Analysis: High Stakes for League and Fans as MLB Labor Talks Approach

Welcome to leverage theater.

Soon, MLB and its players union will begin collective bargaining, an acrimonious but weighty undertaking that will shape the future of the sport -- and, for a time, likely imperil it.

Baseball has a long history of labor wars, but this rendition could be the wildest yet. The owners, an extraordinarily wealthy group, are planning to push for a salary cap, which players, a number of them quite rich themselves, have long considered a nonstarter.

What hangs in the balance? Merely the 2027 season, some billions of dollars and the overall structure of the national pastime.

In the next couple of weeks, MLB and the MLB Players Association are expected to formally start negotiations. The current agreement expires at 11:59 p.m. Eastern on Dec. 1, and if a new one is not reached by that time, the owners are likely to lock out the players, just as they did in December 2021.

But there is little reason to believe that a deal will be close by then, even at a time when the sport is generally riding high. Recent history shows that an agreement is likely to wait until the spring of 2027 at the earliest.

First, the talks will open with a monthslong prelude of proposal exchanges. The parties will, naturally, both start out asking for more than they expect to receive.

Last go-round, the sides made opening presentations April 20, 2021. The players made their first economic proposals in May and the owners in August. A deal was not finalized until March 10, just in time to preserve a full 162-game schedule for 2022.

The in-between this time, as last, will be filled with tough talk and hand-wringing, bluster and rhetoric.

There has been plenty of that already.

Retired pitcher Zack Britton, who was heavily involved in the last round of negotiations, wrote in his newsletter “The Save” that the present moment is for posturing.

“Both sides. That is normal,” Britton wrote Tuesday. “That is how every negotiation starts. The fall is when this gets real.”

But amid the noise, it will be important to remember that both sides are incentivized to project strength. The parties’ leverage to effect change, or prevent it, is their willingness to forgo pay. It is much easier for owners and players to say they are willing to miss games than it will be to actually follow through on those threats.

“Until we get to that red line where we’re seeing, ‘OK, we could potentially be impacting next season’ -- that’s when you’re going to start to see the ire of the fans,” said Daniel Kelly, an associate dean at the Tisch Institute for Global Sport, part of New York University.

Fans have never had a seat at the negotiating table except for their ability to vote with their wallets.

Although labor negotiations feature dueling sides and intense rivalry, the process is not sport. Game day workers, league and team employees, broadcast crews and player agents are among those whose livelihoods rely on the league’s operation.

Disclaimers aside, though, this production can be considered, well, a revival. A fight over a cap was central to a 232-day player strike from 1994-95 that led to the cancellation of the ‘94 World Series.

“I am concerned that the lessons of the past have been lost to time,” said player agent Seth Levinson of the firm ACES.

Let what follows serve as a guide to the process that is about to unfold. MLB and the union declined to comment for this story.

When will this will be over?

March 2027 is the month to circle, because if a deal isn’t reached then, it will be impossible to hold even a truncated spring training before a full 162-game schedule.

Could the sides reach a deal a bit later, maybe in April 2027, and push back the regular season and the playoffs while still playing 162 games? Maybe, but it would be a logistical nightmare. For example: Fox, a league broadcast partner, would have to be open to moving the World Series.

If the lockout ultimately extends beyond March, the end date becomes anyone’s guess.

Will MLB games be canceled in 2027?

No one knows yet, but there are many reasons to believe most or all of a season will be preserved. The easiest way for everyone to make money is to play.

It has been three decades since baseball games were canceled as part of a labor dispute, a track record often touted by Commissioner Rob Manfred, who has the task of corralling 30 owners. During the last lockout, players had been angry over various issues for a decade -- and still, no games were canceled.

Owners and players alike all have great incentive to reach a deal: to preserve not only their revenue streams but also the national pastime’s foothold in a crowded entertainment landscape. So much money is at stake today, more than in 1994-95, and the industry has a sense of momentum.

“My worldview is, we love this game,” Athletics owner John Fisher said during spring training. “The players love it. The owners love it. There’s no separation between who you are in terms of the love for the game and the desire to have labor peace. And I’m confident that our group within Major League Baseball and the MLBPA will work well toward finding a constructive solution.”

MLB eclipsed $12 billion as an industry in 2024, and although the league has not released a figure for 2025, the sport presumably will be approaching $13 billion by the end of this year or will have passed that mark.

