American pro sports labor at an inflection point

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“To be the best place to buy, you must be the best place to work. Treat your employees the way you want your customers to be treated–maybe even better!” ~Shep Hyken, Customer Service Expert

The above quote is one that owners of the 62 Major League Baseball and National Football teams along with the leagues’ respective commissioners ought to emulate.

It’s easy to look at today’s professional athletes and gawk at the large sums of money they make from their contract salaries and their endorsement deals.

According to a March 2019 article by Scott Boeck of USA Today about Major League Baseball salaries, “Salaries range from $550,000 to $35 million for the 850-plus players on opening-day rosters and injured lists, according to USA TODAY Sports’ annual MLB salary survey.

More than 50 percent of the league are millionaires, many of them multi-millionaires.”

Meanwhile in the National Football, the minimum salary is $480,000 for rookies and up to $915,000 for veterans with seven to nine years of experience per the league’s 2011 collective bargaining agreement. For the 2020 season, the highest paid player in the league is set to be Seattle Seahawks starting quarterback Russell Wilson, who will make $35,000,000. Note this figure is accurate as of March 10 before the NFL’s 2020 free agency period begins in earnest.

Wilson could be left behind in annual average earnings by likes of free agent quarterbacks Tom Brady, Drew Brees and Dak Prescott by the time this week, let alone free agency is complete.

Today, both MLB and the NFL are facing two separate but equally important moments in their histories with unionized labor.

For MLB, multiple players have begun to speak out against the league’s system of renewals and arbitration that prevents most players from reaching free agency until they are many years into their major league careers.

For NFL players, they must decide this week rather or not to accept a new collective bargaining agreement to take effect after the 2021 season, which will add a controversial 17 th game to the regular season.

NFL players are set to either approve or reject the aforementioned new CBA. They face a deadline of 11:59 p.m Pacific Standard on Saturday, March 14.

However, the National Football League’s Players Association previously rejected the CBA by a 6-5 vote in February. Later that month, during the league’s annual draft combine in Indianapolis player representatives from all 32 of the league’s teams met to vote on the deal. At that time, the player reps voted 17-14 in favor of the deal with one player rep abstaining.

Many high-profile players such as Wilson, Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers and Pittsburg Steelers center Maurkice Pouncey came out against the deal via social meeting following the player reps’ Feb. 26 vote according to an article by ESPN’s Brooke Pryor.

That day Wilson took to Twitter to share the following, “The @NBA & @ MLB are doing it right. Players come first. ALL @NFL players deserve the same. WE should not rush the next 10 YEARS for Today’s satisfaction. I VOTE NO.”

Even this week, on March 9, former Oklahoma State offensive lineman Russell Okung, a member of the NFLPA’s Executive Committee and a candidate for NFLPA President, came out so strongly against the CBA that he filed an unfair labor practice charge against the NFLPA with the National Labor Relations Board according to a report by ESPN’s Cameron Wolfe.

Various prognosticators and talking heads in the regional and national sports media have claimed the new CBA will pass as players making closer to the minimum salary outnumber superstars at the top end of the pay scale.

That may well be the case as current NFLPA president Eric Winston strongly disputed Wilson’s statements back on Feb. 26. Winston tweeted, “No one is rushing into anything. We have spent the last 300 days listening to our guys and negotiating this deal. The proposal will be sent to all players and if somebody doesn’t like the terms once they’ve seen the entire package, I understand. That’s why every player gets a https://twitter. com/DangeRussWilson/status/1232685882915872769 …”

Winston’s second Tweet added that, “vote on it and every vote counts.

I’m happy to hop on the phone with any player at any time and anyone is always welcome to come to our annual Rep meeting or to join any of the numerous calls we have had or will have in the future. Let me know.”

Winston is ineligible to run for another term as NFLPA president as he did not play for a team during the 2019 season. Winston, an 11-year veteran, last played for the Cincinnati Bengals in the 2018 season with a $1,000,000 annual salary.

Back to Boeck’s article, where the reporter shares about MLB’s own set of players on minimum salaries where he states, “but at the other end of the rainbow, there’s no pot of gold. Nearly 40 percent of the player pool earns close to the league minimum of $555,000 – which, yes, is still a hefty chunk of change and 12 times that of the U.S. average salary, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics – but it’s not much in baseball’s Monopoly money.

This demographic – which often gets dinners comped by the wealthier players on the team – are emerging stars and players under a team’s control and without any rights.”

As you see above, the owners of Major League Baseball teams have become especially adept at building a structure that pushes team control ahead of a player’s ability to leave as a free agent or be paid their fair market value ahead of a set service date (number of days, months and years with the big league club).

Case in point is the recent arbitration finding against Chicago Cubs all-star third baseman Kris Bryant. Back on Jan. 29, Bryant lost a labor grievance against the Cubs when arbitrator Mark Irvings found that the team had not manipulated his service time by optioning him to Triple-A Iowa to start the 2015 season.

Bryant started the 2015 season in the minors although he had a a .425 batting average, hit nine home runs and had 15 RBIs in 40 at-bats in spring training that year.

As noted by the Chicago Tribune’s Mark Gonzales, “Bryant was promoted to the Cubs after 12 days in the minors — preventing him, by one day, of earning 172 days of service time, which constitutes a full season and would have allowed the 2016 National League MVP to become a free agent after 2020.”

In another case, St. Louis Cardinals ace starting pitcher, Jack Flaherty, had his 2020 contract renewed by the team on March 8. Sources told the St. Louis Dispatch that day that Flaherty’s contract for 2020 would be $604,500. The amount reflects a slight raise from the $562,100 he received from the Cardinals after they renewed his contact ahead of the 2019 season.

Flaherty, 24, had an 11-8 record and had a 2.75 Earned Run Average (ERA) in 33 starts during the 2019 MLB season.

However, an article posted March 8 by ESPN, stated that, “Last year, he criticized Major League Baseball’s system for players not eligible for salary arbitration and rejected the Cardinals’ offer. He took the $10,000 penalty so he would have it on record that he did not agree with the club’s proposed salary for when he is eligible for arbitration in 2021.”

Again, as easy as it is to blame players for the mon ey they make each year, let’s talk about the NFL and MLB owners themselves. MLB’s 30 teams generated $9.9 billion in the 2018 season according to research by Christina Gough of Statista.com. Some basic math shows this averages out to a cool $300 million per team.

Meanwhile, another one of Gough’s articles, this time about the NFL, shows that league’s 32 teams generated $14.48 billion in revenue during their 2018 season. This figure averages out to $425 million per team.

While yes there are costs associated with running a major sports team, doesn’t it stand to reason that team owners and the leagues themselves should want to pay less than their market value, restrict their movement between prospective employers or add more games which in football’s case can lead to more violent injuries.

But maybe the owners’ reasoning is this is their business and they don’t have to care about the players they employ. Like the rest of us, even pro athletes deserve to be respected and treated well by those who employ them.