there is no revenue sharing in the MLB in regards to tv revenue. Sports such as the NFL have in place that all tv revenue is split evenly amongst the 32 teams. In baseball they do not have that. A deal the players want can seriously hurt the teams they play for, and can have serious ramifications for the game in the future. Teams such as the Royals, Rays, and other small markets teams with not as big of a tv market will be hurt considerably by lesser games, while having to pay their players in full. This can lead to certain teams having to get rid of players for the simple fact they can not afford their payroll. Then that trickles into a worse product on the field, less profit and a worse product for all of baseball. There needs to be some give from both sides of course, but money, although important, needs not to be the driving factor during a time like this. Everyone has had to sacrifice during these last 3 to 4 months, so there needs to be some during these negotiations. Now, are the owners maybe taking advantage of the situation this country is in? There could be a case for that, but I do not see as much of an issue with them as the majority does. As a baseball fan I just want to watch a game during the summer, there needs to be more initiative. I firmly believe the pushback has been from the players, and that is why I am siding with the owners. With other sports beginning like the NBA and NHL, there is no reason for baseball not too. Sports have a way of healing, making people forget about the troubling times they are living in, baseball is the sport of the summer, but can be easily forgotten if they let money come between playing this season. It's time for baseball.
