Can MLB Surpass the NBA?

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1:19Congratulations! You made the Varsity podcast. My name is John O 'Ran, and I am a sports correspondent and the host of this pod. And today, Evan Drellick joins the Varsity. Evan is one of the top baseball writers at The Athletic. I read him all the time. We're going to dive into MLB All-Star Week. We're going to talk about the labor war that's threatening the beginning of next season, and we're going to preview MLB's next media deal when those rights come up in 2028. But before we get to Evangelic, today is Sunday, July 19th, World Cup final day, and that's what I'm watching. This World Cup has been super successful from every single metric, and that really doesn't come as a surprise to me at all, but it probably does come as a surprise to a lot of people.

2:04Remember all those stories before the tournament started predicting a hot mess, tickets were too expensive, travel was too difficult, geopolitical problems were going to cause a lot of havoc. I don't mean to dismiss all those issues. They are real concerns, but they really had no effect on the World Cup, just like they didn't have any effect on the World Cup in Qatar four years ago or Russia four years before that. In fact, you can set your watch to the stories that are inevitably coming about how Los Angeles won't be ready for the Olympics in 2028. I'm telling you right now, those Olympics are going to be a huge success.

2:40They just will be. Anyway, here are a couple things that blew me away. You know the Argentina-England semifinal last Wednesday afternoon? More than 15 million people watched that game on Fox on a Wednesday afternoon in the middle of summer. That's just incredible. Oh, and one more thing on those hydration breaks. They really aren't certain to return four years or eight years from now. I mean, they might, but it's been described to me as more of a 50-50 proposition. I'm told that FIFA officials are torn. Fans outside of the United States, well, they hate these breaks. And believe it or not, FIFA is listening to them.

3:19That'll be one of the funnest stories to follow over the next few months. As for now, let's get right to Evandrelik. Evandrelik, thank you for joining the pod. I haven't seen you since we were on the field before the Home Run Derby, sweating through our shirts.

3:38I wanted to start with sort of All-Star Week and baseball. I had a story in the varsity this week that I just found the tenor of the All-Star Week and not just baseball, but the people around baseball to be really unique last week because there's almost 100 % of my sources believe that there's going to be a lockout. And 75 % of them believe there's probably going to be missed games. They're sort of expecting it, which in years past would have been like, oh, gosh, here we go. but the the tenor among uh media executives sponsor folks mlb executives was totally positive because they're coming in with all this momentum with ratings are up attendance is up sponsorship dollars are up uh like what did you how did how did you uh sort of navigate that because it's it's almost like this dichotomy about like yeah there's a hurricane off the coast but yeah we're having a lot of fun right now.

4:50Yeah, it is an odd vibe to have the commissioner stand up there in front of the BBWA, the Baseball Writers Association of America, and talk about how well the game is doing in ratings and in attendance. And the vibes do seem to be generally good. You're still riding high off of the pitch clock introduction a few years ago. ABS, the challenge system for balls and strikes seems to be going well here. And then in the background of all of it, you've got this threat of baseball Armageddon, the potential of missed games in 2027 over the fight for a salary cap. And, you know, in a way, everything's a bit performative.

5:33You know, in a labor negotiation, one side wants one thing, the other side wants another thing. And, you know, when push comes to shove next spring in next year, we'll see how bad or good it is. If the owners really feel like, well, this is actually not that good, even though our eyes and the sensory inputs tell us something different, then probably you'll have missed games. But I think if what everybody kind of feels that actually this thing's trending upward is the reality that actually exists, it's reason to believe, well, maybe there won't be as many missed games as there possibly could be.

6:14let's not talk about the elephant in the room yet which is the late the the labor problems um what give me your yours uh state of baseball I know that's almost a this is like an impossible question don't talk about the one thing that could could really affect this but what is the state of baseball right now I think more than any other time in the tenure of Rob Manfred as commissioner who took over in 2015, everyone feels more positive. For a number of years there, you go back to the sign-stealing scandals and there was problems with service time manipulation. The first half of Rob Manfred's tenure was really checkered.

