If you ask a bipartisan group of Senate Judiciary Committee members, the future of Major League Baseball's longstanding antitrust exemption is very much in play.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) says MLB uses the weight of the exemption, which protects it from legal challenges to potentially anti-competitive business practices, to keep the salaries of minor league players low.
Players at the AA level, such as those who play for the Hartford Yard Goats, are paid a minimum of $600/week, or about $12,000 for a full five-month season. Minor league players are compensated by their Major League parent organization (in the case of the Yard Goats, it's the Colorado Rockies), which does provide in-season housing.
Blumenthal says the minor league players are "exploited" by MLB, which "is stifling pay for the players and opportunities for the teams by using this exemption, unique among all sports, to reach agreements among themselves and impose them."
Sen. Blumenthal, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) recently wrote MLB Commissioner Manfred about the issue, asking why baseball still needs the exemption, created by a Supreme Court decision 100 years ago. They have not heard back.
Questioned by a reporter on low player wages last week, Manfred said, “I kind of reject the premise of the question, that minor league players are not paid a living wage.”
In response, Blumenthal says, "Let him say that to the courts. Let him say that to us."
