The Lockout Begins

Major League Baseball’s 26-year run of labor peace is officially over. As anticipated, MLB and the MLBPA were unable to reach terms on a new CBA ahead of last night’s 11:59 p.m. deadline. Shortly thereafter, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred announced that the league had locked out the players:

For its part, the MLBPA issued a statement in response:

Neither Manfred’s letter, nor the MLBPA’s response, were unexpected, as both sides will be posturing to gain the moral high ground in the coming days. While the union is certainly correct that the owners weren’t legally obligated to implement a lockout, Manfred’s belief that this step increases the odds that the dispute is resolved before it disrupts too much of the regular season is a reasonable one as well. And although the union would be correct to take issue with the way the commissioner characterized the state of the negotiations to date, it is also true that the players appear to be the ones seeking the more significant modifications to the sport’s existing economic model in an attempt to arrest several escalating trends that have proven unfavorable for the MLBPA’s membership in recent years.

Again, it is important to remember that both sides are ultimately looking to maximize their bargaining leverage over one another. And in this case, the owners have determined that implementing a labor stoppage during the offseason — rather than allowing the players to elect to strike in the middle of the season — best serves their interests.

So now we wait. As I explained yesterday, while the MLBPA has a couple of potential options it could take in response to the lockout, it appears that the players have — not surprisingly — elected to continue to negotiate as a union, at least for now.

And considering how relatively few leaks there have been coming out of the negotiations to date — itself a positive sign compared to the seemingly constant media posturing the two sides engaged in back in 2020 — any substantive updates may prove to be somewhat few and far between in the coming days and weeks.

Ultimately, however, all of this is — again — very much expected. As I wrote yesterday, until we get to late-February without a deal in sight, there is not necessarily cause for concern that the lockout will endanger the start of the regular season. Deadlines tend to spur action in cases like this, and the next real deadline for the parties is the start of spring training, when the owners will start to lose actual revenue, and most of the players will really start to feel the pinch of being locked out.

Until then, the most likely outcome remains that a new deal is reached before the lockout meaningfully disrupts the 2022 season. Indeed, both sides have a lot to lose should this dispute drag on into the summer.





Nathaniel Grow is an Associate Professor of Business Law and Ethics and the Yormark Family Director of the Sports Industry Workshop at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business. He is the author of Baseball on Trial: The Origin of Baseball's Antitrust Exemption, as well as a number of sports-related law review articles. You can follow him on Twitter @NathanielGrow. The views expressed are solely those of the author and do not express the views or opinions of Indiana University.

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Cave Dameron
2 years ago

Thank you Nathaniel, very cool!