The Players’ Association made their second economic proposal last week, report The Athletic’s Evan Drellich and Ken Rosenthal, though it included only minor adjustments to their initial proposal in May. Among other things, the union’s May proposal included:

Raising the minimum salary and getting players into arbitration earlier.
Changes to the way service time is calculated, including early free agency in some cases.
Adjustment to the way the draft order is determined (currently reverse order of the standings).

MLB made their first (and so far only) economic proposal in August and it included a $100 million salary floor and a $180 million luxury tax threshold, substantially lower than the $210 million threshold in 2021. Also, the salary floor would be a “soft” floor, in which teams could simply pay a penalty should they fail to field a $100 million roster.,

The reason this matters, and the reason this is a source of acrimony between the owners and players now, is that television revenue has grown far more quickly than ticket revenue. Player salaries have grown in magnitude about as much as ticket revenues have— suggesting this theory is likely true. Owners have seen higher profits from faster growing television revenue…..

If the owners want the players to accept the downside risk associated with low ticket revenue, they need to find a way to share the upside risk associated with higher television revenue.

A starting point is simple. Instead of minimum salaries defined exactly by the CBA, let free agent and arbitration prices be set in excess of the salary minimums, and set future salary minimums distributed to all players. Let those minimums represent some fixed X% of the cumulative national television deals. Bargain about that percentage, but when TBS offers 40% more in their next deal than their current deal, players will see that upside. In exchange, when future identifiable events lower ticket revenue— e.g. say government regulations of Y% reduced capacity in stadiums due to COVID-19 in 2021– the players will accept lower salaries by Z%. This gives players exposure to upside and gives owners protection from downside. Everything else is bargaining around X, Y, and Z%.