Yesterday, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred made the announcement that more games in the 2022 baseball would be canceled after talks stalled between the owners and players, continuing the lockout the league is currently in.
And honestly, it doesn't really look like a resolution is in sight.
There are a lot of minute details in the arguments between owners and players, but the biggest sticking point, according to Vox, is that players are tired of watching owners make more money while not trying to compete to win.
With the proposed "Competitive Balance Tax," the threshold will be tighter for bigger market teams in spending more money to acquire players. So even though, there isn't an official "salary cap" in baseball, limiting how much money each team can spend, there are penalties for spending over a certain amount.
The way it's set up, teams that don't generate a lot of ticket sales, which goes to the players, have no incentive to pay top talent to come to their team to try and compete. And with revenue sharing, teams that aren't competing can still earn money, which goes to the owners!
Not to mention the "professionalization" of youth sports over the last few decades, and the fact that even the most promising baseball players spend a few years in the minor leagues (where un-unionized players are MASSIVELY underpaid,) how many years of work could a player have put in before they see any kind of substantial return? Decades?
Source categorizes ongoing contact between the League and the Union tonight as "communication" and not really "talks or negotiation" — communication channels are still open.
— Marly Rivera (@MarlyRiveraESPN) March 10, 2022
A recent poll found that 45% of self-identified MLB fans thought club owners are more responsible for the failure to reach a deal, 34% said they didn't know or had no opinion, while 21% blamed the players.
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