Players’ Proposal Should Get Everyone Closer to Major League Baseball
On Tuesday, Rob Manfred and Tony Clark met in Arizona. On Wednesday, MLB made an offer to the MLBPA that would give players pro-rated salaries for 60 games and a $25 million postseason pool. It also included $33 million in salary relief from the $170 million in advances players received, and a universal designated hitter. In exchange, the owners would get expanded playoffs for the next two years, and the players would agree to waive any grievance the MLBPA might otherwise have brought against MLB for failing to make its best effort to schedule as many games as possible, as is required by the March agreement. The players have countered that proposal; the two sides, it would seem, are very close.
As first reported by Jeff Passan and Jesse Rogers, the player proposal is for 70 games at pro-rated pay, with the same or similar salary advance forgiveness as the owners proposed, $50 million in playoff money, and a 50/50 split of new postseason TV revenues in 2021. The deal would include grievance waivers from both parties over the March 26 agreement, as well as the universal designated hitter.
The major differences the players propose are as follows:
- The regular season would end on September 30 instead of September 27.
- Ten extra regular season games, which would provide players with $252 million in additional pay, and, even using only local revenue, provide around $155 million in revenue to the owners.
- $25 million more in postseason pool money.
- Fifty percent of 2021 expanded playoff money, which could amount to $100 million or more for the players, though it would also mean corresponding increases for owners in 2020 and 2021, given that they stand to receive roughly 75% of those rights.
So how far apart are the two sides? The math above puts the gap at $222 million, though if you pro-rate the regular season national television money for 10 extra games, the difference dips under $150 million. Bob Nightengale indicated that the player proposal also allowed for $50 million to be transferred from a joint fund to the Commissioner’s discretionary fund, and allowed advertising on uniforms. That $50 million would seemingly put the difference at under $100 million. The NBA makes between $5 million and $20 million per team (or about $150 million total per year) for the jersey advertisements, which would appear to make up the entire difference between the two sides. Some of that jersey money might come from existing sponsors to make up for lost games, and it’s possible that some of the expanded playoff money might be given to networks in the form of “make goods” from content lost earlier this season. It’s still money that wouldn’t leak into future seasons and would provide more than the expected pro-rated revenue in 2020, greatly lessening any potential losses. Ken Rosenthal reported the deal included a “neutral site/quarantine framework” that would help ease scheduling in the event of a worsened pandemic.
Though an agreement would appear to be inevitable, rhetoric from the owners’ side indicates otherwise. In his piece on the subject, Nightengale notes that three owners were “incensed.” Bill Shaikin reported an owners’ source indicating the players’ offer “went backwards.” An owner told Jon Heyman the proposal was “DOA.” Heyman also indicated owners believed they thought they had a deal at 60 games. Yankees president Randy Levine told Ken Rosenthal that Manfred should tell the players, “We’re finished talking about the number of games.”
To take a step back, here’s what Rob Manfred had to say about the meeting:
At my request, Tony Clark and I met for several hours yesterday in Phoenix. We left that meeting with a jointly developed framework that we agreed could form a basis of an agreement and subject to conversations with our respective constituents. I summarized that framework numerous times in the meeting and sent Tony a written summary today. Consistent with our conversations yesterday, I am encouraging the Clubs to move forward and I trust Tony is doing the same.
From Manfred’s statement, it certainly sounds like the pair had a productive conversation that could lead to an agreement, but that the conversation was conditional (note the “could form” and “subject to conversations”). For his part, Tony Clark had this to say after providing the owners with the players’ proposal:
In my discussion with Rob in Arizona we explored a potential pro rata framework, but I made clear repeatedly in that meeting and after it that there were a number of significant issues with what he proposed, in particular the number of games. It is unequivocally false to suggest that any tentative agreement or other agreement was reached in that meeting. In fact, in conversations within the last 24 hours, Rob invited a counterproposal that he would take back to the owners. We submitted that counterproposal today.
The statements from the two parties who had the conversation in Arizona don’t actually conflict with each other. If some owners believed a deal was made, there was either a miscommunication with Manfred, or Manfred’s statement wasn’t anywhere near strong enough compared to the events in the meeting. In response to Clark’s statement, Manfred has since said:
I don’t know what Tony and I were doing there for several hours going back and forth and making trades if we weren’t reaching an agreement.
