How you gonna baseball?

[bucksfan2]

What makes you say that?

Just a personal belief. It may be wrong and I don't mean to insinuate that baseball players are stupid.

[JFLegal]

i love how both sides are getting killed on social media. if it's just posturing, fine. but if the season actually gets canceled because the owners and players can't make a one-year agreement to split the revenue, they are going to look horrible. and it will kill baseball.

[JFLegal]

They got a long ways to negotiate before this happens. As for the money, I don't see how the owners can give any more up. At 50% of revenues, that's an increase over what the players have been making. Some here have opined that the players have already given up half their salaries...well yeah, that's obvious...it's because they didn't play those games. That's irrelevant as we consider where to go from here.

The players contracts were designed on filling stadiums with fans. Due to no fault of anyone, that's not happening. Therefore the players can't expect to get paid anywhere near in full if the owners aren't selling luxury boxes, field level seats, parking beer etc. Someone said that the owners are rich and can afford to eat that cost. Well, OK, the players are rich too. They all can afford to give something.

If the avg career is about 5 yrs then the players risk losing 20% of their career earnings if they don't agree to this deal.

this. all of this. 99 percent of the time, i take the side of labor over management. this would be the 1 percent. the players do not have a leg to stand on here. what is wrong with splitting the revenue 50/50 just for this one season? which is exactly what the owners are proposing. that's not a "salary cap" as tony clark is trying to portray it. it's a one-year exception during a global pandemic. my goodness we need intelligent people to do the negotiating here and not people who don't understand what the hell they are doing.

[westofyou]

i love how both sides are getting killed on social media. if it's just posturing, fine. but if the season actually gets canceled because the owners and players can't make a one-year agreement to split the revenue, they are going to look horrible. and it will kill baseball.

Baseball is not going to die... I just wrote this on a baseball board to remind you of that

[Boston Red]

Thankfully baseball doesn't belong to MLB, so they can't kill it.

[JFLegal]

Baseball is not going to die... I just wrote this on a baseball board to remind you of that

i agree it won't die. but if the owners and players screw this up, it will basically die. but i do think they will get a deal done in the end since canceling the season would be catostrophic for both sides.

[tomnuetten]

While lots of germans are looking forward to see some football (sorry america but the game that is actually played with the foot is the real football) on weekends, there is also a big part in germany who isn't a fan of the bundesliga restart at all.

it's tough to sell people that children can't go to school regularly, can't go to the local sport club to play with others, restaurants are still closed and at the same time pro sports is happening and evrone can see how they don't have to apply to the normal social distance rules.

I'm a huge sport fan, yet it is a tough sell for me aswell how pro sports can get special treatments while small businesses are fighting to survive. I do believe that it isn't smart from the german bundesliga to restart now and I guess that they will suffer with big sympathy losses (while other pro sports are not (re)starting.)

It didn't help that they need 30000-40000 corona tests for the rest of the season while people had (at the beginning) a tough time getting needed tests. A german bundesliga player (not the smartest guy) thought it is a good idea to make a live facebook video to show how they behave at the practice inside the locker room. It showed that they broke lots of rules the german bundesliga defined. Therefore the liga earned lots of critcism from politicians, media and fans. That the player made fun of the devision to decrease the paycheck to help the people in the club who are in need (lots of people depending on selling food in the stadium etc.) was most likely the reason he got suspended immediately from the club.

The concept got also criticism because one team in the 2nd league in germany has two positive corona tests and now the local health department decided that the whole roster with management has to go 14days in quarantine. They would have the first game next weekend which will obviously be canceled (aswell as next week), but they fight against relegation in the 3rd league and therefore it will be pretty unfair if they have to restart after two weeks without any team practice (while others are playing already). This could be legal problems for the league aswell because relegation to a lower league costs a team millions...

So I do believe that the bundesliga will restart next week. I just don't know if it is a good idea.

[Sea Ray]

While lots of germans are looking forward to see some football (sorry america but the game that is actually played with the foot is the real football) on weekends, there is also a big part in germany who isn't a fan of the bundesliga restart at all.

it's tough to sell people that children can't go to school regularly, can't go to the local sport club to play with others, restaurants are still closed and at the same time pro sports is happening and evrone can see how they don't have to apply to the normal social distance rules.

