MLB Lockout Thread

[OriolesMagic83]

5 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

Full season of games, perhaps condensed into fewer days.

I can't see that.  The sides have moved like 20% of what they need to move to reach an agreement.  MLB has increased their arbitration pool all the way up to $20 million, while the MLBPA has increased their pool up to $115 mill.  Doesn't seem to be any urgency to reach an agreement. 

[OriolesMagic83]

2 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

11 Mil a year, you won't even have to take much of a paycut.

I would hold out for $50 million/yr like Goodell.  The first step in making baseball as popular as Football is equaling their commissioner pay.

[Frobby]

8 minutes ago, OriolesMagic83 said:

I can't see that.  The sides have moved like 20% of what they need to move to reach an agreement.  MLB has increased their arbitration pool all the way up to $20 million, while the MLBPA has increased their pool up to $115 mill.  Doesn't seem to be any urgency to reach an agreement. 

I’ve been involved in many negotiations where both sides remained stubborn for a long time but eventually one side broke the ice with a significant move and then negotiations accelerated with both sides making concessions.   That could still happen here at any time.   

[Sports Guy]

Meeting just ended.

[Sports Guy]

 

[Sports Guy]

 

[Sports Guy]

 

[forphase1]

Not looking very good.  I really hope both sides aren't so stubborn and foolish to let games be cancelled.  Huge mistake if it happens.  

[Sports Guy]

20 minutes ago, forphase1 said:

Not looking very good.  I really hope both sides aren't so stubborn and foolish to let games be cancelled.  Huge mistake if it happens.  

They absolutely are.  

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, Sports Guy said:

They absolutely are.  

[SteveA]

The owners have the advantage, I think.   They lose less money with April and May games being cancelled, because attendance is lower in this months with kids still in school and weather not being nice yet.   And of course the national TV contracts are all about the postseason.   

So if 1/3 of the season is cancelled and we play a 100 game season June-September, the players lose 1/3 of their salary but the owners lose a LOT less than 1/3 of their revenue.   The good weather games still get played, the networks still pay big $ for the postseason.   

This is the same logic we saw in 2020, where the owners wanted the shortest season possible to get to a postseason, while the players wanted more games, and the owners stalled until there was only time for a 60 game season.

So basically, if we reach the point where games are cancelled, which we are rapidly approaching, the owners have leverage and probably won't budge very much on the key issues for a LONG time.   The only way this will be settled quickly would be if the players capitulate bigtime.   If we aren't any closer to a settlement by Monday, then it's either going to be a LOT of games cancelled, or the players union wind up throwing in the towel and goes WAY more than halfway on the differences.

[Frobby]

23 minutes ago, SteveA said:

The owners have the advantage, I think.   They lose less money with April and May games being cancelled, because attendance is lower in this months with kids still in school and weather not being nice yet.   And of course the national TV contracts are all about the postseason.   

So if 1/3 of the season is cancelled and we play a 100 game season June-September, the players lose 1/3 of their salary but the owners lose a LOT less than 1/3 of their revenue.   The good weather games still get played, the networks still pay big $ for the postseason.   

This is the same logic we saw in 2020, where the owners wanted the shortest season possible to get to a postseason, while the players wanted more games, and the owners stalled until there was only time for a 60 game season.

So basically, if we reach the point where games are cancelled, which we are rapidly approaching, the owners have leverage and probably won't budge very much on the key issues for a LONG time.   The only way this will be settled quickly would be if the players capitulate bigtime.   If we aren't any closer to a settlement by Monday, then it's either going to be a LOT of games cancelled, or the players union wind up throwing in the towel and goes WAY more than halfway on the differences.

First of all, this is a very good point.  

On the flip side, the calculus is different for 2022 compared to 2020 for the simple reason that fans are allowed in the stands now.   Therefore lost games mean more lost revenue in 2022 compared to 2020.    Also, fans may react differently to games being cancelled purely due to a labor dispute vs. due to a pandemic.    The PR hit could be very bad.    

Still, I thInk your basic point that losing early games is worse for the players than the owners is probably correct.  

 

[waroriole]

I think if we don’t get an agreement over the weekend (which seems very unlikely) we could see at least half the schedule cancelled. 
 

On a related note, how are the cameras in Norfolk’s stadium? It was very likely anyway that Norfolk will be more enjoyable to watch until the summer.  

[SteveA]

3 minutes ago, Frobby said:

First of all, this is a very good point.  

On the flip side, the calculus is different for 2022 compared to 2020 for the simple reason that fans are allowed in the stands now.   Therefore lost games mean more lost revenue in 2022 compared to 2020.    Also, fans may react differently to games being cancelled purely due to a labor dispute vs. due to a pandemic.    The PR hit could be very bad.    

Still, I thInk your basic point that losing early games is worse for the players than the owners is probably correct.  

 

I'm starting to feel this has been the owners' strategy all along.   Announce the lockout December 1 with the statement that you are trying to get things settled in the offseason.   Then go 6 weeks without really talking.   Then as the deadline gets close give in very little from your entrenched position, and see if the players blink and give in more.  (Which for the most part they have not).      Settle some of the little issues that you can, then see where the big differences are.    Now you are down to some core $$ issues where the two sides are far apart, and the owners know that every cancelled game hurts the players more than it hurts them, as long as they are going to have a semblance of a season.   It wouldn't surprise me if a 120 game season with an expanded postseason is nearly as profitable for the owners as a 162 game season would have been, with the savings in player salary offsetting the lost April/early May revenue.

Now the players are put to the test.   It's not the NFL, where the average career is about two years.   But there are still a lot of guys in the union who are unlikely to spend more than 4 or 5 years in the big leagues and losing half a season's salary, is a significant chunk of everything they will ever earn, is it worth sacrificing that so that some players will benefit?

I won't say the owners are trying to break the union, but I do think they see this as the best strategy that they have to come up with an agreement that is way closer to what they want than what the players want, and I think they are more than willing to lose 50 or 60 games to get it.    The big question is how many games are the players willing to lose to avoid an agreement that is much closer to management's side than theirs?

And yes, you bring up the PR hit, that could be real.   How did the NHL bounce back, longterm, from cancelling an ENTIRE season due to labor problems some years back?   Are they significantly worse off today than they would have been if that season hadn't been cancelled?    Or has everyone just forgotten it ever happened and the NHL is what it would have been even if that season had been played.   How many NHL fans vowed never to come back after an entire season was lost, and how many kept that vow?   I don't know these answers, I'm curious to know.

MLB certainly bounced back from 1994, the season without a World Series.   Are the owners and players arrogant enough to believe it would bounce back again?    They just might be.

[Sports Guy]