Tag: Mark Teixeira

Mark Teixeira on why players should ‘bend’ to avoid losing MLB season over a money dispute

MLB owners and players are at odds over a proposed revenue split.

The 2020 MLB season could begin in July after owners approved a historic plan for an 82-game schedule and a 50/50 revenue split between owners and the MLB Players Association. While there are still significant health issues that need to be addressed, the stage is set for baseball to return – that is, as long as players are amenable to the deal.

In March, MLB and the MLBPA reached a deal that would see a lump sum advance of $170 million that would be split among players regardless of the fate of the 2020 season. Should the season resume, players would then be paid a pro-rated portion of their contract based on the number of games played.

Per the new proposal, players would instead split revenue with owners from the 2020 season, as revenues are expected to plummet with fans likely unable to attend games for the foreseeable future. MLBPA Executive Director Tony Clark has no interest in agreeing to what he believes is a salary cap, and shredded the proposal.

Via The Athletic:

“That the league is trying to take advantage of a global health crisis to get what they’ve failed to achieve in the past — and to anonymously negotiate through the media for the last several days — suggests they know exactly how this will be received. None of this is beneficial to the process of finding a way for us to safely get back on the field and resume the 2020 season — which continues to be our sole focus.”

According to former MLB player Mark Teixeira, though, the deal being offered by the owners is “reasonable,” and players should consider making a one-time exception.

“From a player’s standpoint, I want 100 percent of my salary for every game played – but unfortunately, these are unprecedented times. And the owners’ 50/50 split is not unreasonable. If you really think about where the finances of baseball have gone, the players are actually getting less than 50 percent of the revenue from the sport in a regular season. If we didn’t have a pandemic this year and played 162 games, the players would have actually gotten less than 50 percent. So the owners, themselves, they’re making the best offer they can make, and I think it’s a very reasonable offer.

I think players need to understand, just this one time – one time in the history of the union, since Curt Flood, they can bend a little bit and say ‘you know what, we’re going to do what’s best for the sport, what’s best for the country. There’s people out there that are risking their lives on the front lines. There are people that are losing their jobs, losing their savings. And we know this might not be a great deal for us, but it’s better than sitting at home and not playing baseball at all.'”

Teixeira also said that while he believes players could eventually agree to a 50/50 split, he isn’t entirely sure that the logistical and safety issues needed to be solved to stage a season will be figured out.

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