MLB Owners, Players And The CBA: It’s Just Business

It is nothing personal.

Sports is a business, nothing more, nothing less. Major League Baseball owners could be shutting down its business side in regards to the players as the present Collective Bargaining Agreement is down to its final hours. Most people are not going to notice that the baseball owners have locked out the players because it is the off season. There won’t be any trades, they won’t be any signings, there will be talk about the need to get a collective bargaining agreement in place by the end of January so that the 2022 spring training part of the season is not impacted by the lockout but realistically, the sides need a deal by March 1st so that the regular season can get started on time. MLB owners do make some money from spring training games though.

The business of the owners locking out the players should not have any effect on getting money out of cities to either build new baseball parks, that would be in Oakland, Las Vegas, Tampa and Montreal or getting financial support for stadium upgrades in Cleveland. After all that is business too but eventually the owners and players will have a deal and the owners will press politicians for the need of improved or new parks to keep teams competitive. Keeping teams competitive is one of the issues in the ongoing CBA talks. The players don’t want to see teams tank for better draft picks although you cannot stop an owner from getting rid of high-priced players. The players also don’t want teams manipulating service time and sending players to the minor leagues for a short spell if they should be  major league ready so the players lose a year in filing for arbitration or free agency. It is all about money and how the owners and the players split massive revenues.

Evan Weiner’s books are available at iTunes – https://books.apple.com/us/author/evan-weiner/id595575191