In Major League Baseball (MLB), the cancellation of the start of the season may be imminent due to the still fruitless collective bargaining agreement.
On Sunday, negotiations between the league and the MLBPA players union, which lasted more than six hours, ended with an agreement. MLB has set Monday as the deadline for the regular season to begin as scheduled on March 31, 2022. Negotiations are scheduled to resume on Monday at 10:00 a.m. local time (5:00 p.m. GMT).
US sports: MLB’s first lockout in 27 years
On December 1, MLB will be in its first lockout since 1994-1995. At that time, all playoffs, including the World Series, were canceled for the first and only time in MLB’s more than 100-year history due to a salary dispute, and nearly 1,000 games were canceled in the two impact seasons of 1994 and 1995. Now, the first game failures since then are looming for financial reasons. The league requires a four-week test game phase in “spring training” before the start of the regular season with 162 games per team.
Like ESPN reports, players and teams are far apart in their demands and desires. The professionals demand that they do better in the income distribution of around ten billion and that they get further rights in their contracts. Especially the younger players have been at a disadvantage so far. MLB spoke of “productive” negotiations on Sunday, but did not provide details.
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