2027 lockout question

[Cranny]

Is revenue sharing DOA?

[Banner29]

I am of the belief that something has to be done about player salaries and team pricing. I do not have the answers but I see the issues.

1. Player salaries are ridiculous. Nobody should be making $45 mill a season to play baseball. $25 mill would be the cutoff for me. The teams also should not be allowed to defer that money down the road past 5 to 10 years. If everyone was allowed to compete for a player under the same rules then you would not see teams like the Dodgers and Yankees loaded with a team of stars. These players would go to other teams where they maybe have home town roots or feel a better chemistry would happen.

2. With that said the team should also be forced to lock their pricing for tickets and stadium services. This way those costs are not passed on to the consumer providing stability to all. This is a huge problem. LA can charge $200 for a ticket and get it nightly, then turn around and pay an Ohtani over half a billion while deferring that money for decades. A team like Milwaukee, Tampa, St. Louis cannot get away with that, and therefore not generate that revenue. If everyone had to lock down their prices under a salary cap and then pricing to fans to where all were on a truly level playing field then it serves both owners, players and fans. Yeah, the fat cat owners get devalued but the other owners get raised up. Teams can still generate additional revenue through licensing and tv deals. It is all called budgeting. Every business has to do and they just need to enact it league wide for the preservation of their business.

If you limit salaries all you are doing is putting more money in the pockets of the owners.

Not when you do revenue sharing and force a floor

[Youboughtit]

Brewers are smart.

Dodgers are 7 games behind the Brewers because they were outsmarted.

Cardinals are simply smarting.

Give it a month. The Dodgers are simply coasting and keeping their SP healthy by rotating them on the IL. Wait till you see the full roster in the post season. These projections Browns Dodgers haven’t even thrown their aces against the Brewers yet.

[Youboughtit]

Is revenue sharing DOA?

No and that is the answer to a balanced playing field. No cap or floor until full revenue sharing to determine what it should be.

[rockondlouie]

In the case of a lockout, players would miss out on salary. Do I have that right?

So what is the implication of having money on the books vs not, since the teams wouldn't be on the hook for money during the lockout.

Is it simply a matter of how the market might correct after the lockout? Major changes to contracts, years/length, caps, etc? I suppose you wouldn't want to carry over commitments from the previous system if players suddenly are cheaper or easier to negotiate with after 2027. Is that it?

The players wouldn’t get their regular salaries, but some signing bonuses and deferred payments could be exceptions.
Key issues will be a firm salary cap, revenue sharing, and years for minimum wage and arbitration.

Correct

But owners can forget the salary cap, that issue is DOA.

Deferred money has to be addressed or Dodgers are going to ink every good player.

Something has to be done about a salary floor minimum.

Rock, I don’t know that to be the case. There is no doubt that players are against a cap but how dug in are the owners. The large market teams don’t care because the rising market doesn’t affect them but the other owners want something in place. At this point I don’t know that anything is “DOA”.

How dug in are the smaller markets. Every other major sports league has some form of a cap, even the NFL. IMO, nothing is off the table yet. A majority of the owners may be planning for a lengthy holdout. The players have a limited window to make money.

Let’s wait and see how dug in both sides are. I’m preparing to miss the 2027 season.

Owners have wanted a cap for decades whatashame.

They claim to be "dug in" every time and fold because since the days of Marvin Miller the MLBPA has said a cap is a non starter and owners know it.

I'd love one, most fans (other than Dodger fans) would.

Plus owners have many TV contracts worth BILLIONS now from Networks to Streaming services and they will get a TON of pressure from them to get the games back on!

But players also are much, much richer than they were last time and can holdout for a long time (even rookies will have made over three-quarters of a million dollars).

Both sides need to find common ground way before it comes to a lockout, they both have way too much money at stake.

I don't think we miss many games in 2027 (if any), hope I'm right.

I see both sides and I get your argument. What makes this CBA any different than the others? We will find out but to keep kicking it down the road isn’t changing anything. I think or maybe I hope, the owners are more dug in than ever before. I believe that this CBA will be the turning point but I thought the last one was the turning point. I don’t want them to come back with the status quo. The distance between the top and the bottom is growing exponentially but as I said, we will see how dug in each side is.

It’s hard to imagine that the smaller market teams will allow the status quo to prevail. Pittsburgh is already on the clock in trying to keep Skenes in Pittsburgh. When will the Cardinals be on the clock with Wetherholt? The Reds with Burnes? Cleveland was lucky J Ramirez was willing to take less to stay there. Something has to change.

I hear ya'

But I don't ever see them accepting a hard salary cap.

Nor do I see owners risking the billions in TV contracts.

At least it's a full season off, let's enjoy 2026!