popularity of the NFL, even individually than the salary cap.

MLB's general competitiveness does not actually align as well with payrolls as the complainers might have you believe. It's just a thing that people like to complain about when their team doesn't win as much as they'd like. The Dodgers spend and win. For sure. But then there's also the Mets.

mistakes. What sets them apart from small market teams is that they have the resources to weather those mistakes and pivot, where a small market team may not have the resources to overcome a bad contract or a bad trade. And that's why you haven't seen a small market team win the World Series since the Royals in 2015.

None of the other major sports attempt to recode their owner's reluctance to spend money as a deficiency on the part of the fanbase. Washington is the nation's #8 media market Tampa is #11, and that's ignoring the helpful proximity of #15 Orlando Denver is #17 Miami is #18 Cleveland is #19 Pittsburgh is #27 but doesn't seem to have issues supporting hockey or football. ** Edited by Beerman at 6/2/2026, 4:04:08 PM

...income, via the size of their local TV deal. The NFL doesn't have that issue, because TV is handled collectively and disbursed evenly. So the fanbase, or "market", is much more of an indicator of resources for baseball teams.

It's worth noting that both the MLBPA proposal (90%) as well as the Owner proposal (100%) ask for massively pooling media rights deals. Everyone understands that the gravy train days of local RSN contracts are ending. So that part of it is absolutely coming, cap or not.

it would be exempt from antitrust laws under the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 too. FWIW the NBA and NHL would also be exempt under the Act. Given that those leagues play a lot more regular season games than the NFL, the leagues may not gain any additional revenue by pooling their resources together into only have national contracts.

currently doing can't be sustained for a long period of time without potentially bankrupting the ownership. I believe most of the owners would like to see the next CBA include some form of a salary cap. Whether the players will agree to it or not remains to be seen.

Also, what the Dodgers are doing is likely sustainable (for them) because of how they've positioned themselves in the market and the revenue streams they've cultivated. But what the Dodgers are doing is not necessarily a thing that every other organization can replicate. A salary cap limits spending. Which is one way that smaller owners can maintain the pace. So would, for example, revenue sharing that tied into spending minimums.

question: "Why does MLB want a salary cap? The league is positioning its salary cap stance as the panacea to competitive balance issues. Regardless of some small-market, low-revenue teams' ability to construct some of the best teams in baseball -- the Tampa Bay Rays, Milwaukee Brewers and Cleveland Guardians are perennial winners under the current system -- large-market, big-payroll teams have won the past 10 World Series. Combine that with the dominance of the Los Angeles Dodgers and league polling that shows fans want a cap-and-floor system like the NFL, NBA and NHL, and it has emboldened the league to pursue change, even if the union regards a salary cap as a declaration of war. Multiple owners and high-ranking team officials have told ESPN that stagnating franchise values are every bit as much the motivation for a number of owners as whatever competitive balance a salary cap would ostensibly bring. Perhaps the tepid growth of MLB valuations compared with the other three major men's professional sports is changing -- the San Diego Padres recently fetched $3.9 billion, a record sale for a baseball team -- but owners' calculations are simple: Fixed costs make a business more attractive for prospective buyers. And for organizations that claim to be cash poor, the sale price is paramount to their investment." I found the second paragraph a little more interesting since all owners likely share those same beliefs regardless whether they are a big or small market team.

"And for organizations that claim to be cash poor, the sale price is paramount to their investment." Yep. This is what many of the small market teams are doing. They claim poverty for the running of day-to-day operations while pretending that the appreciative value of the franchise itself doesn't exist. But again, a broader scope of revenue sharing would reduce the difference between the "rich" and the "poor" clubs, such that it wouldn't matter how much the Dodgers bring in from their Japanaese market deals or the Yankees from their merch sales.

...but that would have to come with assurances that that money is being spent on making the team more competitive (i.e. salaries), thus a cap AND floor.

