Baseball strikes out

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So, here’s a problem for you to figure out, sports fans. 

Let’s say you get $10 billion a year. Your job is to work out how to divide that up between the owners of 30 Major League Baseball teams and the 1,000 or so guys who play the game on the field. 

Many of us would consider this a happy task because, for a lot of people, $10 billion is a lot of money. And there’s even a bonus. If you do come to a mutual agreement on this sunny problem then you’ll get even more dough because the money machine won’t be interrupted by a work stoppage — at least one not created by a pandemic. And the fans — remember the fans, you know, the people who provide you with $10 billion, yeah those folks — will be so happy that you’re happy that they’ll watch more of your games on TV, buy tickets to see them in person and fork over six bucks for a hotdog and $10 for a beer. 

But baseball is unique in all professional sports in its adamance about proving over and over again that greed knows no bounds and shows no shame. Yeah, other sports have their labor disputes now and then, but baseball has perfected the genre. The players and owners have been heading for a strike or lockout when the current contract expires after next season, but things really got ugly when that $10 billion was shrunk for this year by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

For those of you who have not kept up with every pitch in this game, let me offer this simplified summary. In response to the COVID-19 epidemic, baseball shut down its spring training camps a couple of weeks before the season was set to begin. Soon after that, the players and owners came to an agreement on how they would go forward. The players agreed to prorate their salaries based on games actually played, assuming that they would not be able to get in the usual 162. 

So far, so good. But then, as the crisis worsened and it became clear that a whole lot less than 162 games would be played and that it was unlikely any of those games would be played before paying customers, things quickly unravelled. The owners demanded a new round of concessions from the players due to lack of concessions from fans. In other words, because fans wouldn’t be buying tickets and hot dogs and beer and programs and caps and other stuff, revenues would be way down and the owners wanted the players to share in their pain. The owners claim that attendance revenue accounts for about 40% of their take while media rights account for most of the rest. 

The players refused, saying they had already sacrificed enough in agreeing to prorate their pay. 

Then the sides started arguing about the number of games that would be played. The players wanted more because they were being paid per game while the owners wanted less because they were paying the players per game. The owners also argued (without opening their books — we just need to trust them on this) that all but a few of the clubs would lose money for each game played because the broadcast rights wouldn’t be enough to cover the cost of paying the players and staging the game when you consider lost ticket and concessions revenue. 

So, the owners first proposed 82 games. The players came back with 114. The owners countered with 50 and later with 76 and then with 72. Now, let’s just stop right here and notice something. See, when parties are negotiating in good faith they tend to get closer to one another. So, when one side proposes a number like 82 and the other 114, then typically one might expect the negotiations to land somewhere between those numbers. Studies have shown that the numbers 50, 76 and 72 do not lie between 82 and 114.

Finally, the players threw up their hands and said basically, “Fine. Have it your way. We’ll play your lousy 50 games. Just tell us where and when to show up. And, oh by the way, when you tell us when to show up on the field we’ll tell you guys when to show up in front of the arbitrator.” 

The players were calling the owners’ bluff. If the owners force them to play and get paid for only 50 games, the players figured they’d have a good chance of winning a grievance before an arbitrator. And winning in this case could mean another billion dollars or so for the players. 

As these two sides, both filled with millionaires and billionaires, bickered over how to divide up a fortune, each side remembers once in a while to pay lip service to the fans, claiming that they owe it to us to get back on the field. 

Now it looks like they actually might. Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred and players union chief Tony Clark huddled together (properly socially distanced, we assume) in an Arizona hotel and worked out a deal for 60 games starting in late July. Manfred and Clark are recommending the deal to their sides and we’ll see what happens next. 

Speaking for myself as a fan, don’t bother guys. It’s a bad idea to restart team sports anyway because of the message it says about easing restrictions that had helped reduce the spread of COVID-19. 

Moreover, baseball is about the long haul, it’s about how a team endures the grind of a six-month season. A proper baseball season is a marathon, not a sprint. Last season, after 50 games, the Washington Nationals had the third worst record in the National League. But 112 games later they were in the playoffs and several games after that they won the pennant. 

I had been missing baseball, but the owners and players are easing my pain. They’re making it hard to miss people as greedy as this.