7:01And then he introduces these rules to speed up the game. And they work really well. They did their diligent testing in the minor leagues for them. You have Shohei Ohtani, you've got Aaron Judd, you've got this great crop of stars at the moment. And Ohtani, of course, is on a different level. Earlier this year, I was one of the authors of a story at The Athletic about whether baseball had surpassed basketball as kind of the quote-unquote number two sport in America. I think clearly NFL is number one in terms of ratings, revenue, really any metric you want. And for a time there, I think a lot of people would have said it's basketball, but basketball has kind of struggled with some of the areas that baseball has, the takeover of three-pointers being kind of the analog to what was going on in baseball with the rise and strikeouts and home runs.

8:00And baseball's kind of had a correction there to the actual on-field product. And so the one caveat I'd offer is the owners look around and say, well, our franchise values are not growing at the same rate, at least not across the board, as they are in the NBA and the NFL. And they would love for them to be greater. but you know that piece aside the the overall worth of the franchise which is still not bad they're all in the billions um things are are looking up you know it's a i love that you bring up that that story on uh has it taken over uh basketball what did you you didn't say how you came out on that did has it taken over basketball you know we we talked to a bunch of different experts people who you know have some insight into this whether they're you know kind of researchers and marketing and there was i i think it wasn't a total consensus but there was a strong body of evidence that yeah in these different ways uh baseball is doing better you know the nba's kind of social media presence uh that's still much stronger than baseball but i i think the overall takeaway from the story was if baseball hasn't overtaken basketball, it certainly hasn't in a few areas.

9:27So there's a much, you can make the argument now for baseball as a number two, whereas I think a couple of years ago, you really couldn't have. You know, Evan, I love your answer because for the longest time, you know, basketball has always sort of just instituted massive, pretty massive changes. You know, I mean, And even going back, they put in a three-point line. And then you have defensive three seconds. And they make really significant changes on a dime. And if you talk to some basketball folks, they say, I wish we could be like baseball and institute sort of the changes that baseball has made.

10:10because they brought in, I mean, if you talk to a traditionalist, the idea of putting a clock on baseball is abhorrent. I hated the idea at first of the shift. You're like, why would you ban the shift? I have nine players. I can put those nine. The pitcher has to be on the mound, the catcher behind the plate, and the other seven can be wherever I want to put them, right? And they did it. I haven't missed the shift once since they banned the shift. it's just been a really interesting uh uh changeover to me in terms of baseball being more innovative and and and i i'm picking on basketball it's really all the other sports to kind of look and say like i wish we could do what baseball did there right and you see adam silver what was it a couple months ago kind of trying to take the bull by the horns with tanking in the nba and uh you know kind of doing it at a juncture when i don't follow basketball as closely you you wouldn't necessarily expect uh that's the point in time when a commissioner is going to make a try to make a major change like that and so it almost becomes more reactive you know the flip side of it where baseball wishes it could be basketball is the worth of the national media deals as you know as well as anybody uh you know and so there are still areas where baseball is looking at basketball and going, I want to be like that.

11:34I think there's been a few points over Rob Manfred's time here where their actions have looked like they're trying to mirror the NBA, where Rob basically wants to follow Adam. And then on the other side, on the on-field side, I think now it's the opposite, where Adam probably wants to follow Rob. But to go back to the original point, You go back to the start of Rob Manford's tenure, nobody was talking about, is there anything Rob Manford is doing better than Adam Silver? And that part of the conversation is new, that I think there are things people can say, yeah, baseball has done this better than basketball.

12:15Let's talk about the week that was. All-Star game. they had a World Cup lead-in and the viewership was pretty good for the game it didn't really seem to resonate a ton people that were there described it as boring a couple of first inning runs and whatnot the Home Run Derby, first time on Netflix an exciting derby this year partly because Kyle Schwerber I mean, I was a hometown kid that made the finals. Numbers were down a little bit on Netflix as well. You've seen the NBA tinker with like U.S. versus the world type games. You've seen the NHL tinker with that as well. How committed is baseball to having American League versus National League in a home run derby in the day preceding it?

