As many as eight owners or more of Major League Baseball’s 30 clubs are against playing an abbreviated season following a breakdown in negotiations between the players union and management over how much the players are to be paid, reports said Tuesday.
The sports website The Athletic quoted an unidentified players’ agent as saying the number of club owners not wanting a season represents nearly a third of the teams.
"There are definitely more than eight owners who don’t want to play," it quoted the agent as saying.
SportsNet New York reporter Andy Martino reported on Twitter that the number was as many as six.
The revelation comes following what the players indicated was an impasse in negotiations on Saturday on how to start a season that was aborted during spring training due to government-imposed restrictions to slow the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.
At issue is how much of their 2020 salaries the players are to be paid.
A March 26 agreement between players and management called for players to be paid pro-rated salaries based on a regular 162-game season.
Major League Baseball says that was with the understanding that ballparks would be allowed to open to fans without restrictions.
MLB’s most recent offer was to play a 72-game season in which players would receive 70% of their prorated salaries, with a maximum of 83%. On Saturday, the union sent a letter to MLB stating: “Given your continued insistence on hundreds of millions of dollars of additional pay reductions, we assume these negotiations are at an end."
Union head Tony Clark followed that with a statement that said further dialogue was “futile” and instructed MLB to tell the players “when and where” to report.
MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred told ESPN on Monday that he considered that a threat to essentially sue.
"Unfortunately, over the weekend, while Tony Clark was declaring his desire to get back to work, the union's top lawyer was out telling reporters, players and eventually getting back to owners that as soon as we issued a schedule — as they requested — they intended to file a grievance claiming they were entitled to an additional billion dollars.”
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