Explaining the Current MLB, MLBPA Negotiations: How Would A Salary Cap Affect Fans?
· Yahoo Sports
Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association are currently negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement. The current one, which was put into effect in 2022, will expire on December 1 of this year. If a new CBA is not reached before that deadline, the league will enter into a lockout. This essentially shuts down all labor across MLB, losing both players and owners money until an agreement is finally reached. It’s meant to incentivize the two groups to reach an agreement as soon as possible.
Last week, the two groups submitted their initial proposals. These will certainly be tweaked much more in the coming months. The proposals act much more as a baseline of what the eventual agreement will reflect. They exemplify the things that each side values and would like to achieve in a perfect world. In reality, the two reach a compromise that is typically mutually beneficial. But, this year, there’s an added question on everyone’s minds: will a salary cap be instituted?
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The Los Angeles Juggernaut
That question arose out of the recent winning streak of the back-to-back World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers spending a ridiculous amount of money and winning on the backs of their expensive free agents. The Dodgers spent a then-record $700 million to acquire superstar Shohei Ohtani (though the final total will be less than that due to the deferred nature of the contract). Los Angeles also spends tens of millions on players who barely contributed in 2024 and ’25 like Michael Conforto or Hyeseong Kim.
That ludicrous spending has led to a sentiment around the league that Los Angeles wouldn’t be the club they are without their massive expenditures. And while it seems true that any club could spend the money on those players if they wanted to, the reward to do so isn’t as great as it is for the Dodgers.
Small-Market Teams Are Hurting
Make no mistake, I’m not saying this to eschew sympathy for the billionaire owners of these clubs. Some of these owners acquire baseball teams for one reason: profit. It’s a sickening part of baseball that it is a sport for many but a business for some. And those for whom it is a business are the ones who pull the strings in the game. That has led to long-standing tensions between owners trying to make a profit and fans who want to see their teams win no matter the cost.
Top Free Agent Contenders
When a top free agent becomes available in the offseason, at first glance it seems like any team could scoop them up. But, when it comes down to it, only certain teams are major players. Those clubs are currently the Dodgers, the New York Yankees and the New York Mets. Sure, on occasion other teams will spend nine figures on a player. (Look at clubs like the Detroit Tigers with Framber Valdez or the Chicago Cubs with Alex Bregman this offseason.) But, for the most part, these three clubs have combined to sign more free agents to more guaranteed dollars than anybody else.
Between the Dodgers, Yanks and Mets, the clubs have combined to give out just under $4 billion to their top free agents. The Mets and Dodgers combine for almost $3 billion of that total. Los Angeles alone accounts for $1.8 billion. The crazy part is that that total is from contracts given out in the last five years. The part that really blows your mind is that that sum is shared among just 23 players.
Obviously the total is ballooned by Ohtani’s $700 million deal and Juan Soto’s $765 million contract with the Mets. But, even without those two contracts, the total sits at a whopping $2.4 billion shared among 21 players. That is roughly $116.3 million per player. And that’s an amount that most clubs simply can’t bid close to on one player.
Building a Team (And a Fanbase)
The hard truth about baseball is that it’s a team sport. Clubs can’t win the World Series with one good player. Front offices can build a good team around a great player like the Yankees have with Aaron Judge. But if New York had Judge in the outfield and league-average players surrounding him, they wouldn’t contend year after year. Small-market teams know that truth well, so they have to build their teams by finding talent and production in places that no one else can see.
But fielding a winning team is half the battle. Small-market teams continually face hardships in the form of mismatched revenue from local TV deals. The Dodgers and Yankees each have TV deals that generate upwards of nine figures. Under the current CBA, clubs that generate more revenue do not contribute as much to the shared pool, while teams that generate less receive less from it. The major problem with local TV deals is that smaller clubs don’t gain a large following unless they succeed. That causes a vicious cycle to start in which small-market teams continue to make less and less while big-market teams grow into monstrous conglomerates.
The current total amount of pooled and redistributed money is approximately $1.1 billion. Under the new CBA proposal from the MLBPA, that number would move to $2 billion. The new CBA would change the method of pooling to make it more redistributive, with TV revenue being the primary source of redistributed income.
