MLB has already negotiated raises to TV deals with FOX and TBS if a similar agreement is reached with ESPN and we include the local long-term deals that have already been negotiated for the vast majority of teams, even a 30% hit in attendance from 2019 to 2022 would mean just a 3% loss of overall revenue from 2019 to 2022. When that contract expired after the 1993 season, no suitors stepped up and MLB attempted a revenue-sharing agreement in preparation for a decrease in total league revenue of more than 10%.Įven if teams project a huge hit to attendance two years from now and average something like 20,000 fans per game instead of the current 28,000, the hit to revenue compared to 2019 would be somewhere in the range of $700 million, or around 6.5% of league revenues. (While we do need to reckon with the possibility that this pandemic doesn’t let up and no effective vaccine is discovered, this post will proceed on the assumption that our world will be edging closer to normalcy over the next 18 months.) Leading up to the strike, national television revenue accounted for around one-third of all MLB revenue player salaries doubled from 1990 to 1993 due to a massive television contract with CBS. While there is little doubt the owners will take a revenue hit in 2020 that could extend into 2021, revenues next year figure to be considerably higher than this year and should grow even more by 2022. And while the negotiations over the last month didn’t result in a new deal, they might actually prove to have been fruitful practice for the next time the two parties come to the table. But the owners will also be looking to maximize profits after 2021 rather than minimize losses. There will be a lot of issues to resolve, as Dayn Perry laid out at CBS Sports in May and Andy Martino examined yesterday for SNY, and the process will be contentious. The recent negotiations offer a preview into the tone, tenor, and general degree of trust (or lack thereof) both parties are likely to bring to the table as they work toward an agreement for 2022, but achieving a different result is possible because 2022 is going to be much different than both 19. Still, while MLB and the MLBPA’s inability to agree to modify their March agreement in such a way as to provide mutual benefit (and more games) is frustrating, no deal today doesn’t mean no deal after 2021. To turn around 18 months later and lose all or part of the 2022 season because the players and owners can’t agree to a new CBA would be considerably less so. For those who watch, cover, and love baseball, losing the 2020 season would be sad, but understandable there’s a global pandemic. Throughout the last few months of hectic, sometimes nasty negotiations between the players and the owners to resume the 2020 season, one issue operating in the background was the expiration of the current Collective Bargaining Agreement at the end of next year.
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