When Does The Lockout End? Answer: March 10th, 2022

[rickh150]

Yeah, like others have said…The Brewers care about fans in the stands like all teams. Proportionately, it matters even more to small markets than most teams because they depend on $ at the stadium to offset their lower local TV contracts. Free tickets, half price deals, and group deals get people to the stadium to spend $ for parking, food, merchandise, etc. I don’t get the arguments here.

[torts]

I think there are two separate things happening in this thread... when it comes to negotiating a labor deal, fans do not matter. owners do not care. they know they can count on fans to come, even in Pittsburgh. they are negotiating to protect their margins as much as they can. the players are negotiating for what is best for them, not the fans.

 

when it comes to the season (on or off season), they will do whatever they have to do to get fans in the seats. They will market the ever living bejebus out of whatever they have to make money, and they will make you feel like they care that you're coming back (some do care, some dont). I think there are people getting this piece mixed up with what labor negotiations are.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

 

First of all, 150 million dollars divided by 81 games and 41,900 (assuming every game is a sellout) comes out to approximately $45. According to the most recent information published the Brewers average ticket price is $28. Mathematically there is no way they’re making 150 million dollars in revenue on pure ticket sales.

 

 

No tickets = no parking = no beer = no team store = no food, the margins on all of which are enormous. Based on the post a coupe before mine, $150 million sounds like I undershot it probably by $30-$40 million in a good season. Biz Insider projected lost revenue at $178 million. https://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/news/2020/10/07/mlb-projected-gameday-revenue-lost.html

 

So yeah, I guess "there is a way." Seriously dude, just admit you were WAY off on this.

 

But the point remains, the luxury boxes are still going to get leased regardless of any PR hit from a labor fight. The Diamond boxes season tickets are still going to sell. Group outings will still happen. Joe Lunchpail might be angry and skip taking his family to a game, but odds are he’ll still watch games on TV, and buy licensed merchandise regardless. Minimizing any real loss.

 

I'm sorry, but there is no way you believe it. Advertisers use formulas to price out the value of a listener and for a 620 broadcast it is likely pennies on the dollar. And you continually have made this ridiculous comparison that it somehow equates to a a guy taking 4 people to the park and spending $130 directly with the club. They may as well close the stadium forever and save on the massive operating costs because everyone will just watch on TV or buy shirts at Kohl's. After all it makes no difference if they come and the money isn't significant.

 

We could also just go directly to the source, but I mean, we do have Jopal's vague analysis completely devoid of any real numbers.

 

“Without getting into specifics, it’s significant dollars that we are losing this year,” Brewers President of Business Operations Rick Schlesinger said during a press conference held outside of Miller Park on Monday morning.

[Fear The Chorizo]

The more unaffordable baseball gameday experiences are for "Joe Lunchpail" to actually attend games in person are, or the more alienated they feel as fans, the fewer of them tune in to listen/watch that team from their couches. Longterm, that ultimately leads to smaller values of the next media broadcast contracts that organization gets - particularly in smaller markets and compared to similar market sizes who may have a larger fan following. This is particularly true with baseball, which has 81 dates to try and sell tickets for while maintaining fan interest. If you don't have a high gameday demand for fan attendance, that trickles down to diminished demand for sponsorship $/merch sales/marketability of the organization.

 

Additionally, poor attendance also leads to lower prices on luxury boxes for corporate entities as well. I'd imagine a decent chunk of the luxury suites are largely comped or marked down significantly to the companies who have various sponsorship deals with the club anyways.

 

Thinking butts in the seats who paid significant dollars to watch a game in person are insignificant to a professional baseball franchise is just foolish - even in this day and age. If that was truly the case, teams would be building new ballparks that resembled single A stadiums with roughly 5,000 seating capacity and just fill them up with luxury suites to reduce the overhead they have with stadium maintenance and gameday staffing.

[JackNicholson1974]

I turned from optimistic to very pessimistic over the past week.

[JosephC]

I get more optimistic as time goes on because now I believe there might be a 0.001% chance that small market owners and the bottom 80% of players, on the basis of pay, will form the most unlikely of unions and demand total revenue sharing, a salary cap and a salary floor. Last week I thought the chances for this were 0.0%, so it seems to be moving in the right direction.