I'm a huge sport fan, yet it is a tough sell for me aswell how pro sports can get special treatments while small businesses are fighting to survive. I do believe that it isn't smart from the german bundesliga to restart now and I guess that they will suffer with big sympathy losses (while other pro sports are not (re)starting.)

It didn't help that they need 30000-40000 corona tests for the rest of the season while people had (at the beginning) a tough time getting needed tests. A german bundesliga player (not the smartest guy) thought it is a good idea to make a live facebook video to show how they behave at the practice inside the locker room. It showed that they broke lots of rules the german bundesliga defined. Therefore the liga earned lots of critcism from politicians, media and fans. That the player made fun of the devision to decrease the paycheck to help the people in the club who are in need (lots of people depending on selling food in the stadium etc.) was most likely the reason he got suspended immediately from the club.

The concept got also criticism because one team in the 2nd league in germany has two positive corona tests and now the local health department decided that the whole roster with management has to go 14days in quarantine. They would have the first game next weekend which will obviously be canceled (aswell as next week), but they fight against relegation in the 3rd league and therefore it will be pretty unfair if they have to restart after two weeks without any team practice (while others are playing already). This could be legal problems for the league aswell because relegation to a lower league costs a team millions...

So I do believe that the bundesliga will restart next week. I just don't know if it is a good idea.

Germany is supposed to be the gold standard for testing. I guess every country has their issues with testing

[EnglishRed]

Germany is supposed to be the gold standard for testing. I guess every country has their issues with testing

All countries are struggling with testing due to the time involved, labs not set up for mass-testing entire populations. The UK set a target of 100,000 tests a day and has failed to achieve that every single day (they did achieve it one day when they included test kits sent through the post but not returned). There is another problem, not sure how it applies in Germany, but in the UK, by law, an ambulance and a doctor must attend games on standby...obviously from personal experience of working on one, we are a bit busy at the moment!

The argument from the Professional Footballers Association is that they want testing, medical services etc, and given that I've been working through this crisis and have only been tested when I developed a temperature once (thankfully negative), this is both unrealistic and creates the publicity issue of highly paid footballers getting regular tests but not nurses, doctors or paramedics.

[North]

I think the 'plan' was always to try and complete the season. But in reality the logistics of 92 clubs playing so many games is unlikely to be possible given the number of medical staff you would need in attendance even without fans, for one thing. There is, in reality, no easy way of doing this. If the season is cancelled, Leeds, Fulham, Liverpool, any club qualifying for the Champions League, West Brom and all those who could have been promoted would sue. If the season is decided on Points per game, the clubs who would be relegated would sue on the basis that however unlikely they had 7-9 games to save themselves and were denied that opportunity. If teams are promoted and more teams relegated next season, the TV broadcasters who the clubs rely on to finance their transfer fees and salary commitments would also likely take legal action. It's massively complex because if Fulham are promoted from 3rd position, this is a playoff place for the third promotion spot so the teams in 4th-6th plus any team who could have mathematically reached the playoffs are likely to take action....similarly Fulham will likely take action if they are not allowed to at least compete for a promotion spot seeing as they have reached 3rd place..

Premier League braced for TV losses as player protests mount

https://www.wionews.com/sports/premi...s-mount-298236

[757690]

I agree the players balking over money is a bad look, but they have legitimate reasons to reject this offer. The main reason is that this is an attempt by the owners to break the union, or at least soften it for the 2022 negotiations. That is what all of this is about, the 2022 CBA negotiations.

That is why I suggested a proposal that Bill Peterson, the former Post beat writer suggests. I posted it in the now closed first thread on this topic. Here it is again:

It's based on the assumption that the owners are set on playing hardball and trying to break the union in 2022 when the current CBA is up. These current negotiations suggest strongly that this is the case, along with many other hints the owners have been giving since Manfred has been commissioner. If you don't agree with this assumption, nothing to discuss. But if you do, here is Peterson's proposal for the players.

