Bleacher Bums Forum

....Other sports have some form of salary cap because the unions in those sports haver never had the bargaining party to resist. Never had the solidarity to inflict pain on ownership....

And if the players ultimately agree to some form of salary cap, it will be because they now lack the bargaining power .... to achieve the players’ best interests. ...

...Remains to be seen.

Assuming more or less equal bargaining power on both sides, the parties will reach an agreement when both sides are in pain or near-pain and can live with the offer on the table. Don’t have to be enthusiastic about it; just can live with it....

Several tangent thoughts, reb. 

1.  Agree. Owners would like to improve the status quo.  But the status quo is win-win, and neither side will want to destroy mlb.  Negotiation and compromise will happen as always, but in the end there will be a deal.  The 7 Cubs post-FA starters average over $20.  Not sure how acute their pain?  Players will eventually want to play.  There will be a fight; but in due time a compromise will be reached.  Killing the entire season would be lose-lose and the two sides won't mutually commit to that.  Too much profit for both sides to mutually self-destruct. 

2.  Reb, Your primary premise is that if the players agree to some form of salary cap, it will be contrary to the players’ best interests.  It's obviously never going to happen, of course, because the players union has always held your premise. 

3.  You have a second premise that NFL and NBA players are worse off, because they have salary cap due to weaker unions that induce less adversarial pain. 

I'm uncertain if either premise is true?  Per simple Google AI, the percentage of revenue 51%/48% for NBA/NFL, versus 42-47% for mlb.  How much worse off are the NBA/NFL guys?   

Reb, you rhetorically note:  "If MLB players want to assist the owners to ....have the business model be “more competitive”——fine."

Your view is that adversarial pain must be the only path to any CBA.  But if fan interest grew, revenue grew, and the players agreed to an NBA/NFL-style 50%, might that not actually be to mutual advantage?  More fan interest, more revenue, a higher cut of revenue, which of those would be contrary to player interest? 

Admission:  Referencing the 50%-of-revenue earnings for NBA/NFL is a vulnerable logic chain.  Baseball's lower %-of-revenue reflects higher operating costs.  NBA/NFL have cost/free player-development in college, no minor league costs.  NBA team has one stadium; NFL maybe 3-4 additional practice fields.  Cubs have both Wrigley; plus 6-7 fields in massive Mesa complex; plus ~6 other fields/stadiums divided between Dominican and A-AA-AAA minor-league teams.  More operating expense.  Cubs play 162 games plus spring plus post-season, Bears host maybe 12?  More operating expense.  Cubs have much larger volume of front-office/scouting personnel and analytic costs, etc..  More operating expense. 

Still, it's not really obvious that NBA/NFL players are doing any worse than mlb players; salary cap may not provide meaningful disadvantage?