 

Still kind of blows my mind that both the MLB and MLBPA continue to complain how their league is losing out to other sports leagues, and yet there remains no consideration to move to the system that has been hugely successful for those other leagues.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

I get more optimistic as time goes on because now I believe there might be a 0.001% chance that small market owners and the bottom 80% of players, on the basis of pay, will form the most unlikely of unions and demand total revenue sharing, a salary cap and a salary floor. Last week I thought the chances for this were 0.0%, so it seems to be moving in the right direction.

 

Still kind of blows my mind that both the MLB and MLBPA continue to complain how their league is losing out to other sports leagues, and yet there remains no consideration to move to the system that has been hugely successful for those other leagues.

 

Rich owners/large markets don't want it, because $$$.

 

Rich players don't want it, because $$$.

 

And those are the factions that hold all the power in MLB right now. For it to happen, it would take a strong number of medium and small-market teams to join with a strong commissioner. Which means is stands absolutely no shot of ever happening.

Edited February 8, 2022 by Ron Robinson's Beard

[KeithStone53151]

I get more optimistic as time goes on because now I believe there might be a 0.001% chance that small market owners and the bottom 80% of players, on the basis of pay, will form the most unlikely of unions and demand total revenue sharing, a salary cap and a salary floor. Last week I thought the chances for this were 0.0%, so it seems to be moving in the right direction.

 

Still kind of blows my mind that both the MLB and MLBPA continue to complain how their league is losing out to other sports leagues, and yet there remains no consideration to move to the system that has been hugely successful for those other leagues.

 

Salary cap/floor makes so much sense, but the big markets and players don't want it. The big markets obviously are hurt by it as it limits spending and probably results in higher revenue sharing. The big one is the players though, there are so many instances of players taking less to go to a big market or a generally good team. Players generally want big markets to be able to spend big and create super teams so they can beat up on the small markets with less good teams.

 

Baseball is in so much of a tougher spot because it's a 3 sided fight. I'm not sure a proper version of a venn diagram exists for this fight in which all 3 sides get what they want. I'm not sure if it's hilarious or sad how much time/money/effort is going into how to split up $10 billion/year.

[Jopal78]

 

First of all, 150 million dollars divided by 81 games and 41,900 (assuming every game is a sellout) comes out to approximately $45. According to the most recent information published the Brewers average ticket price is $28. Mathematically there is no way they’re making 150 million dollars in revenue on pure ticket sales.

 

 

No tickets = no parking = no beer = no team store = no food, the margins on all of which are enormous. Based on the post a coupe before mine, $150 million sounds like I undershot it probably by $30-$40 million in a good season. Biz Insider projected lost revenue at $178 million. https://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/news/2020/10/07/mlb-projected-gameday-revenue-lost.html

 

So yeah, I guess "there is a way." Seriously dude, just admit you were WAY off on this.

But the point remains, the luxury boxes are still going to get leased regardless of any PR hit from a labor fight. The Diamond boxes season tickets are still going to sell. Group outings will still happen. Joe Lunchpail might be angry and skip taking his family to a game, but odds are he’ll still watch games on TV, and buy licensed merchandise regardless. Minimizing any real loss.

 

I'm sorry, but there is no way you believe it. Advertisers use formulas to price out the value of a listener and for a 620 broadcast it is likely pennies on the dollar. And you continually have made this ridiculous comparison that it somehow equates to a a guy taking 4 people to the park and spending $130 directly with the club. They may as well close the stadium forever and save on the massive operating costs because everyone will just watch on TV or buy shirts at Kohl's. After all it makes no difference if they come and the money isn't significant.

 

We could also just go directly to the source, but I mean, we do have Jopal's vague analysis completely devoid of any real numbers.

 

“Without getting into specifics, it’s significant dollars that we are losing this year,” Brewers President of Business Operations Rick Schlesinger said during a press conference held outside of Miller Park on Monday morning.

 

But I'm not , I said "pure ticket sales." All someone has to do is a little math. With their average ticket price ($28) multiplied by capacity (41,900) comes out to 95 million dollars, if they sold out every game, which the Brewers have never come close to doing.

 

Keep in mind, the Yankees and Dodgers (or any other team) do not come to Milwaukee for free. All teams pay a portion of their ticket revenue (not to mention all the subsequent beer, hot dog and parking money) to the other 29 teams in the league.

