MLB 2022 Lockout

[Alsacs]

Are you kidding? They have been consistent winners for thirty years!

They have a huge fanbase

They were second in average home attendance at 29490 a game

2025 MLB Attendance - Major League Baseball - ESPN

Check out this 2025 report of MLB attendance sortable by both baseball stadium and team.

www.espn.com

Braves Top 5 Seasons (Overall Home Attendance)

SEASON	MLB RANK
2021	2nd
2018 , 2001	11th
2019 , 2003	12th
2017 , 2013 , 2010 , 2002	13th
2012 , 2008 , 2007 , 2006	14th

Last year was a major outlier

 

[dasher]

Put a cap on how much profit a team owner can make per year. Anything over that amount gets penalized and given to the players.

Do the players give money back if something happens and the team loses money? I have no sympathy for either side.

 

[donniesyracuse]

Do the players give money back if something happens and the team loses money? I have no sympathy for either side.

Both sides

 

[STEVEHOLT]

Take Toronto

Avg 10k home attendance times 82 games = 820000*$50 = $41m in tickets in 2021

Payroll in 2021 is $133m for players.

starting in 2022 every MLB team will receive a guaranteed $60.1 million via national TV deals (averaging out the money from the life of those deals). Likely every local tv deal averages >$40m per year. So every single team is getting $100m+ guaranteed before selling a ticket.Feb 12, 2022

So you are at a $9m surplus for Toronto after tickets and TV. Other revenue probably adds another $31m

So your at $40m

Now you have to pay staff, insurance, vendors, taxes, minor leagues, dues, travel

Its not like these guys are making $100+m after all told. Most franchises probably just break even or slightly above.

They keep ownership because they know people will spend a billion dollars to own the right franchise.

Toronto played the vast majority of their home games in minor league parks last year and even when they did get back to Toronto.. they had COVID restrictions on attendance .. it’s a ridiculous year to use as an example

 

[Alsacs]

Toronto played the vast majority of their home games in minor league parks last year and even they did get back to Toronto.. they had COVID restrictions on attendance .. it’s a ridiculous year to use as an example

It’s why Atlanta had a high attendance overall in the south they opened faster and allowed more people earlier due to Covid. The Red Sox couldn’t have a full stadium till May. All those 10% capacity games in April.
I’m not sure when the Yankees were full either but last year’s attendance was down because of that in Covid.

 

[Alsacs]

If the Reds, Pirates are losing money then all 30 owners should share all revenue and not just national TV money.

John W. Henry stop cooking your books as NESN.
Same for Hal and YES.
Angelos and MASN
Rickets and the Cubs station.

If you own the network you control how much you pay for rights.
If NESN is owned by the owners they can charge the organization whatever they want to make the team appear unprofitable. When they own the network which becomes profitable and they get the revenue that way.

Henry had Werner as the TV guy because he could get guys to cook the books at NESN.

Share all your profits if owning a team isn’t profitable for the Reds or A’s.

The Royals David Glass bought the team for 96 million and sold it for 1 billion. Marlins Jeffrey Loria bought the team for 143 million and sold it for 1.2 billion.

The owners and Manfred suck.
We won’t have a season unless they get a lot more reasonsable.

 

[STEVEHOLT]

If the Reds, Pirates are losing money then all 30 owners should share all revenue and not just national TV money.

John W. Henry stop cooking your books as NESN.
Same for Hal and YES.
Angelos and MASN
Rickets and the Cubs station.

If you own the network you control how much you pay for rights.
If NESN is owned by the owners they can charge the organization whatever they want to make the team appear unprofitable. When they own the network which becomes profitable and they get the revenue that way.

Henry had Werner as the TV guy because he could get guys to cook the books at NESN.

Share all your profits if owning a team isn’t profitable for the Reds or A’s.

The Royals David Glass bought the team for 96 million and sold it for 1 billion. Marlins Jeffrey Loria bought the team for 143 million and sold it for 1.2 billion.

