An In-Depth Look at the Argument Between MLB Owners and Players

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This year is like no other in a variety of ways. Covid-19 is changing everything. More people are working from home, while others have lost their jobs. Small businesses are closing all over the country.

The pandemic is affecting sports as well. It's changing America's pastime, professional baseball. The baseball season is currently underway, a pandemic-shortened affair that puts all players and coaches at risk.

Before the season began, there was a well-publicized negotiation period between the Major League Baseball Players Association and the team owners. Let's take a look at who was on the right side of those negotiations, and what they mean for the sport in the immediate future.

What Baseball Players Get Paid

Athletes receive payment amounts that sometimes seem arbitrary to the casual fan. For instance, the arena football league recently went out of business. One website estimated that players and coaches of the Philadelphia Soul Arena Football team made about $80,083 annually.

That might seem like a pretty good salary until you take the time to think about how dangerous football is. Prior to the league folding, those players could have sustained life-threatening injuries on any play.

They might have suffered:

Concussions
Broken bones
Whiplash

If you look at it in that light, you might see things a little differently. Is it worth it to get CTE making a paltry $80K per year?

However, big-league baseball is much more popular than arena football ever was. The pay is higher, too. The average MLB player makes about $4.38 million, while a superstar like Mike Trout makes $33.25 million per year.

The real question is this: is even that type of salary worth it to risk your life playing in the middle of a pandemic?

The Team Owner Viewpoint

If you talk to one Major League Baseball's owners, they would probably hint that they think they overpay their players. They might not have the gall to come right out and say it, but it's evident that's what they believe.

You can tell this by the way they acted during negotiations leading up to this shortened season. The team owners were:

Collectively pleading poverty
Saying they couldn't pay the players their agreed-upon salaries

Their logic was that they wouldn't be making any gate money for each game because the fans couldn't attend.

The Player Viewpoint

On the other side, you had the ballplayers themselves, represented by the MLBPA, their union. The ballplayers were saying that by playing baseball in 2020, they were putting their lives on the line.

With so many people dying from Covid-19, it's hard to say that was hyperbole. If they went out on the field and were close to each other, then the chances were high that they could catch it. The same went for coaches, umpires, trainers, etc.

Who Was Right?

Negotiations dragged on through March, April, May, and June, exhausting the public. They wanted to see baseball because they felt like it was the sport that meant summer, the dog days, relaxing in front of the TV with a beer, and watching their team play. They were sick of hearing the billionaire owners arguing with the millionaire players.

It wasn't a good look for either group. Most fans and pundits felt like the owners were more wrong than the players, for the following reason.

Any billionaire claiming poverty is an absurd notion. The owners aren't hurting for money, even with no fans in the stands. Not only that, but the owners also get a huge piece of the TV broadcast rights for MLB. The players don't see any of that.

The Future

Eventually, the players agreed to play a 60-game season for prorated pay. They receive as payment what they normally would for each of those 60 games.

The league and players came up with safety protocols that they felt could work. The season kicked off in late July with the Yankees challenging the defending world champion Washington Nationals.

Baseball is happening right now, but it's a strange, dystopian version of it, with cardboard fan cutouts in the stands and piped-in crowd noise over the PA system. The Miami Marlins had to shut themselves down when half the team tested positive.

It's unclear whether Covid-19 will ultimately win this baseball season or whether one of the teams will. One thing is certain, though: there's more bad blood between ownership and players than at any other time in the league's long and storied history.