 

The National TV revenue PER TEAM is close to 100 million dollars which is the bread and butter for teams like the Brewers despite rarely being on National TV. But let's not stop there, there is MLB Advanced Media (of which the Brewers have a 1/30th ownership interest). Besides just online baseball content; if you've streamed golf, NCAA basketball, NHL hockey, HBO Now, ESPN+ those are all clients of MLBAM. Prior to its launch of its streaming service Disney purchased an ownership interest in a MLBAM subsidiary for a cool 1.5 billion dollars. Again, there is no need to take my word for it. This information and much more is out there for anyone who wants to do a google search.

 

As I said earlier it isn't 1950; there is a reason that even teams like the Brewers have a cadre of folks with MBAs working for the team on the business side (and it isn't to upsell Loge Level tickets instead of Terrace Reserved to Gary from Menomonee Falls).

 

As someone else pointed out, the fans are irrelevant to the labor dispute between the owners and players. "How can they do this to the fans" is a sympathy chip, and for the small portion who swear they're not going to go to a game again, your favorite team is still taking a portion of your money in ways you notice or in ways you may not. Like I've said before, and others who have pointed out, the suites will be leased, groups will still go to the stadium, diamond box plans will sell, and parents who take their families to a game on the weekends during the summer will most likely continue to do so.

 

Since it is is capitalism, there is no doubt they'd love to sell every single seat for every game ( and as many hot dogs, beers and Yelich shirt-seys as possible), but if attendance temporarily dips because certain fans stay home, I'm pretty sure the owners (and players) will shrug it off, and continue on with their business which is indisputably booming regardless of small trends in ballpark attendance.

[Fear The Chorizo]

It really isn't that difficult to sort out how much MLB teams still lean on ticket sales/gameday revenues to make the finances work, since the shortened 2020 season was essentially played without fans. Forbes estimated the Brewers' 2020 season revenue to be $104 million bucks over the course of a 60 game season - that amount was essentially TV revenue, largely influenced by MLB having a postseason (i.e., the actual amount of TV revenue that would've been paid to the Brewers had they played 162 games instead of 60 during the regular season wouldn't have dramatically jumped, because their own local TV deal is peanuts compared to most other teams in MLB). So most of their 2020 revenue was from the shared TV/streaming/broadcast contract money spread across baseball. For example, the Cubs' 2020 revenue was estimated to be $163M and the Dodgers was $185M - big market teams that would've wound up with much larger amounts of TV money had they played 162 regular season games based on their larger TV contracts.

 

The Brewers' estimated revenue for the 2019 season that had normal attendance? About $295 million dollars - nearly triple what their 2020 fanless revenue stream was. The Cubs 2019 revenue? $471M....Dodgers? $556M (also about 3x these clubs' 2020 revenues). Reports indicated the Brewers lost out on between $175M and $185M dollars in revenue during 2020 because they couldn't have fans in the stands.

 

Large market teams can weather the storm of sustained poor gameday attendance and still strive to remain competitive in terms of player payroll - with the current uneven financial playing field heavily influenced by the portions of local TV$ that aren't currently shared across MLB, small market teams absolutely depend on ticket and gameday revenues if they want to try and compete even in the middle of the pack in terms of player payroll. Arguing otherwise is simply wrong, particularly when we are basically one year removed from a MLB season that saw no gameday revenue and a 2021 season that was significantly reduced in that regard due to COVID. Small-mid market clubs are desperate to get butts back in the stadium seats across 81 home games for 2022, and any sort of labor dispute/lockout that impacts their bottom line projections for this season is going to really sting.

Edited February 8, 2022 by Fear The Chorizo

[homer]

 

First of all, 150 million dollars divided by 81 games and 41,900 (assuming every game is a sellout) comes out to approximately $45. According to the most recent information published the Brewers average ticket price is $28. Mathematically there is no way they’re making 150 million dollars in revenue on pure ticket sales.

 

 

No tickets = no parking = no beer = no team store = no food, the margins on all of which are enormous. Based on the post a coupe before mine, $150 million sounds like I undershot it probably by $30-$40 million in a good season. Biz Insider projected lost revenue at $178 million. https://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/news/2020/10/07/mlb-projected-gameday-revenue-lost.html

 

So yeah, I guess "there is a way." Seriously dude, just admit you were WAY off on this.

