Why this year’s World Series won’t prevent a labor dispute that imperils the 2027 season

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The Milwaukee Brewers play in Major League Baseball’s smallest media market and their payroll is the 19th highest of the league’s 30 teams. Their World Series win this week would seem to puncture the claim that baseball needs a dramatic economic overhaul to be fair for the proverbial little guys.

And yet, all indications are that the owners still intend to wage what is likely to be a contentious war in the upcoming labor negotiations, which will ratchet up in about a month and could wind up wiping out a significant portion of the next season.

But commissioner Rob Manfred told reporters just before the start of the World Series that the small-market Tampa Bay Rays, who have the 27th highest payroll, and the Brewers meeting in the Fall Classic didn’t change his position going into negotiations one bit.

“I think that small markets operate at a disadvantage economically. They just don’t have the resources that our bigger markets do,” Manfred told reporters before the start of the World Series. “The best evidence (is) the Brewers have been a well-run franchise forever. It’s been 40 years since we’re here. Once every 40 years is not enough.”

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The players’ union has made clear that a salary cap is the hill they’re willing to fight and die on, even if similar unions in other major North American leagues have already agreed to caps. They see a cap, which would limit each team’s total payroll, as an attempt to limit salaries and increase owner profits and team valuations, more than any attempt to promote competitive balance.

“The results of these playoffs obviously further undermine their argument for why they (say) they want it,” said Bruce Meyer, the union’s executive director. “But again, that’s not the reason why they want it. The fact that they’re doubling down on the cap now in the wake of what’s happening with this World Series just illustrates that it’s not about competitive balance. It’s not about teams ‘not having hope.’

“It’s about, again, their desire, which they’ve had for decades, to have a system that artificially suppresses player salaries.”

The need to help small-payroll teams compete never seemed less important than at this moment.

The Brewers and the Rays held off the deep-pocketed Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees, respectively, in the earlier rounds of the postseason. One of the most expensive rosters in any sport, the New York Mets, finished last in their division.

The last two championships were won by the Dodgers, a financial behemoth whose quest for a three-peat this season convinced some fans that the playing field has become critically uneven. MLB has leaned into this line of thinking with commercials that promote the appeal of a salary cap.

But Manfred basically admitted the reason for the fight right now is not because the competitive balance has become a bigger problem, but because the owners are more unified than in the past.

“We have an unprecedented level of unanimity among ownership that this is something that we need to do, that we need to get ourselves in a position to operate like all the other major professional sports in North America,” he said in response to a question about the timing of this negotiating priority.

“And our fan polling has moved hard in the direction of the fact that we have a problem, and that our fans see a salary cap as the answer to that problem,” he added.

Despite the lack of a salary cap, baseball’s competitive balance seems in line with other major American sports, if not more competitive. The Brewers are the 10th different baseball champion in the last 13 years, although the first champion to represent a market from the bottom half of MLB since the Kansas City Royals won in 2015. Over that same period, the National Football League, with a hard cap, had only seven different teams win the Super Bowl and the National Basketball Association had nine win the Finals.

Four of baseball’s champions during that period, including the Brewers, had never won a series, and four more had gone at least a quarter-century since their most recent title.

Spending more money on better players still means something. The champions — and the teams with the best records — are more likely to be the team that spends more, said Andrew Zimbalist, a retired professor of economics at Smith College and a leading expert on the business of sports.

“This year is not extraordinary, but it’s anomalous. It doesn’t usually happen this way,” he said.

Zimablist said the amount spent on payroll is responsible for only about 25% of the difference in win-loss record between teams during the season. That’s not enough to be determinative, but it does have an impact, he said.

That said, Zimbalist doesn’t think that competitive balance is the motivation for the owners’ demand for a salary cap.

“If an owner says to me, ‘Andy, I don’t care about profits. All I care about is competitive balance.’ I’m going to say, ‘Sorry, dude, I don’t believe you,’” he said. “I think it’s obvious that the owners are looking to have more stable profits.”

The near-universal expectation is that owners will lock out the players on December 1, the day the collective bargaining agreement expires. A lockout is essentially the same as a strike, but one waged by management rather than by unionized workers.

An immediate lockout can increase the likelihood of an agreement being reached before the season starts in late March, avoiding the loss of broadcast rights fees and ticket sales.