13:21there's clearly a willingness to play with the format just look at the derby they had a change this year you know i think going to netflix was a part of that where they went away from the clock system for for every hitter that they had had for basically a decade and went back to something similar to what existed in the past in a swing system um and you know rob manford's clearly been willing to tinker with various parts of the game. I mean, even something is, I don't want to say silly, because some people take it very seriously. The uniforms, you go back a few years ago, were a big deal. By the way, don't call that silly.

14:00I hated those uniforms. I love seeing the home and the away uniforms out there. I love it. Yeah. Right. And I'm with you. I'd rather see the players wearing their actual jerseys rather than kind of a uniform, you know, single American League or National League jersey and baseball, you know, finally heeded that and understood that. And they're pretty reactive, baseball is, to what fans tell them. You know, they're trying to meet people where they are and give them what they're looking for. And I think they're open to all sorts of possible changes. The idea to me at first blush of something other than the AL versus NL format, I think that could be risky.

14:42There are kind of degrees of traditional fixtures in the sport. And look, they brought the DH to the National League, so I guess you could probably do anything. The one thing that's clear that Manfred himself said the day of the All-Star game is that they're not happy with the availability of players. There's a Sunday pitcher exception where the guy pitches on a Sunday, the Sunday before the All-Star game. he can't appear in the All-Star Game two days later on the Tuesday. And Manfred acknowledged teams are using this, kind of leveraging this exception in a way that does lessen the product. You want, just as they want for the Olympics in 2028, the most best players to be able to show up to your All-Star Game, just as they want for the potential Olympics in 2028.

15:39So I would certainly expect MLB to be looking at and is already looking at, well, what can we do to get more players to the All-Star game so that you really have your best in that quote unquote Midsummer Classic? yeah the um i i i agree with you because everything that you said is sort of like let's tinker with the format a little bit the mlb all-star game among all the major professional sports is still the granddaddy of them all it's still the one that that that resonates out there and i i i don't get any i don't get any sense inside mlb certainly not inside fox uh and and definitely not not inside netflix uh that this week either that there are massive changes that need to be made to, you know, the game or the home run derby.

16:28But there are some tinkering, there is some tinkering that needs to take effect. You brought up LA 28 and the Olympics coming off the World Baseball Classic. Everybody's expecting the US, the Major League players, I was going to say US players, but the Major League players to play in the Olympics. but that is um this this is my lead-in to let's talk about the labor problems uh because that is that that is uh i i guess the players association in my view is using that as a chit to uh to try to get get something elsewhere because it seems to be something the players do want to do it seems to be something that fans want to do and it's uh something that i i i feel is somewhat inevitable but there is some disagreement on that now.

17:18Look, I agree that it's inevitable. There's disagreement at the outset of the negotiation between the league, the union, and there's a third party involved here, which is LA-28, the organizers, and then kind of through them, the IOC is involved, to a little degree, WBSC, the World Baseball Softball Confederation. So it's a larger conversation than just MLB and the union here, But in an analog to what's going on with the regular CBA talks, you're at the start. The owners are saying this is what we want. The players are saying this is what we want. The players want as much accommodation as possible, as many tickets as available, the best hotel rooms as possible, as many tickets for family and friends as possible, kind of the things you would expect.

18:03the interesting kind of notable piece of the league proposal on participation to the players was they really want it to be mandatory where if you are selected to the all-star, to an Olympic team, to one of the six teams that will be in the Olympics in 2028 and you choose not to go you are facing a stiff penalty in the league proposal which is basically that you're going to have to sit out two weeks into the start of the second half of the season. So the break would begin July 10th for both the All-Star Game and the Olympics in 2028. It's going to be one long break. And they're saying, if you don't have an excused absence, you can't come back until August 4th.