But the point remains, the luxury boxes are still going to get leased regardless of any PR hit from a labor fight. The Diamond boxes season tickets are still going to sell. Group outings will still happen. Joe Lunchpail might be angry and skip taking his family to a game, but odds are he’ll still watch games on TV, and buy licensed merchandise regardless. Minimizing any real loss.

 

I'm sorry, but there is no way you believe it. Advertisers use formulas to price out the value of a listener and for a 620 broadcast it is likely pennies on the dollar. And you continually have made this ridiculous comparison that it somehow equates to a a guy taking 4 people to the park and spending $130 directly with the club. They may as well close the stadium forever and save on the massive operating costs because everyone will just watch on TV or buy shirts at Kohl's. After all it makes no difference if they come and the money isn't significant.

 

We could also just go directly to the source, but I mean, we do have Jopal's vague analysis completely devoid of any real numbers.

 

“Without getting into specifics, it’s significant dollars that we are losing this year,” Brewers President of Business Operations Rick Schlesinger said during a press conference held outside of Miller Park on Monday morning.

 

But I'm not , I said "pure ticket sales." All someone has to do is a little math. With their average ticket price ($28) multiplied by capacity (41,900) comes out to 95 million dollars, if they sold out every game, which the Brewers have never come close to doing.

 

 

Are you assuming they don't spend any money on parking/concessions? My guess is that it's probably at least $1 in concessions/parking per $1 in ticket price...probably more like 3:1.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

The captive spend doesn't matter because it hurts the ridiculous argument he is attempting to make. Who the hell cares if it is pure ticket sales? It is most likely a $160-$190mm gameday revenue stream. Who cares where it is coming from? The fewer fans there are, the less money there is.

 

But sure, they don't care about attendance. The sales staff, the millions reinvested for ballpark improvements year after year, that is all just done for fun. The millions spent on marketing and promo has never provided worthwhile ROI, they just keep doing it for some reason.

 

This is honestly taking the cake for one of the most baseless takes I've seen put forward here.

[owbc]

They care about profit. Attendance is good for profit. Salaries eat into profit. The problem, as I see it, is that the owners have decided that it is ok to lose some fans (which they are assuming will be a temporary loss) in exchange for getting the upper hand on salary negotiations (which they are assuming could influence profits for many years).

 

Several franchises have abysmal attendance and yet are in excellent shape financially. Is that fine? Depends on your perspective.

 

Again, what concerns me is that the much needed improvements to the game itself are the lowest priority in all of this.

[TURBO]

According to Evan Drellich of The Athletic, there are no meetings scheduled this week between MLB and the MLBPA.

 

But the two sides are meeting separately, and maybe that will generate some semblance of movement toward a new collective bargaining agreement. Or at least bring about a few fresh ideas that could lead to certain major hurdles being cleared. Rob Manfred, Dan Halem, and MLB owners are stationed at a hotel near Disney World, per Drellich, and Tony Clark and Bruce Meyer will gather with groups of players in Arizona and then Florida. Manfred reportedly plans to hold a media session on Thursday. This process continues to sputter along.

 

SOURCE: Evan Drellich on Twitter

Feb 8, 2022, 5:42 PM ET

 

Yeah, what's the rush, plenty of time...

[Jopal78]

The captive spend doesn't matter because it hurts the ridiculous argument he is attempting to make. Who the hell cares if it is pure ticket sales? It is most likely a $160-$190mm gameday revenue stream. Who cares where it is coming from? The fewer fans there are, the less money there is.

 

But sure, they don't care about attendance. The sales staff, the millions reinvested for ballpark improvements year after year, that is all just done for fun. The millions spent on marketing and promo has never provided worthwhile ROI, they just keep doing it for some reason.

 

This is honestly taking the cake for one of the most baseless takes I've seen put forward here.

 

It's the last time I'll bring it up, because clearly you're quick to criticize without bothering to first read carefully. I think every single post I've written said, luxury box leases, lower bowl season ticket packages, group outings will still happen regardless of any labor dispute. It's not as if the stadium is going to sit empty.

 

The point is the fans who pout and say a labor dispute turns them off, will be relatively insignificant to the owners in the grand scheme of things.

