The negotiations between Major League Baseball and the Players Association have begun and have also become a fascinating study in stupidity. There is a pot of millions of dollars, and billionaire owners and millionaire players can't figure out how to split it in a manner in which both sides can be happy.
In normal years, these kinds of things turn fans off and generate lots of criticism. That's why I assure you in the middle of a global pandemic, when the United States unemployment rate is closing in on 20%, people are taking pay cuts and businesses are furloughing people to survive, it would behoove both sides to get a deal done soon.
It would be one thing if a deal falls apart because the two sides can't come to agreement about the safety of players, there isn't a good plan in place for COVID-19 testing or some other reason and the season has to be canceled. Fans wouldn't be happy, but those that reside outside the lunatic fringe would understand it and agree that safety comes first.
It won't be safety concerns, though, that will cause the deal to fall apart. All of those things will be in the hands of medical professionals and experts. We have seen a good example in the Korea Baseball Organization of how baseball can return and players and managers can be kept safe, so with that model in place, there is no reason to believe it can't and won't work here.
The only thing that will cause this deal to fall apart is if the owners and players are so dumb that they can't agree how to divide the money correctly. And both sides have merit to their arguments _ in a normal season. But this isn't a normal season or a normal year, so most of the arguments go out the window.
I get a kick out of people who think the "billionaire owners" should just cover the cost of payrolls with no questions asked. I mean, they are good for it, right? That's just dumb and not realistic. The season is going to essentially be cut in half with each team playing 82 games. There are going to be no fans buying tickets, which means no fans buying beer, popcorn and hot dogs.
And since people aren't going to games and many don't have a lot of disposable income, the licensed gear market will shrink, as well. The owners are going to lose hundreds of millions of dollars.
The players need to be willing to give something back, and they should want to. Most of the league's executives and managers have taken pay cuts. The worker bees _ vendors, lower level front office people, ticket office workers _ in baseball have either lost their jobs or taken pay cuts. The players should be willing to, as well.
On the flip side, the owners need to understand that they have no league without the players. They need to be fair and give some concessions. They also need to understand that if they want to make this work, they need to be willing to give something back to the players when times are back to normal. This can't be an "our way or the highway" type negotiation, there has to be some give and take on both sides.
There is a deal to be made, and now it is just a matter of the leaders on both sides of this to use their brains and understand the consequences of not getting a deal done as it would be devastating.
We have seen it before, actually, as baseball suffered greatly after the strike of 1994-95. And in that case it wasn't even an entire season lost, but it was still devastating. That strike started in August and ran all the way through the winter and canceled the playoffs and World Series. It cost baseball about $600 million and players lost $230 million just to shut down those last two months.
The fallout was worse, though, as attendance dropped almost 7,000 per game the next season, the television deal with ABC fell apart, it likely put the final nail in the Montreal Expos' existence and television ratings sagged. It wasn't until later in the decade with the home run chase between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa that MLB's popularity began to return.
My guess is the fallout from a canceled season this time around would be worse. MLB is already on a slow decline in ratings and attendance and cannot afford to sit out an entire season because owners and players can't agree to divide up hundreds of millions of dollars. Canceled seasons are never popular, but try selling it to a country full of people who have lost their jobs and are struggling to hang on.
It isn't going to be pretty if a deal can't be made, and if that happens, both the players and owners deserve whatever financial fallout comes their way.
