With the NFL Season Coming to A Close, Will Sports Fans Have Baseball This Spring to Watch?

While the NFL season is coming to a close, and gamblers are making their bets on Super Bowl lines, can sports fans make a bet on Major League Baseball starting this spring amid a lockout? 

Most sports fans have been focused on the NFL and their playoff race, but die-hard baseball fans are worried that the MLB season may be in jeopardy this year. Even though teams are making deals and signing players, the reality is that a lockout is still in play.

What are Players and the Player’s Union Looking for in Their Negotiations to End the Lockout?

Some people believe that this lockout is solely about money, but it boils down to more than that. Players are looking for better pay, and the players union wants to rework the luxury tax system. The luxury tax, a system that has been in place since 1995, is a 20-95 percent tax on teams that exceed the MLB’s payroll threshold.

The union believes the luxury tax keeps teams from spending more on player salaries. However, MLB put the tax in place to help teams in smaller markets that can’t generate the revenue of teams like the New York Yankees or the Los Angeles Dodgers. 

So the luxury tax money collected from the big spenders gets divided among the smaller markets to help those teams.

Another topic of discussion is how teams use young players’ contracts to extend the length that the team can have control over the player’s contract. 

Players would be manipulated by the team, being kept off the rosters for just the right amount of time so that the team can take advantage of the young player’s contract clause. The union is looking to fix that, along with the other listed items of player pay and the luxury tax.

Foul Ball! How the Lockout Can Jeopardize Small Businesses

The one thing that many people don’t look at is the impact the lockout will have on small businesses. The ones that will get hurt the most will be those in the venues around MLB team stadiums. But they won’t be the only victims in the lockout.

Spring Training games in Florida and Arizona offer small businesses in the area a chance to capitalize on MLB teams in their town for the month of training. With the ending of winter and the start of spring being a typical downtime for businesses, spring training gives small businesses in the area of the games a chance to make some profit in an otherwise slow time.

Some of the small businesses in the area of the Spring Training games rely on that revenue to hold them over until business picks back up in the summer. So these businesses will be looking closely at the lockout, hoping for it to end before the start of spring training. 

The Spring Training games alone in Arizona helped businesses in the area rake in over $600 million in 2018, making this lockout so problematic for business owners in Arizona and Florida.

Double Play! Small Businesses Won’t Be the Only Ones Feeling the Effect If Spring Training Doesn’t Happen

If the lockout extends into Spring Training, baseball card companies will be another group that will feel the lockout effects. While people might ask why it would be the case, the answer is quite simple; baseball card companies use spring training venues to set up photoshoots with MLB players for their baseball cards. 

Without these venues and access to groups of players from different teams all in one place, baseball card companies stand to lose out on accessibility to players while not having to spend as much to do multiple photoshoots for players.

Strikeout! How Baseball Fans Will Be the Biggest Losers in a Prolonged Lockout

MLB is a pastime that fans of the sport have looked to for entertainment during the summer. If this lockout continues, the fans will not only lose their source of entertainment but might stop following MLB altogether. 

The good news is that MLB is in talks with the Players Union to end the lockout, but only time will tell if they will work out something before spring train is set to begin.