Let’s proceed as if this were going well, and compare both proposals to the potential 48-game schedule that could be mandated by the Commissioner. The owners are offering 12 more games and $302 million in salary, along with $33 million in salary advance forgiveness and $25 million for the postseason. In exchange for $358 million, they will receive:
- Expanded playoffs for 2020 and 2021 with television rights ranging from $200 million to $500 million.
- Local revenues, using MLB’s own numbers, amounting to $259 million.
- If pro-rated, regular season national television money amounting to $81 million.
- The elimination of the potential for a grievance worth hundreds of millions, if not a billion dollars.
Just how good of a case the players might have in the form of a grievance isn’t quite clear. A busy Randy Levine told Bob Nightengale, after sounding off on Scott Boras, said, “If I was a lawyer in this case, I would say there’s a 90% chance the clubs would defeat a grievance.” Now, 10% of a billion is still a pretty valuable sum, but owner actions, including a Dan Halem letter threatening to cancel the season, Manfred’s trip to Arizona and subsequent offer, and Rosenthal/Drellich reports of owner fears seem to indicate the risks of a grievance to owners aren’t quite what Levine is representing.
Now, a 60-game schedule proposed by the owners is a pretty clear win over a potential 48-game season mandated by the Commissioner. What about the players’ offer? The players are asking for 22 more games compared to a 48-game schedule, which would pay them $554 million, with the $33 million in advances forgiven, another $50 million in postseason pool money, and 50% of 2021 expanded playoffs rights worth somewhere between $50 million and $125 million. In exchange for that roughly $700 million, they provide the owners:
- Expanded playoffs for 2020 and 2021 with television rights worth $150 million to $375 million (75% of the figure above).
- Local revenues, using MLB’s own numbers amounting to $342 million.
- If pro-rated, national television money amounting to $149 million.
- Joint account money in the amount of $50 million transferred to the Commissioner’s discretionary fund.
- Advertisements on jerseys likely worth between $200 million and $400 million.
- The elimination of the potential for a grievance worth hundreds of millions of dollars, if not a billion dollars.
This deal isn’t a loser for owners, either, who would get far more than they are giving up compared to a mandated 48-game season. Even when you compare the players’ offer to the owner’s 60-game proposal, the players have asked for about $350 million more in pay and offered between $400 million and $600 million in value. The proposal gets to that value in creative ways, seeking to expand the pie in terms of baseball revenue, but it clearly provides more than the players are asking for. In addition, it provides more help in finishing the postseason by outlining a neutral site plan should the pandemic worsen.
While the players’ latest proposal might not be exactly what the owners are asking for, it is a reasonable one and compromise should be an option. If there are owners who still think otherwise, Rob Manfred and owners who want to see baseball in 2020 need to get together and make sure it happens. There’s also the possibility that Manfred and the owners are engaged in further delay in an attempt to avoid a grievance, and force the shorter schedule they desire. The proposals put forth by the owners and players are significantly better than a 48-game season. And no season at all? That would be an abject disaster brought on by the owners refusing to see the short- and long-term benefits of getting their product on the field.
Craig Edwards can be found on twitter @craigjedwards.
These are the first two proposals from either side that weren’t obviously DOA. There seems to have been some confusion about the meeting, but they’re too close to screw this up now. People need to set their egos aside at this point and agree on a ~65 game season.
Looks like all offers may be DOA at this point.
I think there are a handful of owners who have dug in their heels and, out of principle and pique, refuse to budge. Manfred could just hold a vote and would likely get his 22 yea votes, but for some reason he has decided he will only accept a unanimous deal. (Maybe his own job security?)
So I think part of the story here is that he barely squeaked by the vote to approve him in 2014. There were several owners who were holdouts until the very end, and wanted to have Tom Werner (of the Red Sox) take over and take a much harder line against the union. The others (aside from the Red Sox) were the White Sox, Angels, D-Backs, Blue Jays, A’s, and Reds (I think the A’s have a different point person now but I believe everyone else is the same).
From all accounts, at least some of those owners are the same ones who are against this deal and want to scuttle the whole thing (the White Sox, Angels, and D-Backs are definitely against it). If there are 6-8 owners who have been against him all along–and wanting to go after the union this whole time–this gives him almost no room to work with.
