With news of Major League Baseball cancelling the first two series of the season after no deal was reached to end the lockout, we bring back this Q & A with Simon Darnell, a Red Sox fan and associate professor at the University of Toronto Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education, about what the lockout means for the game.
Three months ago in December, baseball fans woke up to the news that Major League Baseball has plunged into its first work stoppage in 26 and a half years. The move, management’s equivalent of a strike, came immediately after the sport’s collective bargaining agreement expired.
At the time, baseball league management has said it hopes the lockout ‘will jumpstart negotiations and get us to an agreement that will allow the season to start on time.’
Why is this happening now and what does it mean for the start of the season?
This is happening because Major League Baseball, like most professional sports, regularly struggles to come to an agreement about how to balance and share the incredible revenues that their sport creates. In general, the owners see themselves as the ones who are on the financial hook for the game, and that they deserve cost certainty to ensure the economic viability of the sport. The players and their union, for the most part, see themselves and their labour, as the entire reason that the sport exists, and so they deserve to be paid for the spectacle that is created by their athletic abilities. And the players union also often argues that players should be able to sell their labour in an open market, and to the highest bidder, without artificial constraints.
There are other, more specific issues at stake in this particular instance such as players’ service time, free agency eligibility and what to do to prevent teams from failing to field a competitive team - or ‘tanking’ - as a way to get high draft picks. But overall, it’s always about money and how to share it.
What do you think about this move by management to impose a lockdown before the players can strike? How often does big league management resort to these kinds of measures and with what success?
This used to happen more regularly in baseball. There were eight work stoppages in the sport between 1972 and 1994. This is the first since then. Major League Baseball claims that they put the lockout in place to speed up the labour negotiating process, and to do so during the offseason so as to avoid missing any games when baseball start again in the spring. The last work stoppage, of course, was 1994 when the players went on strike and the remainder of the season and the World Series was cancelled. This is a particularly painful memory for fans of the Montreal Expos, who were in first place at the time; the franchise never really recovered, eventually moving to Washington, DC.
I also think there is a bit of a game of chicken being played out here, and MLB decided to move first and assume some control over the situation. Whether or not this was the right move remains to be seen. The initial feedback from the players union has been that this was a drastic and unnecessary escalation on the part of the Commissioner and the owners.
How do you expect the situation to resolve?
It’s really difficult to predict how this plays out. The best case is, as the owners seems to hope, that a sense of urgency is created which leads to meaningful dialogue between the two sides. But the history of acrimony between the owners and players union is real, and it’s also possible to imagine them each digging in their respective heels.
That said, it does seem nearly inconceivable that these two sides would risk damaging their brand right now, given: a) how much money is in front of them, especially with new revenues emerging from media technology and legalized sports betting, and b) how lucky they are to be prospering like this in a world in which so many are struggling. Hopefully, they will reflect on their good fortunes and come to a reasonable deal.
How do you feel about it as a fan of the game?
I’ve been in love with baseball my whole life. That hasn’t changed. But I always struggle to watch millionaires and billionaires struggle to share. There is so much wealth in the game – just spread it around!