The owners and Manfred suck.
We won’t have a season unless they get a lot more reasonsable.

They’re just playing the PR game. They feel the moronic public will turn on the players because they play “a game” while the owners are the great job creators who are kind enough to set up a league for the players to play in. The average American is an idiot .. and , as George Carlin said, half of them are dumber than that ..

 

[donniesyracuse]

There is a reason the owners never push for a hard salary cap. The union would insist on meticulous and uniform accounting across the league and the inclusion of revenue the owners do not want included (e.g., from ownership in TV networks, parking garages). A hard cap requires all parties knowing the exact size of the pie. Owners cannot have that. They would likely have to pay the players more than they do currently.

 

[STEVEHOLT]

If the Reds, Pirates are losing money then all 30 owners should share all revenue and not just national TV money.

John W. Henry stop cooking your books as NESN.
Same for Hal and YES.
Angelos and MASN
Rickets and the Cubs station.

If you own the network you control how much you pay for rights.
If NESN is owned by the owners they can charge the organization whatever they want to make the team appear unprofitable. When they own the network which becomes profitable and they get the revenue that way.

Henry had Werner as the TV guy because he could get guys to cook the books at NESN.

Share all your profits if owning a team isn’t profitable for the Reds or A’s.

The Royals David Glass bought the team for 96 million and sold it for 1 billion. Marlins Jeffrey Loria bought the team for 143 million and sold it for 1.2 billion.

The owners and Manfred suck.
We won’t have a season unless they get a lot more reasonsable.

TV revenue is not lost until they play <140 games. Until we approach that, no urgency for the owners. They probably come out ahead given they won’t have to pay the players and APRIL games are generally poorly attended save for opening day

 

[donniesyracuse]

MLB lockout: Fact-checking commissioner Rob Manfred's press conference announcing delay of 2022 Opening Day​

...The point of payroll restrictions is to reduce labor costs and by extension increase owner profit margins. It's not to promote competitive balance or to provide "some semblance of a level playing field among clubs."

That's not entirely surprising since MLB doesn't have a competitive balance problem, and there's no correlation between market size and on-field success in MLB (both before and after the implementation of the CBT). Manfred continues to mischaracterize the purpose of the CBT, which, again, is to drag down player salaries, because too many rank-and-file fans and even media members believe that the CBT and similar concoctions have anything at all to do with competitive balance. As for the increases he touts, they don't begin to keep pace with revenue growth in the league...'"

Manfred says:​

"I think you also need to remember that the last five years have been very difficult years from a revenue perspective for the industry given the pandemic."​

This is both a tired refrain and a lie. The industry is remarkably healthy, and revenues and profits continue to soar, as do franchise valuations. Yes, the league lost money in 2020, as did a vast array of business, but so did players, who, you'll recall, agreed to prorate their salaries based on the number of games played. The league in 2021 returned to tremendous profitability. Owners will continue to claim otherwise -- i.e., lie -- because in almost all instances teams aren't publicly traded. As such, they're not obligated to release their financials. In the rare instances that teams do willingly release such documentation, it's redacted to the point of meaninglessness. There's a reason owners refuse to open the books to outside inspection. To borrow a recent phrase from Manfred, we leave you to draw your own conclusions about what that reason is.

 

[cuseattle]

Has it been 5 years of the pandemic already?
Don't try to fool.me, Manfred!

 

[Madbiker]

I actually loved Scherzer calling out the Yankees for constraining their spending to stay under the "cap". But Scherz ... $130M for 3 years ... would you take a little less so low paid players could have a little more? Nobody asked him that.

 

[donniesyracuse]

Nobody asked him that.

Because it’s a moronic question.

 

[STEVEHOLT]

I actually loved Scherzer calling out the Yankees for constraining their spending to stay under the "cap". But Scherz ... $130M for 3 years ... would you take a little less so low paid players could have a little more? Nobody asked him that.

