What Does Labor Want? Play Ball!

“What does labor want? We want more schoolhouses and less jails; more books and less arsenals; more learning and less vice; more leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge; in fact, more of the opportunities to cultivate our better natures, to make manhood more noble, womanhood more beautiful, and childhood more happy and bright.”

Samuel Gompers

The State of the Game

The introduction of the pitch clock and other rule changes in 2023 has led to faster games, greater attendance, and higher TV ratings. Over 50 million viewers saw the last game of the 2025 World Series. The current worth of the average MLB team is $2.95 billion dollars.

“The sun’s shining, the air’s fresh, we’ve got our team behind us… let’s play two today!”

Ernie Banks

Unfortunately Major League Baseball is not as profitable as the NFL, NBA and NHL. MLB has earnings under 2% compared to the other sports averaging over 20% each. Also the wealth of larger city teams allow those teams to acquire many more expensive star players than smaller market teams. The 2025 champion Los Angeles Dodgers had a payroll of $515 million dollars- more than the combined payroll of the bottom six smaller market teams. The Dodger payroll was seven times the $68.7 million payroll of the lowest spending team. Major League Baseball’s labor agreement will expire on December 1st of 2026.

Management’s Proposal

Owners have proposed a proposed payroll floor of at least $171.2 million dollars. Payrolls would be capped at $245.3 million. Revenues would be split 50/50 with the players. Owners have proposed a seven years contract. In addition, media rights for all teams local packages will expire in 2028. MLB wants to end regional sports networks and sell the rights to all 30 teams games as a national package to a streaming service. Baseball Commissioner Manfred has suggested but not formally proposed expanding to 32 teams. Teams would then be geographically. Such realignment might end the traditional American and National league division.

Union Response

The players union wants expanded free agency and salary arbitration rights. The union proposes an increase in the major league minimum salary and an increase in the money that higher revenue teams share with the less fortunate teams. Players view management’s cap proposal not as a competitive fairness issue, but as restricting player salaries only to increase owner’s profits.

What If?

In 1994 baseball owners proposed a cap. Players went on a 7½-month strike. Even the World Series was cancelled. The strike ended when U.S. District Judge Sonia Sotomayor issued an injunction that restored the rules of the expired labor contract. A contract agreement was finally reached in 1997. If owners and players do not agree to a new Collective Bargaining Agreement before the current one expires, owners may “lock out” the players until a new contract is in place. Just as MLB is experiencing renewed fan interest, all baseball activities may come to a standstill.

“And everything seemed to be going so well…”

Dwight McCarthy, Sin City

Sources:
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/26/mlb-faces-historic-shift-as-potential-lockout-media-rights-and-league-changes-loom.html
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/48903168/mlb-owners-propose-first-salary-cap-1994-strike
https://abcnews.com/Business/wireStory/mlb-owners-proposed-salary-cap-time-baseballs-1994-133396482
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/47108752/mlb-labor-battle-cba-salary-cap-owners-players-union-mlbpa-faq-manfred
https://apnews.com/article/mlb-salary-cap-7ea902bcaa4aa8692a23d027705703e1

Thanks and a tip of the hat to Joe Glorioso @AllProReels for the image.