That scenario played out in 2021-2022 when owners locked out the players early — the fight dragged on through the winter and what should have been the start of spring training. It wasn’t until Opening Day was imperiled that a deal was reached to delay the start of the season by about a week, but the full schedule ended up being played.

Manfred said he remains confident a deal can be reached early enough to not disrupt next year’s season. And he acknowledged the sport risks losing fans, who came to games in near-record numbers this year, if games are lost.

The last work stoppage to cost games occurred in 1994 and 1995 and was the most severe in baseball history. It led to the cancellation of the postseason, including the World Series. It clearly angered fans: Average per-game attendance did not return to pre-strike levels for 12 years.

That was also the last time the league formally proposed a hard cap.

Before that work stoppage, every labor negotiation dating back to 1972 resulted in some games being lost.

Early season games typically have lower attendance and lower television ratings, and that reduces the cost to owners if games are lost at the start of the year. That’s why Zimbalist and other experts expect the lockout to last into the spring and perhaps early summer, wiping out a third of the season or more. Perhaps a lot more.

Zimbalist said some owners have told him privately that they’re willing to lose an entire season to get the players to agree to a salary cap, which is what happened in the National Hockey League when it lost the entire 2004-2005 season to a lockout.

One possible deadline that could stop the lockout from going that far relates to the league’s broadcast contracts. If too many games are lost, networks would gain an extra year on their existing agreements, which baseball would not want to happen.

Most work stoppages happen when one side or both underestimate what the other side is willing to absorb to get their demands, said Victor Matheson, professor of economics at Holy Cross who specializes in sports business.

The two sides’ negotiation positions feel like that’s the case this year, he said, pointing to a potentially long and costly work stoppage, right as the popularity of the sport is on the rise.

“I just didn’t think that they would either side would be willing to kill the goose that’s laying the golden egg right now,” he said. “But I am deeply pessimistic.”

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密尔沃基酿酒人队所在的密尔沃基是美国职业棒球大联盟媒体市场最小的球队，他们的薪资总额在联盟30支球队中排名第19位。他们本周赢得世界大赛冠军似乎有力地驳斥了“棒球需要进行彻底的经济改革才能对小球队公平”的说法。

然而，种种迹象表明，老板们仍然打算在即将到来的劳资谈判中打一场可能充满争议的战争，这场谈判将在大约一个月后升级，并可能导致下个赛季的大部分比赛取消。

但联盟主席罗伯·曼弗雷德在世界大赛开始前告诉记者，小市场球队坦帕湾光芒队（工资总额排名第 27 位）和酿酒人队在世界大赛中的相遇，丝毫没有改变他进入谈判的立场。

“我认为小市场在经济上处于劣势。他们不像我们的大市场那样拥有丰富的资源，”曼弗雷德在世界大赛开始前告诉记者。“最好的证明就是酿酒人队一直以来都是一支运营良好的球队。我们已经40年没来这里了。40年才来一次是不够的。”

约翰·费舍尔/盖蒂图片社

球员协会已明确表示，即使北美其他主要联盟的类似工会已经同意实行工资帽，他们也誓死捍卫工资帽。他们认为，工资帽（限制每支球队的总工资）与其说是为了促进竞争平衡，不如说是为了限制薪资、增加老板利润和球队估值。

“这些季后赛的结果显然进一步削弱了他们（声称）想要实行工资帽的理由，”工会执行董事布鲁斯·迈耶说道。“但再说一遍，这并非他们想要实行工资帽的真正原因。在世界大赛之后，他们现在加倍推行工资帽，恰恰说明这与竞争平衡无关。这与球队‘没有希望’无关。”

“这再次体现了他们几十年来一直渴望的愿望，那就是建立一个人为压低球员薪水的制度。”

帮助小薪资团队参与竞争的需求，在当下显得尤为重要。

在季后赛早期轮次中，酿酒人和光芒队分别击败了财力雄厚的洛杉矶道奇队和纽约洋基队。而拥有体育界最昂贵阵容之一的纽约大都会队，最终在分区垫底。

最近两届总冠军均由道奇队获得，这支财力雄厚的球队本赛季力争三连冠，这让一些球迷认为联盟的竞争环境已经变得极不公平。美国职业棒球大联盟（MLB）也顺应了这种观点，通过广告宣传工资帽制度的益处。

