MLB's Rob Manfred Signs 4-Year Contract Extension as Commissioner Through 2028 Season
Rob Manfred's tenure as Major League Baseball commissioner will continue through at least the 2028 season.
Evan Drellich of The Athletic reported Manfred's four-year extension was approved Wednesday in a vote by all 30 majority team owners. This will mark Manfred's third contract as MLB commissioner since he took the position in 2014.
The extension guarantees Manfred will negotiate baseball's next collective bargaining agreement. MLB's current CBA runs through the 2026 season.
The sport's last CBA negotiation resulted in baseball's first work stoppage since the 1994 player strike. Ownership locked out players from Dec. 2, 2021 until March 10, 2022, which resulted in the delay of the 2022 season by a week.
The work stoppage played a significant part in Manfred's continued polarizing reputation among fans. Since taking over for Bud Selig, Manfred has implemented a number of changes to the game aimed at modernizing and speeding up baseball's pace of play—with many of those changes frustrating purists.
The most notable changes took place ahead of this season, with MLB implementing a pitch clock, limiting defensive shifts and widening the bases. While controversial upon their announcement, the changes have been a rousing success. MLB game times are down below three hours for the first time since 2011, with the sport shaving off 28 minutes from the average time from last season.
Other Manfred controversies have not quite worked out in his favor.
Fans and players criticized Manfred's handling of the Houston Astros' sign-stealing scandal, which saw the commissioner give cheating players immunity from punishment. Manfed also took significant backlash for calling the World Series trophy a "piece of metal" during a 2020 interview.
In more recent comments, Manfred has admitted he regrets giving Astros players immunity. He also apologized for his flippant comments regarding the World Series trophy.
As it stands, though, Manfred has kept revenues increasing while making changes to the game that have seemingly made it more digestible to a younger audience. That is more than enough for him to receive the support of ownership.