Reject this proposal not on money issues, but safety issues, and make safety demands that the owners will never accept. That shouldn't be hard to come up with, considering how serious this health crisis is, and all its implications. Given in on the money, but don't give in on the safety demands, and eventually cancel the season. This will be a de facto strike, without it looking like a strike, or even the players making financial demands. It will be framed as a health issue.

The players will lose their salaries for this year, but they have already negotiated service time will count, and $170M in pay to be distributed among themselves. So they get service time and $170M and a strike, and very little blowback from the fans. The owners will never allow a strike in 2022, so this also puts the players in the driver's seat for negotiations in 2022.

It would suck for fans this year, but it may be the best thing for baseball long term, and result in another long period of labor peace.

[Sea Ray]

I agree the players balking over money is a bad look, but they have legitimate reasons to reject this offer. The main reason is that this is an attempt by the owners to break the union, or at least soften it for the 2022 negotiations. That is what all of this is about, the 2022 CBA negotiations.

That is why I suggested a proposal that Bill Peterson, the former Post beat writer suggests. I posted it in the now closed first thread on this topic. Here it is again:

It's based on the assumption that the owners are set on playing hardball and trying to break the union in 2022 when the current CBA is up. These current negotiations suggest strongly that this is the case, along with many other hints the owners have been giving since Manfred has been commissioner. If you don't agree with this assumption, nothing to discuss. But if you do, here is Peterson's proposal for the players.

Reject this proposal not on money issues, but safety issues, and make safety demands that the owners will never accept. That shouldn't be hard to come up with, considering how serious this health crisis is, and all its implications. Given in on the money, but don't give in on the safety demands, and eventually cancel the season. This will be a de facto strike, without it looking like a strike, or even the players making financial demands. It will be framed as a health issue.

The players will lose their salaries for this year, but they have already negotiated service time will count, and $170M in pay to be distributed among themselves. So they get service time and $170M and a strike, and very little blowback from the fans. The owners will never allow a strike in 2022, so this also puts the players in the driver's seat for negotiations in 2022.

It would suck for fans this year, but it may be the best thing for baseball long term, and result in another long period of labor peace.

I disagree this is about hurting the Union. It's just a realistic point that owner's incomes are severely cut by having no fans in the stadiums. This has nothing to do with 2022. If the CBA expired in 2030 they'd still have to cut the pay of the players.

One item that's not being talked about is the increased roster sizes. Players ought to see that the owners are offering to add about 600 new jobs for players. Each team gets 45 players (extra 20 x 30 teams). So let's look at this again from the owners perspective. Not only are they giving up enormous gate revenue, they're also forced to pay for 20 more major league salaries.

[EnglishRed]

Premier League braced for TV losses as player protests mount

https://www.wionews.com/sports/premi...s-mount-298236

I can't see this happening. It would be a case of the broadcasters biting the hand that feeds them. Most rely on football, especially the Premier League being the product it is, and forcing clubs into bankruptcy, affecting the level of talent they can afford, will not help them long term.

[757690]

I disagree this is about hurting the Union. It's just a realistic point that owner's incomes are severely cut by having no fans in the stadiums. This has nothing to do with 2022. If the CBA expired in 2030 they'd still have to cut the pay of the players.

One item that's not being talked about is the increased roster sizes. Players ought to see that the owners are offering to add about 600 new jobs for players. Each team gets 45 players (extra 20 x 30 teams). So let's look at this again from the owners perspective. Not only are they giving up enormous gate revenue, they're also forced to pay for 20 more major league salaries.

I agree the players shouldn’t argue over the money. But there are plenty of safety issues that still need to be addressed.

Concerning the extra players, I believe there will be a taxi squad, so it’s not certain all those players will be getting paid all the time. Those details still need to be worked out.

[Kinsm]

I agree the players shouldn’t argue over the money. But there are plenty of safety issues that still need to be addressed.

Concerning the extra players, I believe there will be a taxi squad, so it’s not certain all those players will be getting paid all the time. Those details still need to be worked out.

Correct, it'll be pro-rated league minimum for only days active - so it'll cost owners practically nothing more than it was already going to. In a regular season, teams use nearly 50 players over a season - no different.