但曼弗雷德基本上承认，目前争斗的原因不是因为竞争平衡问题变得更加严重，而是因为老板们比过去更加团结。

“我们所有所有者都一致认为，这是我们必须要做的事情，我们需要让自己处于能够像北美所有其他主要职业体育联盟一样运作的位置，”他在回答有关这项谈判优先事项的时间安排的问题时说道。

“我们的球迷民意调查结果也强烈表明，我们遇到了问题，而我们的球迷认为工资帽是解决这个问题的办法，”他补充道。

尽管棒球没有工资帽，但其竞争平衡似乎与其他美国主要体育项目相当，甚至可能更具竞争力。酿酒人队是过去13年中的第10支不同的棒球冠军球队，不过自2015年堪萨斯城皇家队夺冠以来，他们是第一支来自MLB下半区市场的冠军球队。同期，设有工资帽的NFL只有7支不同的球队赢得过超级碗，而NBA则有9支球队赢得过总决赛。

在那段时间里，包括酿酒人队在内的四支棒球冠军球队从未赢得过系列赛，还有四支球队距离他们上一次夺冠已经至少有四分之一世纪了。

在优秀球员身上投入更多资金仍然意义重大。史密斯学院退休经济学教授、体育商业领域权威专家安德鲁·津巴利斯特表示，冠军球队——以及战绩最佳的球队——往往是投入更多的球队。

“今年虽然不算特别，但也有些反常。这种情况通常不会发生，”他说。

齐马布利斯特表示，球队薪资支出仅占赛季中各队胜负记录差异的约25%。他指出，这不足以构成决定性因素，但确实会产生影响。

尽管如此，津巴利斯特认为，竞争平衡并非老板们要求实行工资帽的动机。

“如果一个老板跟我说，‘安迪，我不在乎利润，我只在乎竞争平衡。’我会说，‘抱歉，伙计，我不信，’”他说道。“我认为很明显，老板们都希望获得更稳定的利润。”

几乎所有人都预期，在12月1日集体谈判协议到期当天，老板们会采取停工措施。停工本质上与罢工相同，只不过是由管理层而非工会成员发起的。

立即采取停摆措施可以增加在三月下旬赛季开始前达成协议的可能性，从而避免损失转播权费用和门票销售收入。

2021-2022赛季就出现了类似的情况，当时老板们提前将球员拒之门外——这场争斗一直持续到冬季，甚至错过了原本应该开始的春训。直到开幕日岌岌可危，双方才达成协议，将赛季开始时间推迟大约一周，但最终所有赛程都得以完成。

曼弗雷德表示，他仍然相信能够尽早达成协议，不会影响明年的赛季。他也承认，如果比赛取消，这项运动可能会失去球迷，而今年到场观赛的球迷人数接近历史最高纪录。

上一次因罢工而导致比赛停摆发生在1994年和1995年，也是棒球史上最严重的罢工。它导致季后赛取消，包括世界大赛。这显然激怒了球迷：平均每场比赛的观众人数在罢工后的12年内都没有恢复到罢工前的水平。

那也是联盟最后一次正式提出硬工资帽提案。

在那次停工之前，自 1972 年以来的每一次劳资谈判都以输掉一些比赛为代价。

赛季初期的比赛通常上座率和电视收视率都较低，因此如果赛季初比赛取消，对球队老板的损失也会较小。这就是为什么津巴利斯特和其他专家预计停摆会持续到春季甚至初夏，导致三分之一或更多的赛季取消。或许损失会更大。

津巴利斯特表示，一些老板私下告诉他，他们愿意牺牲整个赛季来让球员同意实行工资帽，就像国家冰球联盟在 2004-2005 赛季因停摆而失去整个赛季时发生的那样。

阻止停摆持续到如此严重程度的一个可能截止日期与联盟的转播合同有关。如果停摆场次过多，电视台的现有合同将自动延长一年，这是棒球界不希望看到的。

圣十字学院经济学教授维克多·马瑟森（Victor Matheson）专攻体育商业，他表示，大多数停工都是因为一方或双方低估了另一方为实现其要求愿意承受的代价。

他表示，双方的谈判立场似乎表明今年的情况正是如此，并指出，随着这项运动越来越受欢迎，可能会出现旷日持久且代价高昂的停工。

“我只是觉得双方都不会愿意杀掉现在正在下金蛋的鹅，”他说。“但我很悲观。”