Because that’s how it works. Any dime saved on him would go straight to the owners pocket.

 

[donniesyracuse]

Because that’s how it works. Any dime saved on him would go straight to the owners pocket.

No, it would make tickets and hot dogs cheaper. Don’t you know?

 

[STEVEHOLT]

No, it would make tickets and hot dogs cheaper. Don’t you know?

And result in rainbows and puppy dogs being given away between innings

Btw.. mlb knows a large percentage of people think this way .. which is why they think the public will ultimately blame the players

 

[donniesyracuse]

And result in rainbows and puppy dogs being given away between innings

Btw.. mlb knows a large percentage of people think this way .. which is why they think the public will ultimately blame the players

I have noticed that public and media sentiment has been more anti-owner than with previous sports labor disputes.

 

[STEVEHOLT]

I have noticed that public and media sentiment has been more anti-owner than with previous sports labor disputes.

It’s not as bad as it usually is. But I still feel joe public is pro owner and doesn’t even understand the difference between a lockout and a strike

 

[donniesyracuse]

It’s not as bad as it usually is. But I still feel joe public is pro owner and doesn’t even understand the difference between a lockout and a strike

Joe Public is the worst.

 

[Alsacs]

The lawsuit the MLBPa is going to file is going to get a deal done.

The MLBPa can copy what the NFLPA did in 2010 and worked but those players can’t be as patient.

MLBPA will decertify as a union with NLRB.
Then they can find the most pro-union federal jurisdiction probably 9th circuit in CA and file an anti-trust lawsuit against MLB and watch MLB lose its antitrust exemption in the courts as it isn’t 1922 anymore.

This would be the nuclear threat i would be telling MLB if i were the PA as it would match hardball tactics.

Manfred is trying to break the sport and remake it in his own way.

 

[Noexcuse]

The lawsuit the MLBPa is going to file is going to get a deal done.

The MLBPa can copy what the NFLPA did in 2010 and worked but those players can’t be as patient.

MLBPA will decertify as a union with NLRB.
Then they can find the most pro-union federal jurisdiction probably 9th circuit in CA and file an anti-trust lawsuit against MLB and watch MLB lose its antitrust exemption in the courts as it isn’t 1922 anymore.

This would be the nuclear threat i would be telling MLB if i were the PA as it would match hardball tactics.

Manfred is trying to break the sport and remake it in his own way.

I agree with you but the clock is ticking. Lawsuits need to be argued in court then wait for a decision. Then there is an appeals process to consider. Might take a month or months to be resolved.

 

[donniesyracuse]

I agree with you but the clock is ticking. Lawsuits need to be argued in court then wait for a decision. Then there is an appeals process to consider. Might take a month or months to be resolved.

The hope would be that the threat of the lawsuit is enough to motivate the owners, not the results of the lawsuit.

As an aside, if MLB's antitrust exemption ever got to the Supreme Court, I'm not sure how it would go. The current make-up of the court worries me.

 

[Alsacs]

The hope would be that the threat of the lawsuit is enough to motivate the owners, not the results of the lawsuit.

As an aside, if MLB's antitrust exemption ever got to the Supreme Court, I'm not sure how it would go. The current make-up of the court worries me.

They would overturn 8-1.
Easily.

The logic used by the court in 1922.
Is so laughable by today’s laws.
They didn’t see baseball as a business back in 1922.
It should be 9-0 but I don’t know what Justice Thomas would do.

 

[donniesyracuse]

They would overturn 8-1.
Easily.

The logic used by the court in 1922.
Is so laughable by today’s laws.
They didn’t see baseball as a business back in 1922.
It should be 9-0 but I don’t know what Justice Thomas would do.

I get it, but I still worry about the integrity of some on the court.

 

[Bayside44]

Why should they?

If they care about winning like they say, sure. This is beyond multi-generational wealth either way. But they all play for the Bank of Boras.