MLB plans next week to submit blueprint to union for opening season in July, sources say

The Yankees stand on the foul line during the national anthem before the Opening Day game against the Baltimore Orioles at Yankee Stadium on Thursday, Mar. 28, 2019. Credit: Jim McIsaac
With July 4th being targeted as a potential Opening Day and players now being described as “patriots,” you can see that Major League Baseball is looking to be more than just another $10 billion industry when it comes to taking a leading role in the nation’s recovery.
But that selling point alone isn’t enough to make it happen, and even strategies that appear solid on paper won’t necessarily work in the new COVID-19 reality. For all their optimism, MLB officials understand the daunting task ahead.
That won’t stop them from trying, however, and a big part of that effort will come next week when MLB submits an official return-to-play blueprint to the union, sources confirmed Thursday. The specific details aren’t complete, but the current concept is based on using home ballparks for a June spring training and a truncated regular season that will begin in early July.
With those parameters, MLB could work with a schedule of 80 to 100 games and a postseason that extends deep into November. The players should be fine with that setup, especially after bristling at the “bubble” ideas floated for quarantine in states such as Florida and Arizona.
The much tougher challenge will be getting the players to sign off on a greater reduction of their contracts — rather than the previously agreed-upon prorated salaries — and MLB already seems to be leaning into this bigger-than-the-game language as leverage for the upcoming negotiations.
“Our players, you know they want to help the public,” Yankees president Randy Levine told WFAN on Day 2 of his New York media tour. “They see how important sports and baseball is to the psyche of everybody. I’ve said that they’re patriots. There’s a real thirst from everybody here to get baseball back.
“It has a special obligation in these troubled times to burst through and get people’s minds off of things and to show a sense of regularity and that we can come back. That’s the hope. There’s no guarantee, but I’m confident we have people of good minds trying to get there.”
Levine has taken on the role of MLB’s point man this week, as commissioner Rob Manfred recently has stayed out of the public eye after making the rounds earlier in this crisis. Manfred isn’t about to tip his hand before the negotiations with union chief Tony Clark begin, but the commissioner already has laid the groundwork by hinting at MLB’s staggering financial losses, especially if teams play without their paying customers for any period of time.
The same can be said for any pro sports league this year, and Levine continued to drive home Manfred’s narrative Thursday. Depending on whatever the payrolls turn out to be, there likely is a financial tipping point at which owners would choose not to play in empty stadiums rather than go deeper into the red. Manfred has suggested that teams get 40% to 50% of their income from gate revenue, which includes ticket sales, concessions and parking. Levine went even higher in his estimation.
“It’s absolutely huge,” he said. “The gate for some teams is 65, 70% of your revenue. That’s why I think when you look at the teams going forward, playing with no fans, this is a statement to say how important it is for baseball, for America, for this country, because there’s no getting around it. You cannot make up that revenue and it’s going to be very, very hurtful for all teams. Whether you’re a big-market team, middle-market team, small-market team, everybody’s going to get hurt.”
Fiscally hurt is one thing. Sick with COVID-19 is another, and MLB needs to come up with a viable plan — and government approval — to navigate the pandemic landscape. President Donald Trump and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo have pointed out how urgent it is for baseball to return, but the United States still seems to be in the early innings of a nationwide containment effort.
For now, MLB has another week or two to evaluate how the COVID-19 fight is going, to see if the reopening of numerous states backfires or not. In the meantime, it’s about checking boxes in preparation for a possible Opening Day, first by agreeing with the umpires last week, then ideally with the Players Association later this month.
Beating back the COVID-19 outbreak to playable levels is something that’s far beyond the sport’s control. Privately, MLB officials can’t help but acknowledge the steep odds while still striving for the goal.
“I feel very optimistic,” Levine said. “That doesn’t mean that it’s a done deal, that it’s going to happen. But I think that there are a lot of very motivated people, led by the commissioner, and all of the clubs are doing everything they possibly can to try and pull together a plan.
“I’ve been very much involved in talking to a lot of people here. All have very good intentions, all are really trying hard to defeat this thing. But I think anybody will tell you, what happens with it, where it’s gonna go, it’s just up in the air, so we have to just monitor this on a day and weekly basis.”
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