Why is the MLB still in a lockout and my Thoughts about it

As many baseball and sports fans know, the MLB is currently in a lockout. A lockout occurs when the Owners decide to stop all baseball activities, including locking players out of their own facilities. When this happens, the only business taking place for the players is new contract negotiations for the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). For those of you who do not know what a CBA means it is a “Basic Agreement is the agreement between the Major League Baseball Players Association and Major League Baseball describing the rules of employment and the financial structure of the game.” (Baseball Reference). Now it's time to discuss what the owners want and how I feel about it.

The first thing the owners want is expanded playoffs where the team makes 100% of the TV revenue. Now I do agree with having an expanded playoffs as I feel this will get more eyes, sponsorships and more for the game of baseball as well as it makes the playoffs more interesting because it wouldn't be the same juggernauts playing repeatedly. The part that I don't agree with here is the teaming getting all 100% of the revenue. I feel they should implement in every contract a playoff pay agreement as well. I feel that would be a happy-medium for an extended playoff agreement. Going off this, the owner proposed a 154-game season, which I like the idea of making the regular season shorter, but I feel it should be a 145 or 148-game season; not sure which would be better. Another thing the owners want is a universal designated hitter (DH). Now I do and do not like this as I like that fact it adds a bat for National League teams to use which can help the team win games, but I also don't like it as it takes away from the strategy of the game. The other thing is the owners want to maintain something very similar to the 2017-21 CBA. I have very mixed feelings about this. This is because when I was in my sport governance class, we talked heavily about the CBA and what was in it. Now I will not go into this for the owners, I'll go more into detail on the player's side next.

Now for the player's side. First and foremost, the players want more money and I agree that they should be getting paid more money. I feel that players should be getting paid more money because they have a lot to do with bringing in fans and revenue to the team and owners. Another thing the players want is protection from being manipulated in service time. The way of how service time is manipulated is when teams decide to hold their top prospects down in the minors to keep them longer in their system, as well as pay them less money, which here you can see where a lot of frustration would kick in. I agree with the players here that they should request for this protection, because the fans want to see the next generation of players as quickly as possible. They can bring in more revenue for themes who are doing badly but give the fans a reason to come and watch them now. Another issue the union wanted to address to the owners was tanking. They feel every team should have to spend a certain amount of money so they can stop tanking and pay players a fair wage. Now I do agree with teams having to spend a certain amount of money, but some teams don't spend that much like the Tampa Bay Rays. I will say though, it is very hard to draft players and hope they succeed in the majors. Yes, you have the Bryce Harper type players going in the first round, but you also have a lot of guys like Mark Appel who go early and never make it. It seems to me that there's like a 50-50 chance on the 1st round drafted players that make it. Overall, it is very hard to draft in baseball and because of it being so diverse there can be an argument that the draft is not as important as it used to be.

As you can see, I have a lot of mixed emotions about the lockout and the ideas proposed to fix it. Currently, where the negotiations are at right now, I do not the sides coming to any agreement anytime soon. It would not surprise me if half or more of the season gets cancelled because of how stubborn the owners are being with the players proposals. Overall, I feel the owners should be way less stubborn with the players and listen to them as they are the ones who bring in the profit that they can make off the game of baseball.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Collective_bargaining_agreement