The Next CBA (2027 and beyond)

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Salary cap (and floor)? https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/10/mlb-weighs-salary-cap-potential-lockout-looms.html

MLB owners as well as Commissioner Rob Manfred’s office have begun privately contemplating what a new league economic structure could look like as the league heads toward a new Collective Bargaining Agreement with players, according to people familiar with the matter. The league’s current CBA expires on Dec. 1, 2026.

MLB officials have discussed adding both a salary cap and a salary floor, said the people, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private. The Major League Baseball Players Association, however, has long been against a salary cap, and the group says its position hasn’t changed.

The result is a potential lockout in December of next year when the current CBA expires — one that appears increasingly likely given the opposing positions of both sides.

If MLB owners are ultimately successful in forcing through a salary cap, it would end decades of limitless spending that’s led to increasingly disproportionate spending between teams in the league. Critics of the format say the variability results in a competitive imbalance that reduces fan enjoyment and retention of star players in small markets.

The remaining three major sports leagues in the U.S. — the National Football League, the National Hockey League and the National Basketball Association — all have salary caps. The NHL adopted its cap in 2005. The NFL introduced a cap in 1994, and the NBA has had one since 1984.

While MLB maintains a luxury tax and revenue sharing, there’s no formal limit on what teams can spend on a roster.

Manfred addressed the issue of a salary cap last week on FS1′s “The Herd.”

“We do hear a lot about it from fans, particularly in smaller markets,” said Manfred. “But the reality is we’re two years away from the end of the [bargaining] agreement. We’re just not in a position where we are talking about or have made decisions about what’s ahead in the next round of bargaining. I think that a lot of water is going to go over the dam before we need to deal with that issue.”

[HalfSmokes]

The luxury tax can be beefed up to be a cap in all but name (see the NBA second apron) which would let the players association save face, but how do you get the teams that are both cheap and low revenue to agree to a floor? Maybe MLB is happy that LA and NYC can perpetually field great teams, but this can’t be great for growing fan bases in other markets

[nfotiu]

It seems like MLB as a business has a lot of problems to solve, and it's hard to see everyone getting on board.

I never know how much to trust Forbes valuations, but I seem to remember their annual charts fairly recently would routinely show almost all teams making a profit.  https://www.forbes.com/sites/justinteitelbaum/2025/03/26/baseballs-most-valuable-teams-2025/

Now there are 11 teams operating at a loss, and the low spending bottom feeders all show significant profits.

The Mets and Dodgers have to irritate a lot of owners.    The Mets seem to be ok moving towards a half billion/year operating loss, while the Dodgers get 200=250 million more than most anyone else in TV revenue and even have a special cap where only the first 100 million is subject to revenue sharing.

Teams like the Red Sox and Yankees have always historically spent a lot, but they tried to avoid going into a loss.

It seems that in other sports, the long lockouts leading to a salary cap always came once a critical mass of teams were losing money (often a result of trying to keep up with out of control spending).  It's easy to endure a long lockout if they lose less money during a stoppage than by playing.

[HalfSmokes]

Mets aside, a lot of the operating losses are from teams where the owners also own the broadcaster. I’d be curious to see how much of the losses are accounting gimmicks to lower revenue for sharing purposes and how much are actual losses