Interesting. I didn’t know (or remember?) that. I don’t know why those owners think taking a harder line is going to work for them in the long run.
I didn’t either, but someone pointed it out to me that this has basically happened before. Reinsdorf apparently tried to humiliate Manfred when Manfred was making his case in 2014, which is how the story came out (and which teams were part of it).
What I find interesting is that three of the hard-liners in 2014 almost all spent a ton of money this offseason–the Reds, White Sox, and Angels. And the Red Sox ran huge payrolls recently. So they are willing to spend despite all of this.
This is true. Apparently DeWitt was one of his biggest backers, and he has respect among the owners so he was able to help bridge the gap.
As a White Sox fan, I’m curious what your source is for saying that Reinsdorf doesn’t want to play, beyond his history as a labor hard-liner. I haven’t heard any of that in Chicago. It hasn’t come up one way or another. The last thing I can find that he said publicly was three weeks ago in this article by Paul Sullivan:
https://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/white-sox/ct-chicago-white-sox-bulls-jerry-reinsdorf-coronavirus-20200527-k3vrdczurrhp7gk2l5vbqmarty-story.html
The slant of that is that Reinsdorf was really looking forward to baseball in 2020.
From a baseball standpoint, their arrow is pointing up for the first time in years and they are going to lose a year off all those young players, including guys who didn’t sell out arb years like Cease and Kopech, as well as development time for guys like Madrigal and Vaughn who they wanted to be in Chicago very soon. Two years ago, taking a year off might have been attractive, but I would think they want to get on the field and see what they have now. Reinsdorf isn’t getting any younger, it is widely believed that his one World Series championship means more to him than his 6 NBA championships and he would dearly love another (or to at least have the team be relevant again) before he dies.
I don’t remember where I heard Reinsdorf, but he is by far the biggest labor hawk (with Moreno maybe being second). I think the same story is with the Red Sox.
So maybe they’re just likely members of that group rather than definite ones, and the D-Backs and Angels are the only known hard-liners.
I admit, I agree that logically it doesn’t make sense that the White Sox would be in that group, but I would say the same thing about the Angels and we know they are.
So there is finally a reasonable, good-faith back-and-forth between the two sides, and the owners… Are incensed? I guess that sounds about right given the process we’ve gone through to get here, but I mean, COME ON. As Craig noted, they actually stand to make more money in the MLBPA proposal. Are they really that worried about the season being cut short due to covid that 3 more days in the regular season is that big of a deal? That doesn’t make any sense, but I honestly can’t see a reason why MLB wouldn’t accept this deal, let alone shoot it down out of hand like they have (other than, I suppose, just resisting out of principle/habit).
Keep in mind, we knew that 6-8 owners wanted to cancel the whole thing, and it only takes a handful of owners to talk to reporters.
I’m curious how much arm-twisting it took to get all the owners to agree to 60 games, knowing that some don’t want any and others want as few as possible. It’s possible they sent Manfred to Arizona with the understanding that 60 was the absolute limit. In which case, he has some explaining to do.
The owners are incensed because Manfred told them that he and Tony Clark had mutually agreed on the framework of a deal. Apparently, what they mutually agreed on was the terms of MLB’s next offer for the Union to subsequently counter. From all public points, Manfred continues to bungle this badly. His failure to set expectations appropriately and then deliver within expectations is, from an external view, a nightmare.
All that said, the Union’s counter-offer was a HUGE thumb in the eye of the work that Manfred and Clark had done the day before. Put aside length of the season for a moment, because Clark has made it clear that he was pushing for 70 during their meeting. All of the other items are the kind of things you work out face to face. My don’t-matter-a-hill read is that Manfred thought the Union would respond with a request for 70, they’d settle on 64-66, and be done. But the Union came back with an “oh by the way… ” list of OTHER things that could have been horse-traded in person.
That’s mostly my read on it. Manfred screwed this up and I won’t be surprised if he loses his job over it.
I agree the other things could have been settled in person. Apparently they weren’t, for whatever reason. Not having been in the room to know who said what, I don’t think we can assign blame. If there was no agreement, the owners shouldn’t be mad that the union made a counteroffer (they can reject it, but its existence shouldn’t cause outrage). Unless Manfred told them there was an agreement, in which case they can be mad at him.
