New Collective Bargaining Agreement, what if the owners win?

[Nick]

Is anyone talking about the FLOOR proposed by the owners? $174M? Currently there are 15 or so major league teams with Luxury Tax Payroll below the new 'proposed' floor. I can't believe that those 15 'cheap' owners agree to that figure. How can they afford it? Or can they?

What will the Dodgers do? Projected payroll for 2027 is $363M. How can they reduce it overnight? Why would another team pay a fair value on the trade knowing that the Dodgers have to shed payroll?

I proposed this couple of years ago. Each year, the team would be allowed one exemption for one player. It would be a moving target year to year. Say for 2026 it's $25M. For the Sox, that max would have been applied to Crochet who is making $28M+. Under my proposal, the Dodgers can pay a player $120M for two years and it would only count $25M towards the max limit and not $60M.

If we win the World Series, the lockout won't hurt as much.

[moonslav59]

It will likely be a win-win by both sides.

The "Floor" clause could be supplemented by increased revenue spending, and the sharing of local TV money talked about would do just that, thereby allowing the lower budget teams to spend more without a whole lot of their own money.

The players could get higher min salaries, shorter waits for arb and less arbs before they can become FAs. Roster expansion would be a big plus for players, too, especially the 40.

If they raised the minimum salary from $780K to $1.6M and adjusted the pro-rated formula to help the little guys, that would get a large percentage of players to go for any deal- hard/soft cap or not.

I doubt they end up with any sort of hard cap, even with a floor being added.

I am not as certain as many here that a work stoppage that affects the season will occur.

[JoeBrady]

2 hours ago, Nick said:

I can't believe that those 15 'cheap' owners agree to that figure. How can they afford it? Or can they?

Just a couple of random thoughts:

• If they go to a floor, they might to 100% broadcast sharing.  It'll give poorer teams enough for a floor and incentivize to develop a better fanbase.
• I assume teams will be grandfathered in, maybe even over the 5-year CBA period.
• I also assume the players will reject a cap, no matter how lucrative.

[vegasbob]

4 minutes ago, JoeBrady said:

Just a couple of random thoughts:

• If they go to a floor, they might to 100% broadcast sharing.  It'll give poorer teams enough for a floor and incentivize to develop a better fanbase.
• I assume teams will be grandfathered in, maybe even over the 5-year CBA period.
• I also assume the players will reject a cap, no matter how lucrative.

Certainly agree with your 2nd/3rd points

[JoeBrady]

4 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

It will likely be a win-win by both sides.

The NFL should be their model, and I might say that about every industry.  Every time the owners make money, the players make money.  Every time the owners think of a way to enhance revenue, the union say 'sure, but here's what we need in return'.

I would add to the minimum salary, and add a lot of service time additions for the AAAA players bouncing up and down.  You add me for a day, you owe me a week's service time.  You add me for a week, you owe for a month.  If you add me for more than 81 games, you owe me a full year's salary and service time.

I don't particularly care how they chop up my BB allowance, but these 30 year old journeymen add a lot to the league and get a fraction of the gravy.

[moonslav59]

26 minutes ago, vegasbob said:

Certainly agree with your 2nd/3rd points

There is talk of sharing broadcast revenue, but 100% is not likely.

I could see them agreeing to each team shares 50%, so the big markets still get to keep more but the small markets will get a big share they currently don't get.

To me, when the Rays play at the Dodgers, they should get 50% of the TV money. There would be no game without opponents.

 

[mvp 78]

The NFL model would be worse for the Sox. We should be advocating for no cap since the Sox are a rich team. 

[JoeBrady]

4 hours ago, mvp 78 said:

The NFL model would be worse for the Sox. We should be advocating for no cap since the Sox are a rich team. 

Good for BB, which is still pretty important.  What I had in mind was to consolidate at broadcasting, at least the TV.  That should provide for better deals for BB.  Split that.  Then each team gets to keep their local revenue.  That'll incentivize each team to build their product.  And we'll still do okay.