MLB Lockout Thread

[SteveA]

8 minutes ago, OsFanSinceThe80s said:

I hope they get this right, because I don’t see fans coming back in the numbers they did after the 1994 strike if this season gets disrupted. 

Nice to believe that, but I doubt it.   They (we) will be back.

NHL cancelled an entire season due to labor issues and their attendance rebounded almost immediately to pre-strike levels and has gone up in the years since.

Now MLB has the long term demographic issue of having too many older fans and not appealing to as many younger fans which is going to hurt the game in the long term, but I don't think missing part of this season will have any long term effect.

[Can_of_corn]

6 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

 

So ownership is trying to spin it to make it sound like a deal was close but the Union decided to increase their demands at the last moment.

I hope this BS doesn't work and I hope we get more info on the cadre of teams that is actually holding things up.

I'm just so happy Baltimore is one of those teams...

[Sports Guy]

 

[Sports Guy]

 

[Sports Guy]

 

[Sports Guy]

 

[MurphDogg]

All of these figures coming out seem too close to blow up the season over. The difference between the two offers seems like maybe $100 million per season ($3.3 Million per team). It doesn't make sense for MLB to blow up the season over the relative cost of a veteran setup man per team. The PR hit will be worse than that (not to mention the money lost by both sides while they hammer out a deal).

[Sports Guy]

MLB definitely trying to win the PR battle now.

[Tony-OH]

7 minutes ago, SteveA said:

Nice to believe that, but I doubt it.   They (we) will be back.

NHL cancelled an entire season due to labor issues and their attendance rebounded almost immediately to pre-strike levels and has gone up in the years since.

Now MLB has the long term demographic issue of having too many older fans and not appealing to as many younger fans which is going to hurt the game in the long term, but I don't think missing part of this season will have any long term effect.

You keep saying this, and yes, some fans will come back, but I think you are underplaying what's happened in this country for entertainment opportunities. Sports now fights with Esports, console gaming, computer gaming, and what might be the biggest jump in the next five years, VR gaming and entertainment.  

They will piss off some older fans who might not come back with the same gusto, but what could be worse for them is that they become irrelevant to the younger fans. Having a work stoppage with everything going on in this county and world is just so ludicrous that only the idiot MLB owners and MLBPA could consider such a thing something they should do.

So I disagree vehemently that missing part of the season will not affect them in this political and technological climate. 

Baseball is battling for not just the fan's dollars, but their time to invest in a sport that will struggle to find an interest with the Gen X crowd that wants immediate action or they will wander off to their phones. 

 

[Tony-OH]

4 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

MLB definitely trying to win the PR battle now.

Individual players should really STFU. Every time I hear one say something it pisses me off. They should just let the MLBPA speak for them. 

[Moshagge3]

On 2/27/2022 at 8:56 PM, Moshagge3 said:

The cynical interpretation of the tweets from Heyman, Nightengale, etc. would be that the owners are eager to instill some optimism so that when the players walk away from a ridiculous lowball offer from MLB tomorrow, it looks like they're the ones who blew it up and dashed everyone's hopes. That unfortunately sounds like just the game the owners are playing here.

Yup, this was the owners' game. Not sure how MLBPA failed to get in front of this.

[Can_of_corn]

9 minutes ago, MurphDogg said:

All of these figures coming out seem too close to blow up the season over. The difference between the two offers seems like maybe $100 million per season ($3.3 Million per team). It doesn't make sense for MLB to blow up the season over the relative cost of a veteran setup man per team. The PR hit will be worse than that (not to mention the money lost by both sides while they hammer out a deal).

But if you have enough teams to scuttle a deal that don't want to have early season games you don't need much of a reason.

 

[DrinkinWithFermi]

3 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

They will piss off some older fans who might not come back with the same gusto

And that's not even accounting for longtime fans like myself who have already been slowly-but-steadily losing enthusiasm for the product itself due to things like TTO, ridiculous defensive shifts, modern analytics killing the bunt and SBs, the ever-increasing number of teams making the playoffs, the ever-increasing payroll spending gap, and so on. 

[SteveA]

16 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

You keep saying this, and yes, some fans will come back, but I think you are underplaying what's happened in this country for entertainment opportunities. Sports now fights with Esports, console gaming, computer gaming, and what might be the biggest jump in the next five years, VR gaming and entertainment.  

They will piss off some older fans who might not come back with the same gusto, but what could be worse for them is that they become irrelevant to the younger fans. Having a work stoppage with everything going on in this county and world is just so ludicrous that only the idiot MLB owners and MLBPA could consider such a thing something they should do.

So I disagree vehemently that missing part of the season will not affect them in this political and technological climate. 

Baseball is battling for not just the fan's dollars, but their time to invest in a sport that will struggle to find an interest with the Gen X crowd that wants immediate action or they will wander off to their phones. 

 

I agree there are a lot of reasons baseball's popularity may wane, like you describe above.   Those are systemic problems the game is facing.   But I think that stuff can and will happen whether we start this season in the first week of April or the first week of June.

[MurphDogg]

12 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Individual players should really STFU. Every time I hear one say something it pisses me off. They should just let the MLBPA speak for them. 

MLBPA doesn't have the media stooges that MLB does to put a shiny veneer on their lousy offers. These posts from individually players give a valuable player prospective. My guess is that these posts are vetted by MLBPA who may find it more valuable for info to come from the voice of an actual player rather than leaked to the media for the sake of authenticity. It is unfortunate that they hurt your feelings. Perhaps a safe space is in order.