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The story
In an anonymous survey of more than 20 active major leaguers conducted by ESPN, players fired back hard against collective bargaining agreement (CBA) negotiations and the proposed salary cap, with some going as far as “I won’t play if it’s introduced.” Players reportedly fear that even proposals that look favorable at first would see their share whittled down with each round of renegotiation, turning the cap into a tool for owners to control payroll. Reports have also surfaced of a possible delayed 2027 Opening Day due to a lockout. On 5ch, some praised the union as “solid and healthy,” while the discussion expanded into debates over revenue-sharing and MLB’s declining viewership.
Sports Nippon [Sep 3, 2026, 07:12 JST]
The U.S. sports network ESPN’s digital edition reported on the 2nd (3rd JST) the results of an anonymous survey of more than 20 active major leaguers on collective bargaining agreement (CBA) negotiations, the salary cap, and the possibility of a 2027 lockout.
On the salary cap, players fired back with hardline opposition — “zero chance,” “I won’t play if it’s introduced,” and more. Players are wary that even if an initial proposal looks favorable, subsequent renegotiations would gradually shrink their share of revenue, turning it into a tool for owners to control payroll costs. Some said that even if their own earnings would go up, they wouldn’t accept it if it hurt players as a whole.
Source: sponichi.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Japanese baseball's revenue is chump change by comparison — MLB's a whole different animal.
The revenue's so massive that of course labor is going to demand more of it back. Even now, players probably aren't even getting half of total revenue.
So you mean there's a penalty if you go under the salary floor?
They take local broadcast rights money from the rich teams and redistribute it to the poor ones, so every team can easily afford the floor amount. Honestly, the teams claiming to be "broke" are just letting the money vanish into the owner's pocket — most of them could already afford to pay more.
Pretty much — a lot of teams are getting caught in the crossfire because of the Dodgers.
Might as well just end it.
↓Nikkei article below
Dodgers games:
Japanese viewers ＞＞＞＞ American viewers
https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXZQODH288DU0Y5A820C2000000/
> Regular-season Dodgers games draw only a few hundred thousand viewers.
> In other words, people living in the U.S. have far fewer chances to see Ohtani play than viewers in Japan do.
Then how can they even afford to pay salaries like that?
Revenue-sharing payouts currently come out of the existing "luxury tax."
The worry is that under a salary cap, those payouts would end up smaller than what the current luxury tax provides.
Nope, that's not it lol
Revenue sharing is funded mainly by national broadcast rights money and sales from MLB.tv, which the league runs directly — the luxury tax is just added on top, it's not the main source.
The new idea is to grow the pool further by also pulling in the huge local broadcast rights money that teams like the Dodgers and Yankees have.
In a closed league, you can't let a huge talent/wealth gap develop between teams — that's the whole point.
The NFL and NBA both have salary caps too.
The NFL's is the strictest.
What MLB is trying to bring in is actually on the looser end.
From a sports-business standpoint, having both a salary cap and a salary floor is necessary.
The New York Times exposed that MLB's huge salaries are basically funded by cable money from people who don't even watch baseball — totally out of line with the sport's actual popularity.
This right here.
Key points from the New York Times MLB article:
① The average baseball viewer is 57 years old. Factor in radio listeners and it gets even scarier.
② The trick behind the huge salaries: cable subscribers are effectively forced to pay for baseball whether they like it or not.
③ MLB pockets that massive cable money from people who don't even watch the sport — it doesn't reflect real popularity.
④ On top of that, once the younger generation of cord-cutters takes over, MLB's revenue model collapses.
⑤ The average American 10-year-old thinks Jorge Soler, the 2021 World Series MVP, is a local city councilman.
⑥ Little League registrations have been cut in half over 15 years in parts of the U.S.
⑦ There you have it — baseball's decline, plain as day. Nationalizing it might be the only way to avoid extinction.
Exactly this. That last punchline — the irony — got a laugh out of me.
It's all just for the money, right?
Maybe only the Japanese guys still play for love of the game.
Isn't MLB infield defense basically built on guys practicing it like it's just for fun?
Ah, so you're the one paying Ohtani's salary.
That's because the ratings are good among the "elite class" (a sarcastic term for privileged/upper-crust citizens), compared to ordinary people.
Whether it's a hard cap or soft cap and the exact terms vary by league, but honestly, a sports fan who doesn't know what a salary cap even is is pretty rare these days lol
What a salary cap system is:
In a professional sports league, it's a mechanism that limits the total amount each team can pay out in player salaries.
Main goals and effects:
Competitive balance: Prevents big-market teams or teams with wealthy parent companies from monopolizing star players, creating a fair environment where every team has a shot at winning.
Financial health: Prevents teams from pouring unlimited money into player salaries and running into financial trouble, boosting the sustainability of the league as a whole.
Hardly any Japanese people know what that is lol
Only sports-watching nerds know that one.
Don't go acting like your own ignorance isn't the issue here lol
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
MLB has never had a strict payroll cap like the NFL or NBA. Instead, it has softened competitive imbalance through a “luxury tax” on teams that exceed a set payroll threshold, plus a revenue-sharing system funded by broadcast rights and other income. The current CBA runs through the end of the 2026 season, and there’s precedent for worry here: the 2021-22 offseason lockout ran 99 days and delayed Opening Day, so this report of a possible 2027 delay is being read as a sign of history repeating. In the thread, opinions split over whether revenue sharing is funded by the luxury tax or by local broadcast rights money, and over whether the players’ push for a bigger share or the wariness toward a system that raises the burden on big-spending teams has more merit. It’s worth noting this ESPN survey was anonymous with a limited sample of just over 20 respondents, so it shouldn’t be read as representing the consensus of all players. Separately, the “decline of baseball” argument attributed to the New York Times runs on a different track from the core salary cap debate, with broader skepticism about MLB’s business model itself surfacing alongside it in the thread.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Geinou/Sports Sokuhou+) thread “[Baseball] MLB players fiercely oppose salary cap — “Won’t play if introduced,” 2027 Opening Day delay also predicted.”
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