...and the players proposal includes substantial increases in the minimum salaries to the lower end players, which is a defacto floor

revenue sharing, too. The problem is that the Yankees and the Dodgers are never going to give up their local television stream fully, so there will always be a substantial imbalance.

historically the franchise wasn't considered to be a valuable one. Some may even say the new owner overpaid like what you saw happen with the sale of the Astros. A byproduct of the Padres sale is it will make it easier going forward to jack up the value of the "more valuable" organizations and maybe even over inflate the sale price.

It's hard to apply normal economic modelling to such a beast.

Yes. A salary cap is about the owners not trusting each other. It has nothing to do with the players. At all. We, as a nation, do not lack for billionaires desirous of pretty toys. An economic model that could potentially drive out the Bob Nuttings of the world is not an inherently bad thing.

in a row. Baseball is in a good spot not broken don't fix it. As for the Dodgers, some people are just jealous it is the best run sports team of any sport. Other teams spend the money and build your organization.

if you factor in a conversion rate. While the Dodgers' 2026 Competitive Balance Tax (CBT) payroll is $410.8 million. Given the heavy contract deferrals used by the Dodgers, that is why people are saying the strategy isn't sustainable for a long period of time because eventually the owners will have to pay the piper for the borrowed time. Hence why the owners are proposing a salary cap and the players are currently rejecting their proposal. The players realize if they agree to the proposal, then it will mean fewer players will have the opportunity to receive a similar contract (4-year $240million) as what Kyle Tucker received from the Dodgers. I have heard some baseball economist say in interviews that a salary cap could be a way for MLB to correct the market because too many average to above average players have received superstar type contracts when they may not truly deserve it.

The Dodgers aren't just paying for Shohei Ohtani with a credit card. There are contractual requirements about how the money has to be handled to make sure it's really there when it comes due.

to these contracts now and fulfill them when they come to term, things could always change in the future. Particularly if the Dodgers end up with too many bad contracts on the books or the Dodgers overestimate the potential of their various revenue streams. At least people don't think the Dodgers will be able to sustain this business model for 10-20+ years because eventually something will have to give somewhere.

Like with the Mets, Dodgers ownership is wealthy even among their peer owners. "Something will have to give somewhere" is a prediction based on balancing operating costs with immediate revenue. That applies to some teams, certainly to those whose owners don't want to put outside money into the club, but not to all of them.

of the owners, they may not be able to commit all of their finances to franchise. It would depend on how they have their finances structured, any commitments with those investments, and the liquidity of each investment. That was my point.

....and no one actually know any of that. Including pundits who make a living preaching doom.

each of their investments. Also, they should have a pretty good idea on how much of their wealth is liquid in the event they need to move money around their investments. If for some reason they don't know, then their financial advisors will definitely know the answer.

Travel cost is not insignificant either. Sportsball is ultimately a meaningless and trivial affair. And yet, people derive an awful lot of personal identity from their fandom. Divisional rivalries are a big part of that.

Stupid bad call on that Mel Gray TD, grumble. But Dallas, Giants, Eagles and Cardinals always suck. I would have no idea who to despise if it was just one, long conference list. Would it be based on food?

the Commanders or Washington football team was about the most ridiculously gay name change in sports.

I use the former name with trepidation, and understand what it means to some. I just knew the team as that for most of my life and never thought of the word meaning anything else.

that I pray one of them signs Tua and he becomes their starting QB if their starter gets injured.

sales, the NFL owners wanted to make sure they all had the same schedule in terms of home and away games so no team gains a competitive revenue advantage in terms of ticket sales. This mindset goes all the way back to the birth of the NFL. As the league expanded, the owners agreed to limit it just to the divisional games because they determined those games to be the most valuable. While the rotating games with the other divisions in the conference should balance out the home vs. away over time. Likewise, the same logic was applied to the rotating cross-conference games. The only real wild card in the scheduling format are the few games determined based on how the teams finished the previous season. Even though those games may not balance out the home vs. away against specific teams, they should balance out the number of times a team plays those games at home vs. away over a period of time (aka the schedule's complete cycle).