Obviously if Clark/the union let Manfred think there was an agreement and then broke it, that’s not cool. But without being in the room we don’t know that.
Agreed – we absolutely don’t know… we weren’t in the room when it happened, the room when it happened, the room when it happened. (Sorry… still stuck in my head after four years.)
But Manfred genuinely looks and sounds surprised. I’m completely speculating, but I’m reading his tone and face to say “Wait, Tony, I thought we said we’d dicker a little more over games so that you could have some movement on that… but most of the rest of these demands are completely out of left field compared to what we talked about…”
The players had this in their hands. They could have asked for an incremental bump and the majority of fans would have continued to be behind them. Instead they made this once again, ALL ABOUT THE MONEY. For all the “when and where” bluster it once again comes down to the almighty dollar.
Calcaterra today described Manfred’s behavior as disingenuous delay tactics, so that he can say “whoops! time’s up! no season!” Does this sound right?
Yeah, the MLBPA played Manfred. Its a classic negotiation tactic (or as the HNP would say- dirty trick). The players association has public opinion and baseball writer ^ leverage and they’re using it. Manfred is the one who ate his words and flew to Arizona in the first place. Now this…
It seems as though the two front people are not the empowered decision makers. My guess is Tony Clark answers to Boras and Manfred… who knows? They’ll have an interim settlement but longer term, no bueno.
Both sides have fragmented interests (owners varied business models, players rich man/poor man) and whats clear is both sides need to align on their common interests before the end of 2021. My guess is this winds up like the NHL 2012-2013 dispute. If they come out the other side with alignment on revenue sharing, reduced arb, salary caps and floors, more predictable upfront contracts with less dead money it’ll be for the better of the game…
Tony Clark answers to the executive board, and Manfred answers to the owners. They’re each about 30, and each have a smaller committee (5 person labor committee for the owners, 8 person executive subcommittee for the players) supervising this process.
Clark’s message with his counterproposal was much more antagonistic than I was expecting after Manfred’s announcement. It even included “We believe this offer represents the basis for an agreement on resumption of play”, which was meant to mock Manfred. The players have done well in the PR war (“when and where”) and maybe Clark is getting cocky by pushing for 70 games and extra stuff that wasn’t agreed to in person. MLB and MLBPA relations should be much warmer after season cancellation/grievances were dropped.
Having said that, I still think this is going to settle at MLB’s offer + 6 games. The two sides are so close to a resolution and I don’t think the counterproposal changes that in a major way.
The owners caved on a full pro-rate salary. That was a huge win for the players. Instead of accepting it and maybe offering to tweak the # of games they asked for another 250 million dollars. They also want to start receiving additional playoffs $ which I am sure is a complete non-starter. I would be pretty incensed too.
There was no “caving” on prorated salaries. That’s just what they already agreed to and it took owners 3 months to remember that fact. The rest is just on-the-margins negotiating, which is what it should have been ever since the March agreement was signed. As I noted, and Craig detailed quite thoroughly, the players’ proposal ends up with MORE money in the owners’ pockets, not less. Yes, the players get more money too, but that’s how negotiating should work – everyone gets something!
Craig likes to describe the money in the owners pockets with no mention that additional exposure etc is also good for the players themselves. And yes the full pro-rate was 100% caving in. It has already been argued ad nauseam by myself and others. Instead of taking that and building on it the players asked for more concessions. Stuff that has never even been discussed before. It’s another proposal that puts the schedule further away, don’t be fooled by the rhetoric.
This is a billion-dollar business negotiation among people who presumably have done this sort of thing before. One side made an offer that was closer to, but still well short of, the other side’s last offer. The other side countered with an offer closer to the middle. Twitter posturing aside, this is likely to continue until they meet somewhere in the middle. None of that, with the possible exception of the Twitter posturing, is particularly unusual. Nobody should be taking this personally enough to be incensed.
I find that betting on competency, even among experts who have “done it before”, is far too often a losing position. If it looks like they screwed up, they probably did.
Manfred has done a miserable job of quelling the hawks and setting expectations. The vocal malcontents need to see more than two outcomes here. Pummeling the players into submission or walking away is a very immature approach to negotiations.