18:49And in that time, you're not getting pay, you're not getting service time. I don't expect the Players Union to agree to that provision. um you know whether why would that be a provision what did is there a sense that people are going to say no i don't want to play for my for my country in the olympics that doesn't seem to be what happens in any other sport i think there are some guys who if you know in any population as large as a number of baseball players you have you're gonna have some guys who are gonna go i'm tired we're in a pennant race i'd rather go see my wife and kids for a couple days and you do have this extended break.

19:28And I think there is a fear on the owner's side that, look, if we're going to agree to do this, we're going to disrupt the season and we're going to basically have this window of time where players are still paid, presumably, and they've got to work out that. But I don't expect that the guys who don't go to the Olympics are just not going to be paid in that time. Well, your highest paid, best named player decides, decides I don't want to go well that's a lot of money that's just kind of sitting there that you're still paying them and for what and this in the whole point of going to the Olympics is this is a showcase for the sport and you want your best out there and the same issues that exist with the all-star game you you don't want to go to the Olympics uh and and look look at the rosters and say well where's this guy where's that guy where's that guy it it lessens the whole thing and so I I certainly understand where MLB is coming from and I also understand where the players are going, you can't act, this is not conscription.

20:26You can't make us really do this, but, you know, could there be some sort of agreement where if you're going to skip, it's got to be for a really strong reason? Yeah. You know, I think that's understandable why the owners are looking to do that.

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21:18it to me uh so let's talk about about labor now um i've i've taken the tact where the covering uh labor disputes there there's so much you can write about and i've just kind of decided i'm going to stay at a 50 000 foot view i'm not going to talk like like uh during the all-star week you had rob manfred and bruce meyer throwing bombs at each other essentially on the record which makes for makes for a great copy but for me that the the overriding stories they're far apart uh they're from from reaching any kind of settlement or any kind of deal and and they should be far apart because they they're still many months like look you're a journalist i I like the deadline pressure creates, you know, create sentences and stories and and moving forward.

22:16But my takeaway from from this is just the idea that baseball, the union, the the business partners that are attached to baseball. Well, when I say 100 % of them, 100 % of the people I talked to, not one of them sort of hedged and said, well, we'll see. There's going to be some sort of lockout or work stoppage December 1st. And the question is sort of how long that ends up going. How do you see this shaking out? Again, staying in like a 50 ,000-foot level, and then we'll go and dive in a little bit later. Yeah. Look, it's possible in a different world, in a different setting, that at the very start of a labor negotiation, and baseball once upon a time was able to do this, that you could see the sides moving a little bit more closely together.

23:10The reality of the world today in baseball is that this is going to be a long process that does go down to the wire. It is 150%, whatever number you want to put, well above 100 % expectation that there will be a lockout on December 1st because there will not be a deal done by that point in time. And just like last time. And the question then, as you're pointing out, becomes do they find a way to preserve the entirety of the 2027 season? Do they get a deal done like they did last time in early March? The schedule is going to start a little earlier next year. It might move up things a bit. we wouldn't expect when one side is asking for as big a change as the owners are, which is a salary cap, for them to really be anywhere close to anything at this point.

24:02And so what it sets up in the 50 ,000-foot view is a waiting game. And things probably aren't going to get real in terms of real movement in the proposals, real movement in the talks, until the spring. Last time when the lockout started in December, there was nothing in December. It was really kind of a little bit happened in January and then February and obviously March when it got done is when the action picked up here. And so it creates this kind of swirl of, well, everybody's saying this and everybody's saying this and everybody wants to kind of read into it at this point. You can't. There are things on the edges to try to understand about the different side positions, but in terms of what's actually going to happen, you don't know until push comes to shove.

24:52And that's the whole game for everybody involved here is leverage creation. And it's going to be a rough, whatever, 10 months. And hopefully that's all it takes. We'll see. All right. So right now the owners are totally unified. They want to get a salary cap in there. They want to institute a salary floor. I don't think they want to institute that salary. They realize that they're going to have to institute a salary floor if they're going to get a salary cap. On the other side, the players appear to be completely unified about, you know, that's the third rail. You know, we will not accept a salary cap.

