With almost 15 percent of the nation unemployed and 100 thousand dead, does anyone care if MLB, which earned $10.7 billion last year, ever plays? Billionaires vs. Millionaires

Baseball being played during 1918 pandemic

Photo: Getty images

… does anyone care that this may be the chance for owners to destroy the union?

As many Americans struggle to put food on the table and pay their mortgages, the news out this week featured a battle between despicable billionaires — baseball owners — and overpaid athletes. 

Major League Baseball wants to put together an 82-game season that would start in early July, hopefully on the birthday of the nation’s freedom. However, their proposal to their players this week went over like a thud. 

Does America, which has been leaving baseball in the dust for quite a few years — attendance has dropped by seven percent in five years — even care if no baseball exists this year? 

The optics are horrible, but neither side in this battle seems to care.

Everyone will be angry

The owners proposed that the wealthiest players take an 80 percent salary cut for this season when they play about half their games. Nevertheless, the public will not be forgiving regardless of which side a fan is on during this battle,

Whatever you make of this ink blot, it’s not a good look for baseball. Be it the players or owners you blame, it still comes down to millionaires arguing with billionaires, all while the clock is ticking. And if it runs out, it doesn’t matter if 50 percent of fans are pissed at the players and 50 percent are pissed at the owners. A full 100 percent will be pissed.

Jay Hart, Yahoo Sports Newsletter, May 27, 2020

Could it destroy baseball?

While Forbes estimated that MLB recorded an all-time high income of $10.7 billion last year, which led to outrageously large contracts to top players, many of the smaller market teams cannot afford to lose an entire season. 

The only question at the start of this season was how much damage would occur,

As Major League Baseball plots its way forward through the most disruptive crisis in its modern history, hoping to salvage a 2020 season amid a global pandemic that has delayed Opening Day by five weeks and counting, one thing is already clear: Barring a miraculous development, MLB almost certainly will experience some degree of economic devastation that could take years to dig out of.

The only questions: How bad is it going to get? And who will share in its toll?

“We’re going to lose billions of dollars this year, no matter what,” said one high-ranking baseball official, who, like others interviewed for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity to freely discuss internal matters. “People don’t realize the magnitude of the losses, but they’re huge.”

While all of the major North American professional sports are experiencing some degree of disruption and financial pain amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, baseball in many ways has it the worst.

Dave Sheinin, “Baseball is bracing for an economic hit. The only 

question is how bad it will be,” Washington Post, May 5, 2020

Can they even play the season?

The problem now is whether states will allow games to be played with fans in the stands. That is a major problem as far as income for the owners, 

“For the average team, about 50 percent of revenue is stadium-based, from ticket sales, parking, concessions, sponsorships, signage. It would only make sense for teams to play games if they can reach a subsequent deal with the players’ association to supplement the deal they made [in March],” said Andrew Zimbalist, an author and professor of economics at Smith College. 

“[Team owners] would have to get the players’ association to agree to some formula at least close to that reality. If they didn’t, they would lose a lot of money.”

Dave Sheinin, Washington Post, May 5, 2020

That agreement in March called for the players to receive a prorated share of their contracts. So, if they played a half-season, then they would receive half of their income. 

That is not what the owners now propose.

The infamous proposal

Some believe that the owners want to break the union, and that is what this proposal does. That is why the owners have gone after the high-salaried players while giving those earning the least the higher percentage of their incomes, according to ESPN,

The league's proposal, which includes bonuses if postseason games are played, offers lower-salaried players a higher percentage of their expected wages and would give some of the game's biggest stars a fractional cut of their salaries. The formula the league offered, for example, would take a player scheduled to make the league minimum ($563,500), give him a prorated number based on 82 games ($285,228) and take a 10% cut from that figure, leaving him with a $256,706 salary.

The scale goes down as salaries go up, with every dollar:

$563,501 to $1 million paid at 72.5% 

$1,000,001 to $5 million paid at 50%
$5,000,001 to $10 million paid at 40%
$10,000,001 to $20 million paid at 30%
$20,000,001 and up paid at 20%

Under this formula, Los Angeles Angels star Mike Trout, who at $37,666,666 has the highest full-season salary in baseball this year and would make $19,065,843 on a prorated basis over 82 games, would have a base salary of $5,748,577 -- though players would be paid for only games played.

Jeff Passan and Jesse Rogers, ESPN, May 26, 2020

Conclusion

MLB and the players had an opportunity to lead the country back to normalcy if they worked together to play some games this year. Even if they played with empty stadiums, that would be a gradual return and baseball would have been a factor in that move. 

Now, that seems unlikely because of their bickering.

And they all seem clueless about the suffering of the rest of the country. Their only concern is their own pocketbooks, which is sad.