This is going to be 65 games, plus or minus 2. Too much money is at stake for it to be anything other than that.
It will be a multiple of 4 and everyone will only pay in there division. So 60 or 64. Or if it blows up again, 48 or 52. Can’t see 68.
If all the games will be in-division, why all of this talk about a universal DH?
oh no I just got your name and why did you put that song in my head
[Maniacal laughter]
Advertising on jerseys? So now the name on the front and the name on the side are both more important than the name on the back.
Eh. I used to kind of agree with this, but the NBA has been doing this for a few seasons and it really isn’t all that bad – you hardly notice it after a while. Even soccer uniforms, whose most prominent logo is always a sponsor’s, aren’t that bad. As long as we aren’t talking NASCAR-level, plaster-every-square-inch-with-a-logo style of advertising, I think it’s fine. Especially if it means we get some baseball this year!
At this point, the only thing I really care about is that they DON’T bring the universal DH into future seasons. Play, don’t play. exhibition playoff tournament or not, don’t care. The money, ehh. Just don’t keep the DH around for a real season.
I didn’t downvote you, but you’re fighting a losing battle here (or screaming at the wind, or whatever). Universal DH is coming. I used to be on the side of the NL continuing without a DH but I’m coming around to the change. Pitcher hitting just gets worse and worse and worse. Last year, amoung guys with at least 10 PA, there were 3 guys with a wARC+ of 100 or better and 8 at 60 or better. In 1980 it was 6 and 16 with 6 fewer teams.
On the other side of the ledger, there were 78 guys last year with a negative wRC+ including 38 with a wRC+ worse than -50. in 1980 it was 56 and 24.
I get it, there is something satisfying in having a Zack Greinke that can actually swing the bat from time to time but even someone like Greinke (who had a genuinely good year last year) still has a lifetime wRC+ of 60. But he’s balanced out by the stunningly high number of guys who get almost no hits – Pomeranz, Urena and Smyly all went 0/19 last year. Urena had 14 K and Pomeranz 13. Merrill Kelly went 1/52. Syndergaard had 47 K in 69 PA with Alcantara at 46 K in 63 PA. in fact, 38 of the 117 guys with at least 10 PA struck out more than half the time.
Then there’s the always entertaining intentional walk of the #8 hitter. That spot led MLB in IBB last year and while the top individuals are guys you’d expect like Bellinger, Trout and Yelich, the top 10 also included Maikel franco and Carson Kelly with guys like Tucker Barnhart and Alex Avila and Yan Gomes high on the list as well.
I’m not really concerned with whether they can effectively get hits as a pitcher or not. Plan to try and manufacture a run, bunt a guy over, hit and run, move him over or drive him in with a long fly out. All of those are important parts of the game. Also the aspect of when to pull a pitcher from a game. I don’t care about double switches, but do you pull him now and use a bullpen arm for one out because you will pinch hit for him in the next inning or let him try and get that one more out. I love that certain bench players you can count on them getting an at bat even if they didn’t start the game. Or you have your star player who gets a day off from the field, but you know he is on the bench waiting for a chance to drive in the tying run in the 8th inning when the pitchers spot comes up. Add to that I prefer low scoring games and keeping pitcher eras down.
> Plan to try and manufacture a run, bunt a guy over, hit and run, move him over or drive him in with a long fly out
All of these can be done better by a real hitter.
> Also the aspect of when to pull a pitcher from a game
People always talk about this like it isn’t a 4 step decision chart. Also – the pitcher sac bunting with a runner on first isn’t exactly 3rd level tactics.
> I love that certain bench players you can count on them getting an at bat even if they didn’t start the game
I agree and would like to see more pinch hitting. An expanded roster would achieve much of this, so teams wouldn’t need to worry about PH for their catcher.
> Add to that I prefer low scoring games and keeping pitcher eras down.
Based on attendance numbers, yours is not the majority opinion.
I mean, hopefully the pitcher will be able to bunt. But you can’t count on such poor hitters to intentionally move the runners by swinging the bat, whether it be with a sac fly or a ground ball to the right side. A hit and run with most pitchers is a recipe for a CS.
