MLB Is Now Promoting A Salary Cap Between Innings

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?