Baseball Is in Dire Need of a Salary Cap, Just Not Right Now

It has perhaps never been so strikingly obvious that Major League Baseball is in dire need of a salary cap.

Even the most die-hard Yankee fans who are basking in the excitement of yet another offseason spending spree that involved signing three players for over $400 million know somewhere in the back of their minds that baseball needs a salary cap.

The Yankees, however, are not the ones to blame. They are playing by the rules under the current system. 

Big market teams have a vast advantage over smaller market teams through the massive amounts of sponsorship, television and advertising revenue they can generate compared to teams located in smaller markets do simply to the difference in the local population.

For example, the cost of a 30 second commercial during a Yankee game televised in New York, which has a population of more than eight million in Manhattan alone, will cost far more than a 30 second ad during a Pittsburgh Pirates game.

This is simply due to the fact that tripled the amount of people will likely be watching a Yankees, again, due to the population differences, than a Pirates game thus offering a much more attractive opportunity for advertisers to reach a larger, broader market.

The only penalty at the moment for a team spending an absurd amount of money on their payroll is the luxury tax, which the Yankees can afford to pay $30 million on like the average Joe spends $1.25 to buy a Pepsi out of a vending machine.

Although Major League Baseball clearly needs a salary cap and common logic would suggest that they will eventually take a lesson from America’s most popular sport, the NFL, and implement one, now is probably not the best time. 

Unless you have been living under a rock for the past six months, you will know all too well that we are in the middle of the worst financial crisis since the great depression.

The implementation of a salary cap for MLB, will likely involve a long and ugly strike by the players union, which could result in a year or more of no baseball being played.

Many teams were struggling before this current economic meltdown and could literally go out of business during a player’s strike that lasts a year or possibly even several years. 

Also, once play does eventually start up again, history has shown us that it takes some time for fans to forgive and begin making their way back to the ballparks again, which could, in turn, result in even more teams going under.

The NFL had to go through vicious strikes and lockouts as well as a competing league, the AFL, to eventually get to where they are today, that being a vastly more popular and lucrative sport than baseball.  

Baseball will eventually be forced to go down a similarly difficult path to implement a salary cap which will result in more league parity thus offering a better overall product for the fans.  

However, it is probably not the best time to go down this road during a recession that could last for several years. 

Most of the MLB teams will have to grit and bare several more years of uncapped baseball during this recession, followed by the strong possibility of having to sit through a long, drawn-out players strike, but in the end, MLB might finally provide a league where every team has a legitimate chance to win, thus offering a better product which will inevitably increase the popularity of the game throughout the country. 

A salary cap will eventually happen; it’s just a matter of choosing the best time to implement it—which is not right now.