 

[ The Brewers per game attendance dropped about a third in 1995 (per game attendance was approx 15,000) from where it was in '94 before the strike (approx 22,000 per game). By 1998 things had returned to normal and the Brewers had their biggest year for total attendance since '89]

 

Moreover, the fans who decide to "stay away" are not likely to abandon baseball, or Brewers baseball all together, and as such will continue pouring money directly, or indirectly, into the team's pocket thereby making any temporary drop in paid attendance even less of a detriment.

 

Call them baseless, crazy, or whatever that's your prerogative, there's plenty of information available for anyone who wants to look establishing them as fact.

 

The players' proposals for a new CBA increasing minimum salaries, players qualifying for arbitration sooner, changes to revenue sharing, raising the luxury tax level and penalizing teams for rebuilding/tanking, will only make it harder for teams like Milwaukee to compete with the big boys. I'm fine with the owners losing games if it means the Brewers won't become even more of a second class organization. I'll just find something else to occupy my time until the season eventually starts up.

[Lathund]

During the last CBAs we've seen revenue soar, while salaries have increased at a much slower pace. The pandemic effects make it harder to evaluate, but salaries plateaued even before then. Players want to reverse this trend, owners want to maintain it. A deal could be reached if the owners just moved part of the way towards the distribution of revenue of even a decade ago, but they really have not budged at all so far in negotiations.

 

There was the press release from the owners when they initiated the lockout that stated both that they were "forced" to do it, and also that they did it in the hope of kickstarting negotiations. Firstly, which of the two is it? Secondly, after the lockout started they didn't submit a counter-proposal for *six weeks*. Looking at the latest proposals compared to the earliest, the players have moved a lot. Owners barely at all. The owners latest stunt was to say they would counter the unions latest offer, then deciding not to do so and instead propose mediation as a PR move. Negotiations aren't deadlocked, the issue is that the owners could barely have been said to have negotiated so far. If both sides would have negotiated in good faith and made actual proposals and compromises and there still was a deadlock, mediaton makes sense. But that's not where we're at.

 

Owners negotiated in bad faith ahead of the 2020 season, and they absolutely seem to be doing the same again. Their economic proposals include raises to the CBT and to minimum salaries that barely even covers inflation. A bonus pool for the best performing pre-arb players that amounts to ~$333k per team total. A higher minimum salary for 2nd and 3rd year pre-arb players is the only direct concession, and even then that's not very much; even if a team was to have 20 3rd year pre-arb players on the roster (Which is an extreme number. Brewers currently have 3) it'd be ~$2.5m per team. The owners proposal also removes the ability of teams to pay players above the minimum, so even less impactful than it first seems. Now keep in mind that this unwillingness to move at all comes despite the fact that players are willing to agree to expanded playoffs and give the owners rights to put badges on jerseys. These are both big sources of revenue, yet owners still won't make any concessions.

 

As for the point earlier, that gets raised a lot, about fixed floors and caps; Part of why the PA are against it is because owners have refused to give the PA full access to their books. They are required to share certain (independently audited) figures with the PA, but that does not give the full picture. Particularly when it comes to things like ballpark developments like Wrigleyville, or for teams who own their own broadcast networks (or parts of it). The PA are wary of teams "hiding" income like that. Essentially any proposals for a fixed split is asking the players to agree to a share of a pie despite not knowing what pie it is or how big it is.

 

Other proposals like the floor and (massively reduced) CBA proposal the MLB made has the downside of not scaling. It might increase spending slightly in 2022, but towards the end of the CBA period it's probably more likely to reduce it. And it would make the floor and (effective) cap a major point of contention in future CBAs, with owners demanding other concessions to raise it. There are very good reasons for the PA to oppose this kind of thing. Similarly, the various proposals from MLB about increasing player compensation are all also fixed, and in general try to restrict or entirely remove arbitration. They will result in the trend of owners pocketing a larger and larger share of revenues will continue.

