Well, this sucks.
For the first time since 1994, Major League Baseball has endured a work stoppage. Then, it was a strike. Now, it’s a lockout.
Tensions between the league and the Player’s Associating have reached a boiling point. A new CBA was not agreed upon by last night’s deadline of 11:59 p.m. ET.
If we thought the negotiations prior to the 2020 season were bad, we’re in for a rough couple of months as baseball fans. Once again, the players feel that the owners have been taking advantage of them by hoarding all their money, not giving the players their fair share. And the players are 100% correct.
It was nice to see the league decide to provide housing for minor leaguers. That was a big step, but the owners still have yet to give an inch in these negotiations.
And because the owners have decided to act like they’re broke, even though they’re multi-billionaires, we’ve got ourselves a lockout.
Last year, we had Bill DeWitt saying that the game wasn’t profitable, which couldn’t be further from the truth. The owners have all seemingly taken that stance and are unwilling to budge.
If the owners honestly took a step back and realized how much money they have, and that it really doesn’t take that much to give the players what they want and to level the playing field, we wouldn’t be in this position now.
This is a huge blow for baseball, which is already losing money, fans, and viewers, and is falling behind football, soccer, basketball, and seemingly all other sports. One would think that they’ll have to eventually come to the middle. But that’s going to take a long time given the simmering tensions. This could stretch into mid-February, or even early March.
Will we lose games in the 2022 season? Are we going to be delayed a couple months? Will the owners be cheap again and continue to intentionally make bad proposals just so they can do another 60-game season, like they did in 2020? Then will Manfred blame it on COVID?
Who knows?
We can only hope that this will accelerate the negotiating process and get things going again. The last thing baseball needs is a shortened season, which will cause more money to be lost, both on the owners’ side and the players’ side. Baseball is in a really poor state right now, and things aren’t looking too promising.
Ugh.
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