“The game has never been in a better place,” player agent Scott Boras said.

Now, just how well the game is doing is a point of contention. The owners of the San Diego Padres just agreed to sell a percentage of the team in a deal that values the club overall at a league-record $3.9 billion. But some other owners have not been able to fetch their desired sale prices amid dwindling local television revenues.

Not to be overlooked: The league office also has to soon negotiate new national TV deals for 2029 and beyond, and missed games will not help the haul.

If regular-season games wind up canceled, the outcry would be immense. Pressure to end the lockout would fly in from all angles, including TV networks and sponsors. Fans would vilify all involved, from the owners who bought teams with the hope of being beloved public figures, to the superstar players who are otherwise adored.

Then there’s the potential for Capitol Hill to take notice. The president has been keen to involve himself in sports.

So why does the 2027 season hang in the balance?

Mostly because a salary cap is a major change that owners really want and players really don’t.

MLB has not confirmed that it will make a cap proposal, but Manfred has made many overtures in that direction, and people briefed on ownership thinking who were not authorized to speak publicly say the owners have settled on that approach.

Much will depend, however, on whether owners actually stick by their opening salvo. It is one thing for MLB to propose a cap at the outset and another to still be fighting for it next spring.

If owners are committed to landing a cap no matter what it takes, the lockout could well cost a season. In that scenario, both sides would try to outlast the other, and historically, little has galvanized players more than attempts to limit their pay.

If the owners eventually back off a cap proposal, preserving some form of the current market system, the 2027 season probably has a better chance to be played in full. The devil would then be in the details of the alternative proposals -- and, as always, which side is motivated to outlast the other.

Is there a chance that some games are canceled, but not many?

Anything is possible. The damage done to the sport would be to some extent proportional to the number of games missed. Fans would likely more easily forget a missed month than a missed season.

Once a stoppage begins, it’s a battle of wills: Which side sticks together? The players union has held on to licensing-revenue checks to prepare for the possibility of a long work stoppage, amassing more than $500 million in total assets. The owners have put aside more than $2 billion.

Who is running this show?

Manfred’s office handles negotiations for the owners, with Deputy Commissioner Dan Halem leading the talks for management. This is Halem’s third go-round as the league’s lead negotiator, succeeding Manfred in that role.

For the union, Bruce Meyer is leading the process for the second time and for the first since he took over as the union’s interim executive director. Players put Meyer in the top job in February in place of Tony Clark, who was pushed out amid scandal.

Halem and Meyer are both lawyers. Both sides have outside counsel as well.

The process is intended to empower constituents. Some players and owners typically attend bargaining sessions, sometimes in person, sometimes by video call.

What actually ends these talks?

Players have typically relied on a majority vote among a group of 38 players to ratify a new collective bargaining agreement: 30 team representatives and eight players who are part of a group inside the MLBPA called the executive subcommittee.

Those players today are Chris Bassitt (Baltimore Orioles), Jake Cronenworth (Padres), Pete Fairbanks (Miami Marlins), Cedric Mullins (Tampa Bay Rays), Marcus Semien (New York Mets), Paul Skenes (Pittsburgh Pirates), Tarik Skubal (Detroit Tigers) and Brent Suter (Los Angeles Angels).

The subcommittee members serve two-year terms that end late this year, which means there could be changes during bargaining.

There was drama at the end of the last lockout regarding the subcommittee. When the players voted, 26-12 overall, to accept the 2022-26 agreement, all eight subcommittee members were opposed, suggesting a disconnect in thinking with the so-called rank and file. The only holdover from the last subcommittee is Semien.

MLB, meanwhile, needs a 75% vote among the 30 clubs to seal a labor deal. Each team has a designated “control” person, a lead owner, who does the voting.

That three-quarter vote requirement for owners is consequential. If there is internal disagreement, a group of just eight owners could halt ratification.

Manfred also has an owner committee dedicated to labor, led by Dick Monfort of the Colorado Rockies, who was the chair last time, too. The other current members are Mark Attanasio (Milwaukee Brewers), Ray Davis (Texas Rangers), Jerry Reinsdorf (Chicago White Sox), John Sherman (Kansas City Royals) and Hal Steinbrenner (New York Yankees).

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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