The Dreaded Salary Cap … And Floor
MLB countered the union with their proposal of a hard salary cap and floor, the first proposal of its kind since 1994. The league proposed a $171.2 million minimum and $245.3 million maximum. Those numbers were chosen to sit around the majority of clubs, bringing the eight clubs above the cap down and the 12 clubs below the floor up while keeping a balanced group of 10 clubs in the middle. That idea is engineered with the hope of fielding a better, more fair product across the league where all teams have a shot to win — no matter what their payroll is.
It’s worth wondering whether or not it works, though. Or if it’s even necessary in the first place. Spending certainly is an advantage, and it seems to have worked out for Los Angeles in the last two years, but how often has it really helped in the past? Look at the Mets. The club has the highest payroll in MLB, but it hasn’t translated to any success. The team is fourth in the National League East entering play on Tuesday and missed the postseason in 2025.
Does Spending Even Help?
But, it’s fair to ask how much big spending helps. To help give a barometer of success, of the 20 teams that have made the World Series since 2015 (excluding 2017), just five of the clubs were outside of the top 10 in payroll. Only one of them won (Kansas City Royals, 2015). Since the postseason format expanded to allow for 12 teams in 2022, 48 clubs have made the postseason. Of those 48, 18 have been in the top 10 in payroll across the league. 19 clubs outside the top 10 clinched a postseason appearance and 11 inside of the top 10 missed the playoffs entirely. If anything, that should show that teams are finding ways to win even without spending big.
Take, for example, the Milwaukee Brewers. They’ve ranked in the bottom half of team payroll for years and have still managed to reach the playoffs seven of the last eight years and win the NL Central five times in that same time frame. They continually outperform expectations with great scouting and player development. All of that is to say that there are ways to win outside of spending big. While it would be good for the game to have more competition in free agency, a salary cap-floor system might not be the most effective way to do so.
Effects on Fan Experience
One of the biggest questions not being asked about the salary cap system is how it would affect the cost of attending a game for fans. Baseball is at a pivotal moment right now. It’s gathered incredible momentum in attendance and fan interest in the last few years and it needs to keep picking up steam. While other sports leagues continue to flounder in viewership outside of bigger spotlights like the playoffs, baseball has found a dedicated and passionate fanbase in recent years.
Comparisons to Other Sports Leagues
So how could a salary cap-floor system affect fans? It’s helpful to look to the NFL and NBA for comparisons. Unlike baseball, the other two major sports leagues to have salary cap-floor systems in place, and have for some time. The NBA established theirs ahead of the 1984 season and the NFL followed suit in 1994. Granted, it’s difficult to compare the markets for the three different leagues to try to find a pattern, but it seems to be a helpful gauge nonetheless.
The season before the cap-floor system was first instituted in the NBA, average ticket prices sat at an approximate $9.88 (imagine that!). That number increased a whopping 22.5 percent once the cap was put in effect. The story was the same in the NFL, where average ticket prices were roughly $28.50 to attend a game in 1993. In 1994, that number went up 8.3 percent. Obviously, inflation isn’t factored in here. Over the years those numbers have blown out of proportion due to ticket resellers and a number of other factors, but modern ticket reselling didn’t exist in the 90s so that isn’t a factor. And, even when taking inflation into account, 22.5 percent is still a jump.
Costs for the Average Fan
A study done by the online publication Stadium Journey shows that the average ticket cost for an MLB game sits at approximately $34.82. That could increase on average by as little as $2.89 (8.3 percent) or as much as $7.83 (22.5 percent) per ticket. That’s enough to price some people out of getting to watch a ball game.
The Family Cost Index (FCI) is a measurement that indicates what it would cost a family of four, on average, to attend a baseball game. Currently, that number sits at roughly $225.90 league-wide. With 8.3 percent as a minimum change and 22.5 percent as a maximum, that means the FCI could increase by $18.75 all the way to $50.83. That would make it close to $300, on average, for a family to watch a game of baseball.
The long and short of it is this, the salary cap-floor system could drastically affect costs for fans, pricing some out of attending games. That could negatively impact MLB far more than the payroll parity would help the league. The momentum of the league is trending positively for the first time in the last few decades. It would be a shame to waste it by missing out on games next season. Hopefully, MLB and the MLBPA will be able to reach an agreement before the 2027 season is slated to begin.
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