Haven’t I seen you complaining about increased use of bullpens? So you want low scoring games and low ERA’s, but you’re against the methods we currently have available to achieve them. It sounds like you’re a fan of 1970’s baseball, but I don’t see how we can possibly replicate the conditions that created that era.
Why are they important parts of the game? I’m not saying they necessarily aren’t, but just because things have always been done that way isn’t a good reason to say they must always be.
I guess it’s not when and where. It’s tell us when and where and then give us another 250 million dollars. WHAT A JOKE
It was never a literal statement that the players would accept any offer that included a time and a place and the owners clearly didn’t take it that way. It was a brilliant rallying cry/negotiating tactic that forced the owners to come back to the table with a much better offer. Which the union then countered, because that’s what you do when negotiating until you actually reach an agreement.
“When and where” was intended to get the owners to just impose their ideas for a season so that the players could then file a grievance that the owners hadn’t negotiated in good faith.
This proposal waives the right to file that grievance, so of course the players want something in exchange.
The joke to me is a request for playoff revenue sharing on new games when any form of revenue sharing has been heretofore unacceptable. Yes, I understand that revenue-sharing new playoff games is different than revenue-sharing the full season. But the owners were told to not even both er with any revenue sharing suggestions, only to be given one.
Counter with 64-66 games. Increase the postseason share but eliminate the revenue share (that’s for the CBA… you can’t crack that door open on ‘new postseason revenue’ at the 11th hour in the current negotiations). I can’t figure out the salary forgiveness terms, but I also can’t understand why the owners should forgive any piece of the $170M of salary advances that were made on top of pro rata… pro rata is pro rata… pro rata plus forgiveness of an advance is more than pro rata… and if you really want to be magnanimous towards the players who need it the most, increase the 2021 minimum salary by more than inflation rather than forgiving current advances.
And for goodness’ sake, agree to a gag order on the 2021 CBA Negotiations so that neither side can work through the press.
Good points on the revenue sharing, although the normal “percentage of the gate” playoff arrangement has some revenue sharing elements that make it not totally unprecedented. But yeah, it’s a big thing to add in this late.
Most of the thinking about the offer/counteroffer here has been about the number of games because that’s an easy number and the first thing we care about as fans. But the other stuff in the union offer has a pretty substantial price tag on it that I’m probably guilty of overlooking.
If we’re being charitable, we can imagine that these are things that Manfred and Clark had discussed either in detail or generally as financial incentives for the players beyond the number of games but that needed to be proposed by the players because Manfred wasn’t about to put them in the MLB proposal. In which case the “framework” that was actually agreed to is down to prorated salaries with no agreement on number of games, and an agreement that the players were okay with expanded playoffs but wanted to talk increased playoff share. In that case, Manfred really oversold how close they were to an agreement. Of course, if you’re not inclined to be charitable, then yes, the union has made some big 11th hour asks here. Whether that’s bad faith or the parties never being as close as we were led to believe will remain unknown.
As for your gag order idea, oh god yes. I am so sick of seeing this sausage being made.
Given that the players are okaying expanded playoffs, I think it’s fair that they would want a notably bigger payout overall.
I was kind of surprised the union was just going to okay the playoff expansion without getting anything for it–and I guess that wasn’t their plan after all.
They got full pro-rated salary for expanded playoffs. Plus a stipend that they weren’t required to be paid. Plus forgiveness on a portion of there prepaid salary. The ask for a percent of the playoffs PLUS there usual stipend (owners offered 25 mill, players countered at 50) simply reeks of greed. As tomerafan this is the kind of revenue sharing that the players association usually screams about.
The players would have accepted the 60 game when and where. The reason they bumped it up to 70 games is because the owners also wanted the players to agree to no grievance. As Craig pointed out, that has a lot of monetary value, even if the odds are the players wouldn’t win it.
It’s the owners who said, we’ll give you when and where, then you give us no grievanace. The owners are free at any time to mandate a season of only 48 games. They just aren’t free to do that with no worry about a grievance.
Interesting that, now that it’s kind of a union proposal, the neutral-site idea is suddenly back in your analysis, after that huge roadblock to a solution was never mentioned for the past weeks, while the players categorically refused to consider such proposals. They’ll still allow it only as a last-ditch contingency, thus nixing most of the more practicable solutions right off the bat. But sure, it’s of course all entirely the owners’ fault.
