You weren't watching MLB.TV on Sunday, because NBC bought out all of the day's games and locked most of them behind their billions-losing streaming service. But if you were tuned in for out-of-market baseball in the days prior, like I was, you may have been delivered an advertisement from MLB itself that served as a stark reminder of just how badly the league's owners want to cap their players' salaries.
The commercials on MLB.TV are part of the league's "Level The Playing Field" campaign, which seeks to turn public opinion against teams with high payrolls ahead of what looks to be an especially nasty lockout after this season ends. MLB owners want to seize this next labor stoppage as an opportunity to finally get their much-desired salary cap, and the increase in team valuations that follows, at the expense of a workforce that has long resisted this restriction on their earning potential. "Give every fan a fair chance," the campaign begs, pitching supporters of low-payroll teams like the Guardians on the idea that they're only going to win a World Series if high-spending teams like the Dodgers are brought to heel.
The ad I got was a zippier version of the second video on this page, which is a cutesy series of graphics that don't hold up to much scrutiny. For example, it uses a CBS Sports headline, "Does MLB need a salary cap?" from a post in which all four analysts go on to answer "No." It classifies the Florida Panthers as a "small-market" team that was recently able to win two Stanley Cups in the salary-capped NHL, which feels like willful ignorance of both the Miami metropolitan area's size and the Panthers' ability to attract big-name players. By the way, if only "large-market" teams have won the World Series in the last decade, then how are the Washington Nationals ranked 27th in payroll right now? If the Cubs are "large-market," then why are the Chicago White Sox down at 28th?
I suspect I'm preaching to the choir when I say that MLB's owners are a bunch of dishonest vampires, but Craig Goldstein at Baseball Prospectus has a great write-up of why MLB's friendly little salary-cap campaign only serves to obfuscate the one and only purpose of a salary cap. Suffice it to say, this ad hit my ears as whiny losers complaining that you have to try in order to win a World Series. MLB already levels the playing field with revenue sharing, the randomness of short playoff series, and an expanded wild card that could very well put an 82-win AL team into the postseason this year. Plus, anyone who remembers the NBA's "superteam" panic about 15 years ago knows that a salary cap won't stop anyone from dividing MLB into haves and have-nots. It'll just give owners the satisfaction of paying their best workers less money.
MLB's ad notes a survey of "avid MLB fans" that says 79 percent support a salary cap. (This one actually cites a source, unlike the uncheckable claim that "most teams can't keep their star players.") I believe that's probably in the ballpark of real public opinion, because other sports leagues have conditioned fans to be cool with salary caps, even if they would never accept them at their own jobs. While I also think that a growing subset of educated fans are better equipped to push back on the narrative of greedy athletes playing a kids' game than they were in, say, 1994, these ads are particularly frustrating because they're symbolic of the owners' power to control the debate. Their shouts for a salary cap, amplified by their own broadcasts, can enter fans' ears at a volume that the players' union just can't match. Get ready for a whole lot more of this as we move closer and closer to the end of the current CBA. Well, at least on days when MLB.TV actually has games to air.