 

So with so much "both sides" stuff going around, it's worth keeping in mind that the owners can lift the lockout any time and start preseason (There are very good reasons for them not to, of course, and it would likely result in a strike instead. But both starting and ending the lockout is in the owners hands). And that one side has shown significant more willingness to negotiate, or even show up at the table, than the other. Some people have the idea that if salaries are limited, it will make baseball cheaper and more accessible to fans. Which is just naive beyond belief. Fans are already paying the current prices, so owners have no reason to reduce them. If payrolls go down, that money goes straight into the owners pockets. They might make some PR gestures like a price freeze for x years or larger discounts for students, elderly and military personell (Or whichever other moves that gives them good PR) that in reality would only be a small fraction of the money saved. I don't know about you all, but I would rather that the money I pay to watch baseball goes to the players who provide the enterainment, rather than into the pockets of Bob Nutting, Hal Steinbrenner, Arte Moreno, Joe Ricketts or even our own Mark Attanasio.

[KeithStone53151]

But I'm not , I said "pure ticket sales." All someone has to do is a little math. With their average ticket price ($28) multiplied by capacity (41,900) comes out to 95 million dollars, if they sold out every game, which the Brewers have never come close to doing.

 

 

Are you assuming they don't spend any money on parking/concessions? My guess is that it's probably at least $1 in concessions/parking per $1 in ticket price...probably more like 3:1.

 

Don't forget merch...the stuff in the store is wildly expensive in my opinion, but considering it's always packed and there's constantly a line to buy stuff...most people don't agree and are happy to pay the wild prices.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

The captive spend doesn't matter because it hurts the ridiculous argument he is attempting to make. Who the hell cares if it is pure ticket sales? It is most likely a $160-$190mm gameday revenue stream. Who cares where it is coming from? The fewer fans there are, the less money there is.

 

But sure, they don't care about attendance. The sales staff, the millions reinvested for ballpark improvements year after year, that is all just done for fun. The millions spent on marketing and promo has never provided worthwhile ROI, they just keep doing it for some reason.

 

This is honestly taking the cake for one of the most baseless takes I've seen put forward here.

 

It's the last time I'll bring it up, because clearly you're quick to criticize without bothering to first read carefully. I think every single post I've written said, luxury box leases, lower bowl season ticket packages, group outings will still happen regardless of any labor dispute. It's not as if the stadium is going to sit empty.

 

The point is the fans who pout and say a labor dispute turns them off, will be relatively insignificant to the owners in the grand scheme of things.

 

[ The Brewers per game attendance dropped about a third in 1995 (per game attendance was approx 15,000) from where it was in '94 before the strike (approx 22,000 per game). By 1998 things had returned to normal and the Brewers had their biggest year for total attendance since '89]

 

Moreover, the fans who decide to "stay away" are not likely to abandon baseball, or Brewers baseball all together, and as such will continue pouring money directly, or indirectly, into the team's pocket thereby making any temporary drop in paid attendance even less of a detriment.

 

Call them baseless, crazy, or whatever that's your prerogative, there's plenty of information available for anyone who wants to look establishing them as fact.

 

The players' proposals for a new CBA increasing minimum salaries, players qualifying for arbitration sooner, changes to revenue sharing, raising the luxury tax level and penalizing teams for rebuilding/tanking, will only make it harder for teams like Milwaukee to compete with the big boys. I'm fine with the owners losing games if it means the Brewers won't become even more of a second class organization. I'll just find something else to occupy my time until the season eventually starts up.

 

There is a mountain of info proving you wrong and you continue sticking to your guns so yes, it is pointless to run in circles. You also keep moving the goal post. Originally, fans going to games wasn't a significant source of income. False, so you moved to "broadcast revenue rules the day." They just turn on the radio instead and Mark A. is all smiles (lol). False, for anyone not in NYC or LA. Oh, ok, what you meant was PURE ticket revenue, which you distinguished halfway through the conversation. So yeah, by the arbitrary rules you keep shifting around to make attendance insignificant, I guess you can be correct. There's no point arguing with a guy who sees all examples of "consumption" (watching, listening, attending) as equal.

 

And yes I will continue to call them baseless because you have nothing concrete whatsoever, just vague generalities about the "owners don't care" and the "proof is there for anyone willing to look."

 

You made an exaggerated claim and when shown to be off the mark just kept doubling down.

[Jopal78]

During the last CBAs we've seen revenue soar, while salaries have increased at a much slower pace. The pandemic effects make it harder to evaluate, but salaries plateaued even before then. Players want to reverse this trend, owners want to maintain it. A deal could be reached if the owners just moved part of the way towards the distribution of revenue of even a decade ago, but they really have not budged at all so far in negotiations.

