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1. One thing that stands out in all of this: Unlike NBA/NFL (and I believe NHL, but I know less about NHL), MLB and MLBPA CBA's have never started from the idea that players get a guaranteed percentage of (audited/agreed-to) revenue.
2. That creates complications for all of these talks. COVID is tougher to deal with in MLB than NFL/NBA because in those sports, players are guaranteed a percentage of revenue. As such, both sides can start from working to minimizing economic shocks of COVID revenue reductions.
3. So NFL/NFLPA quickly agreed to spreading reductions of salary cap over multiple years (benefits players and teams). NBA has an escrow system. But in neither case were the two sides fighting over share of the pie. The pie had already been divided up.
4. There is no agreed split of the pie for baseball. So when a massive financial shock like COVID arrives, the two sides end up (understandably) fighting over how much of the smaller pie each side gets.
5. At its core, the massive difference in local revenues makes it harder for MLB owners to ever get to a place to agree on salary floor/salary cap.
Also, MLBPA has long resisted a salary cap, to the point where now there is a defacto one (luxury tax) without the floor component.
Also, MLBPA has long resisted a salary cap, to the point where now there is a defacto one (luxury tax) without the floor component.
6. Say a salary cap/salary floor comes to MLB (unlikely, but let's play with hypotheticals). In NFL, teams required to spend 89 percent of salary cap max over a four-year period. Say salary cap max was $175 million (which is a very low hypothetical). Floor would be $155.75 mil.
7. There are a number of MLB teams who would see that number as far beyond what they are comfortable spending. To make that work, would have to be massively more revenue sharing between MLB teams, which has been a contentious issue for decades.
8. That has always been a problem, but more so now when big market teams are valued in the billions of dollars. Benefit/valuation of big-market would be lessened significantly with much more significant revenue sharing.
9. Lot more that could be said about all this, but the reality is the big picture issues in MLB/MLBPA negotiations are more difficult than that of NFL or NBA because it doesn't start from both sides agreeing to what the pie is and how to divide the pie.
