Posts tagged Baseball
MLB players union expects lockout by team owners after CBA expires following 2026 season
March 4, 2025 // The salary cap is again an issue during this bargaining cycle. Team budgets are a major point of the discussion with the Los Angeles Dodgers building a payroll of an estimated $379 million, while the New York Mets aren't far behind at $312.5 million, according to Spotrac. (MLB's lowest payrolls are the Miami Marlins at $31.35 million and the Athletics at $55.25 million.) Clark counters by saying that several teams are already using the luxury tax threshold — in which teams are taxed 20-50% on the amount over the threshold, depending on how many years a franchise has done so — as a de facto salary cap. (This week, he criticized the Los Angeles Angels for doing so.) This year's luxury tax, or competitive balance tax, is set at $241 million.
NFLPA Investigating Own Role in OneTeam Amid Corruption Allegations
January 22, 2025 // The letter asks the recipients to save all documents related to OneTeam and lists two NFLPA executives for contact: assistant general counsel Heather McGee and general counsel Tom DePaso. A source said the NFLPA also hired Linklaters partner Richard Smith for the investigation. Smith has handled several high-profile investigations for the football union, including allegations brought by Colin Kaepernick; the Ray Rice domestic violence episode; the Miami Dolphins’ bullying investigation; and the New Orleans Saints’ “Bountygate” scandal. Smith did not reply for comment. The NFLPA, MLBPA, and RedBird Capital created OneTeam in 2019 to represent athletes and their lucrative group licensing deals. In 2022 RedBird sold its stake to a group of equity investors, including HPS Investment Partners and Atlantic Park, in a deal that valued OneTeam at $1.9 billion.
Sports’ Next Big Labor Movement
June 10, 2024 // Harry Marino led the charge to unionize minor league baseball players, eventually securing massive pay and benefit increases. Now he is turning his attention to a larger project: organizing non-union sports workers from coaches to stadium workers. He joins the show to explain what worked with the minor leagues and how he intends to build on that success with this next project under his new organization, Sports Solidarity.
Bad Bunny sports agency sues baseball players’ union over ban, announces Ronald Acuña Jr. as client
May 20, 2024 // The union issued a notice of discipline to Rimas agents William Arroyo, Noah Assad and Jonathan Miranda on April 10 and fined them $400,000 for misconduct. Arroyo was an agent certified by the union to represent players and represented Alvarez and teammate Ronny Mauricio. Arroyo was decertified and the other two told they could not apply for certification. Arbitrator Michael Gottesman denied the agents’ request to block the players’ association, a decision the union asked a federal court in Manhattan to confirm. Rimas was founded in 2021 with the goal of representing Latin players and said it currently has 68 clients, including 14 major leaguers. Rimas said the union had prevented it from representing players with agents who had not been disciplined.
Why baseball’s next unionization effort could come from MLB front offices: ‘We’re not protected at all’
May 8, 2023 // The lawsuit invoked the Curt Flood Act, a 1998 piece of antitrust reform named after the player who sued MLB to end the reserve clause. Judge Gardephe did not find the case convincing enough to transform the Wyckoff and Cox suit into the front-office employee equivalent of Flood's historic triumph; instead, he reinforced that teams were behaving within their rights set forth by MLB's antitrust exemption. "Because scouts' work has a direct and critical effect on the selection of players who will participate in the games that the public will watch," Gardephe opined, "their role cannot be characterized as 'wholly collateral' or 'incidental' to the business of professional baseball."
Dodger Stadium concession workers threaten strike ahead of All-Star Game
July 13, 2022 // Dodger Stadium concession workers are employed by the Chicago-based company Levy Restaurants, which, according to Unite Here, employs nearly 1,500 food servers, bartenders, suite attendants, cooks and dishwashers at Dodger Stadium. Unite Here Local 11, which represents 32,000-plus hospitality workers in Southern California and Arizona, didn't provide specifics on the workers' demands, saying only that it is "seeking to negotiate a fair new union contract."
Labor Tensions Just Came for MLB Spring Training
February 23, 2022 // Since December, Major League Baseball players have been locked out of their training facilities, thanks to a disagreement between their union and team owners. With the off-season coming to an end, the dispute is now guaranteed to postpone the start of spring training—and could potentially delay Opening Day.