 

There was the press release from the owners when they initiated the lockout that stated both that they were "forced" to do it, and also that they did it in the hope of kickstarting negotiations. Firstly, which of the two is it? Secondly, after the lockout started they didn't submit a counter-proposal for *six weeks*. Looking at the latest proposals compared to the earliest, the players have moved a lot. Owners barely at all. The owners latest stunt was to say they would counter the unions latest offer, then deciding not to do so and instead propose mediation as a PR move. Negotiations aren't deadlocked, the issue is that the owners could barely have been said to have negotiated so far. If both sides would have negotiated in good faith and made actual proposals and compromises and there still was a deadlock, mediaton makes sense. But that's not where we're at.

 

Owners negotiated in bad faith ahead of the 2020 season, and they absolutely seem to be doing the same again. Their economic proposals include raises to the CBT and to minimum salaries that barely even covers inflation. A bonus pool for the best performing pre-arb players that amounts to ~$333k per team total. A higher minimum salary for 2nd and 3rd year pre-arb players is the only direct concession, and even then that's not very much; even if a team was to have 20 3rd year pre-arb players on the roster (Which is an extreme number. Brewers currently have 3) it'd be ~$2.5m per team. The owners proposal also removes the ability of teams to pay players above the minimum, so even less impactful than it first seems. Now keep in mind that this unwillingness to move at all comes despite the fact that players are willing to agree to expanded playoffs and give the owners rights to put badges on jerseys. These are both big sources of revenue, yet owners still won't make any concessions.

 

As for the point earlier, that gets raised a lot, about fixed floors and caps; Part of why the PA are against it is because owners have refused to give the PA full access to their books. They are required to share certain (independently audited) figures with the PA, but that does not give the full picture. Particularly when it comes to things like ballpark developments like Wrigleyville, or for teams who own their own broadcast networks (or parts of it). The PA are wary of teams "hiding" income like that. Essentially any proposals for a fixed split is asking the players to agree to a share of a pie despite not knowing what pie it is or how big it is.

 

Other proposals like the floor and (massively reduced) CBA proposal the MLB made has the downside of not scaling. It might increase spending slightly in 2022, but towards the end of the CBA period it's probably more likely to reduce it. And it would make the floor and (effective) cap a major point of contention in future CBAs, with owners demanding other concessions to raise it. There are very good reasons for the PA to oppose this kind of thing. Similarly, the various proposals from MLB about increasing player compensation are all also fixed, and in general try to restrict or entirely remove arbitration. They will result in the trend of owners pocketing a larger and larger share of revenues will continue.

 

So with so much "both sides" stuff going around, it's worth keeping in mind that the owners can lift the lockout any time and start preseason (There are very good reasons for them not to, of course, and it would likely result in a strike instead. But both starting and ending the lockout is in the owners hands). And that one side has shown significant more willingness to negotiate, or even show up at the table, than the other. Some people have the idea that if salaries are limited, it will make baseball cheaper and more accessible to fans. Which is just naive beyond belief. Fans are already paying the current prices, so owners have no reason to reduce them. If payrolls go down, that money goes straight into the owners pockets. They might make some PR gestures like a price freeze for x years or larger discounts for students, elderly and military personell (Or whichever other moves that gives them good PR) that in reality would only be a small fraction of the money saved. I don't know about you all, but I would rather that the money I pay to watch baseball goes to the players who provide the enterainment, rather than into the pockets of Bob Nutting, Hal Steinbrenner, Arte Moreno, Joe Ricketts or even our own Mark Attanasio.

 

There's a lot to unpack here. The owners instituted a "lock out" as a PR move because it's less a pejorative term than "strike." The reality is organized labor doesn't go to work without a collective bargaining agreement, so an eventual player strike was a foregone conclusion when the old CBA expired, the owners merely headed the player's off at the pass.

 

There's a labor dispute happening everyday in America; baseball's is unique because both sides are famous. As for the owners "opening their books" to the Union. This is all just talking points and spin. By and large baseball team's are closely held corporations. They have no obligation to "open their books" to the public. I'm sure Cargill or Koch Industries or other behemoth private corporations tell the Unions they're negotiating with to go pound sand as well.

