MLBPA Interim Exec Dir Bruce Meyer said it is “extremely hard, if not impossible, to make progress” in CBA negotiations while MLB takes the position that it is “not willing to negotiate with us without a salary cap.” Meyer, speaking on MLB Network Radio, said anything the league has offered has been “expressly contingent” on the union agreeing to a salary cap and “all the stuff that comes with it,” including limits on individual contract lengths and amounts. He noted MLB has “made a proposal to raise” minimum salaries, “I think 900,000; our proposal was a million five.” Meyer said the league’s salary cap proposal “would include major league player salaries and amateur signing bonuses all in a pool and all kinds of other stuff. I mean, benefits, health things.” Meyer: “And so when you do that, we already get, and I’ve said this, we already get well over 50% [of league revenue] now. What they’re proposing would be a reduction. I said that if it was in effect this year, the owners would’ve kept $600 million more, put it in their pocket.” Meyer noted the union has asked the league about expansion “many times over the years,” and what they have “told us is consistent with what they’ve said publicly, that they were waiting for the stadium situations to be resolved in Oakland and Tampa.” Meyer: “I do expect they’re going to try and expand probably over the next collective bargaining agreement” (MLB Network Radio, 9/20).
NO DEAL: SBJ contributor Bruce Schoenfeld reported that some 60 players from teams in varying markets were asked about a salary cap and “not one was willing to even entertain the idea.” The owners last proposed a cap in 1994, and for two decades since, the idea had not been brought back to the table. But in large measure because of the back-to-back World Series-winning Dodgers, fans in “many markets now feel like a cap is needed to give their favorite team a chance.” Some players admit that “even their family members believe the current system isn’t working.” Owners have made the case for a cap “so persuasively, on MLB.com and elsewhere, that disgruntled fans are calling for a salary cap across sports websites and social media” (SPORTS BUSINESS JOURNAL, 9/21 issue).