A single-area approach would reduce costs, make scheduling much more flexible and significantly lessen the difficulty of health protocols. With a nationwide approach, the probability of a disastrous outcome (PR or actual) is multiplied. In fact, even just the concept of 30 groups of millionaires jetting across the continent because they couldn’t be bothered to accept a temporary reduction in personal comfort levels is a pretty terrible look in these times.
baseball plz
Wow. I think we’ll see baseball. All it took was a reasonable, good faith, offer from the owners. This should have happened a month ago.
(Of course, as this is 2020, I fully expect something horrible to happen to shut this down. I think the murder hornets that were hinted at a few episodes ago will make an unexpected reappearance, but maybe it will be something completely out of left field. Maybe a good old fashioned natural disaster?)
One fly in the ointment in the analysis here is that 10 extra games isn’t likely to actually be $155M in extra revenue to the owners. I doubt most of the deals between RSNs and teams will pay on a per game basis, due to the owners considerable leverage over RSNs. Whatever portion of a deal an RSN tries to claw back from a team, the team can say “We’ll give you X amount back, and you’ll take it or we’ll leave and go to a different network”. And the RSNs only point of existence is to show baseball (and maybe some other sports) games, so it’s hard for them to bargain.
If true, that’s at least as much of a fly in the ointment of the owners’ claims of per-game losses, which (apparently) assume a flat per-game rate from TV revenue. If you assume owners will get almost a full season of TV money but only pay players for 60-70 games this could end up being a very profitable year for some of them.
I think it will be highly variable team to team, though I don’t think any will get almost a full year’s worth of TV money. I’d expect most to be in the 50-75% range for 60-70 games. It all depends on negotiations that will be done in the coming weeks after the schedule is set. Another complicating factor is that RSNs only make a little of their money through advertising, and mostly make money through carriage fees, so how much money a RSN will make depends on the leverage between an RSN and cable providers.
In order for Team X to be squeezed, Fox Sports Wherever needs to be squeezed, and in order for Fox Sports Wherever to be squeezed, Comcast (or others) need to be putting the pressure on Fox Sports Wherever. I don’t think any teams other than the Blue Jays really know how it’ll shake out, hence the game-by-game calculation.
Agree with all of that. But if a team can pay 40% of player salaries and get 75% of TV money, that’s a much different bottom line than they’ve been claiming. The analysis I’ve seen has always started with the assumption that teams would lose revenue proportional to the number of games that were cancelled.
Same thing I’ve been seeing. If that isn’t right then it really does change everything.
Why not just defer payments on the extra 10 games or maybe pay in 2020 for 50 games and defer payments over the next 24 months on 20 games. Gives the owners what they want for this year and the players want they want in total pay. Of course the owners will end up getting that back by paying less in free agency – but they are going to cry poor and do that anyway, so get what you can players.
Way too logical. Make your idea about 10x worse and then the two sides will discuss it
I was going to make a simple post, wondering if there is intentional stalling on the owners now. However, I am not suggesting this because it backs them into the short, mandated season. No, I fear that the eventual outcome is that the season is not possible due to the acceleration of new cases.
Before I could post that, it’s reported just now (6/19, mid-day, EDT) that the Phillies have a small outbreak at their spring facility: 5 players, 8 cases altogether.
Florida has not only record new cases with each day, but, the testing facilities are over capacity, so there is, effectively, limit to the number of positive tests. (Yet it’s rising each day.)
The Phillies official statement says:
5 players, 3 staff members tested positive.
8 staff members tested negative.
20 players and 12 staff are awaiting test results, at the time of the statement.
Oh, they’re going to try. They’ve invested so much time working through this they’ll going to try and execute the plan. It’s an escalation of commitment or sunk cost situation–it’s just too hard to admit that you’re wrong.
Whether they finish the season, I don’t know. I think it’s quite possible they will not. But they’re definitely going to start it.
They’ll try, but damn. Hard to play baseball with half your 40-man roster quarantined. Depending on the results of the additional tests and whether the players involved are MLB or MiLB the Phillies might already be in a position where they can’t get enough of their team into/through spring training in time for the proposed start date.