 

Despite what the media would have you believe; Billionaire's don't buy sports teams as play things. Baseball teams are unicorns:: almost all of them are worth a billion dollars or more, and they never depreciated. They've never gone out of business, have proven impervious to recession, can always raise capital, and there's varied and sophisticated revenue streams beyond game day revenue. The owners are not doing anything they don't do with their other businesses or that other CEO's of billion dollar companies wouldn't do: keeping their investment healthy and maximizing returns.

 

The players also know they have a good thing going and know when they finally do reach an agreement on a new CBA they'll be doing even better. They've just proven better at framing the narrative than the owners. Both sides simply want more but the player's can frame the issue as one of fairness. Thus Whit Merrifield is out there saying with a straight face its" unfair" 21 year old kids are making just $500,000, while not mentioning he and many others are 1%-ers already and they're looking for a bigger cut as well. Clearly, nobody would have an ounce of sympathy for a 1%-er saying they're not paid enough, thus in order to not look like an idiot, he has to say the owners are ripping them off and the owner's are disingenuous, dishonest, evil, etc.

 

It's all pretty standard labor dispute stuff, it just plays out on a bigger stage.

[zurch1818]

I get it that they compare revenue vs salary to the players. I'm curious what it costs to host 81 baseball game (excluding player salaries and maybe front office salaries). Is it $20 million? 30% of the Brewers revenue? I think this is a piece I would like to understand before I pick a side. Obviously since the Brewers have a smaller pie, the percentage is going to be larger than your token big market club.

 

Frankly, I don't really want to pick a side and I don't care that much about the money side. I would much rather focus on how they make the game more fair and give small market teams a chance. I mostly just want an international draft. How guys like Wander Franco and Fernando Tatis just get signed is not right.

[Underachiever]

I get it that they compare revenue vs salary to the players. I'm curious what it costs to host 81 baseball game (excluding player salaries and maybe front office salaries). Is it $20 million? 30% of the Brewers revenue? I think this is a piece I would like to understand before I pick a side. Obviously since the Brewers have a smaller pie, the percentage is going to be larger than your token big market club.

 

Frankly, I don't really want to pick a side and I don't care that much about the money side. I would much rather focus on how they make the game more fair and give small market teams a chance. I mostly just want an international draft. How guys like Wander Franco and Fernando Tatis just get signed is not right.

Can you explain to me how they got signed? And what is not right about it? I am curious, I really don't know the answer here.

[Jopal78]

Can you explain to me how they got signed? And what is not right about it? I am curious, I really don't know the answer here.

 

Those players were signed as free agents from outside the United States. Not all teams have the same presence in the Caribbean (in fact some teams like Baltimore have little to no presence there). The White Sox signed Tatis Jr. in the Dominican Republic as a 16 year old kid and the Rays signed Franco from there when he was 16.

 

I'm not sure how an international draft levels the playing field much if at all, unless teams have an equal presence in the Caribbean, Japan etc. I think it only helps those amateur international players make more money.

 

The 'perceived' problem is the current set-up can be somewhat of exploitative for those players. Tatis Jr. signed for $700,000 in bonus money. Moreover, Ozzie Albies got $350,000 and Ronald Acuna was signed by the Braves for $100,000. Had those been first round picks in the June MLB draft, they would have made exponentially more in signing bonus money. Franco was a much more heralded international player and got nearly a 4 million dollar bonus from the Rays but is still a fraction of what a top of the first round pick would get in the MLB draft.

[DR28]

Maybe we're getting somewhere...

 

Universal DH and draft pick compensation elimination has been agreed to.

[BrewCrewForever]

Maybe we're getting somewhere...

 

Universal DH and draft pick compensation elimination has been agreed to.

 

This is a nice start. Let's see what the owners offer on CBT, minimum salary and 0-6 year players for earlier free agency or arbitration.

[Jopal78]

Maybe we're getting somewhere...

 

Universal DH and draft pick compensation elimination has been agreed to.

 

This is a nice start. Let's see what the owners offer on CBT, minimum salary and 0-6 year players for earlier free agency or arbitration.

 

I think I read that less than six years to free agency was dead on arrival, along with the player's proposal for players 30 years old and less than 6 years service time to qualify.