25:31And so the, you know, your job and my job is to sort of figure out where the fissures are going to be. Like who's going to sort of break first. And this is really hard for me to handicap because MLB has a media deal coming the following year that's a hugely important media deal. So that would suggest that the owners, some of the owners are going to say, like, you know what, let's kick this can down the road and fight that battle later. On the other hand, the idea of the salary floor benefiting – look, the Bryce Harpers and Sho Hayes and Aaron Judges of the world, they don't want the salary cap.

26:15But there is a huge percentage of players, the rank-and-file players, where the salary floor has really gone financially – be financially beneficial to them. so I can see where fissures could happen there as well. And I don't know which one is going to be first, which one is going to be deeper. And that to me is sort of the thing that I'm looking at the most to see in order to handicap where this is all going to shake out. I think this is an important point about unity and projections of unity. The only thing that the players and the owners, both any side in a labor negotiation are incentivized to do at this point is project strength.

27:01It doesn't even matter whether that strength is real. And I'm not doubting that it is, you know, at this point in time, why wouldn't it be? But you can stand there and say, we're strong, we're strong. They're never going to stand there and say, we're not sure about this. We think we might cave in a couple months here. And so - By the way, I have a distinct memory. I was in college during the NFL strike back, I think it was in 87. And they would interview the players. And I remember Dexter Manley was on the Redskins at the time. And he was like, I give it, I can hold out two more weeks. It's like, you're not helping matters.

27:36The owners are hearing that. Right. And look, I think there's less of that today. And again, that's where it's going to become a march and a spring conversation of how great is the unity actually is something we're going to find out here. And I think on the owner's side, there is an interest to potentially test how great the historic unity of the players union is today. The players were willing to fight for no salary cap for a span of 232 days in 1994-95. They took down the World Series in that strike. That is a very long-gone group of players. Is it possible that if a month of time was missed here that the players would not hold together?

28:26Certainly what the union's leadership and players are thus far projecting is no, we're not going to cave and certainly would never cave quickly. The owners might feel it's worth seeing whether that's the case. You know, there's a big difference potentially between an entire missed season and a month or two missed. And then you still come back and you play a shortened schedule and you play a World Series. You know, the damage you do to the sport in terms of turning fans away, in terms of those national media deals that need to be renegotiated for 2029, I think is pretty directly proportional to the amount of time you ultimately end up missing.

29:08And there's one interesting piece of history here, which is that if you look back at the last negotiation, the players voted 26 to 12 to take the deal. Eight of the no votes, so eight of the 12 votes that said no were this group that worked particularly closely with the union leadership, the executive subcommittee. The owners have looked at that and gone, okay, so the guys who were most intertwined with the union decided, you know, we don't want to play. and everybody else outruled them. The rank and file said, we want to go play. I think there's a feeling amongst the owners, well, if we sweeten and sweeten and sweeten and sweeten the salary cap and push comes to shove near the start of the season, well, these guys might just cave.

29:53They might just decide, you know, they want to play. And the union's position, Bruce Meyer, the head of the union, addressed this at the All-Star game and kind of explained why that thinking is not the most accurate. And his point was there were two occasions before this final deal was accepted in 2022 where the players said, okay, you want to cancel games? Cancel games. And then it happened again. You want to cancel games? Go ahead and cancel games. And then the owners increasingly improved the deal, and that's what led to the players accepting the deal, as Meyer described it. But that's the question.

30:32Can players be swayed? Could the owners eventually find enough people who look at whatever they, over time, put in this thing to sweeten it to go, oh, man, you know, it's not worth fighting. The history is the players are going to fight for a long time. The task the owners have is whether they can change that. By the way, your point is so good about, you know, and it's what I heard, too, from, again, media executives. executives, sponsor executives, you know, just the money around baseball is like if we lose games in April and May, nobody's crying any tears. Those are those are tough games to to sell.