MLB’s salary proposal will not fix the league’s non-competitive balance problems.

After years of decline, Major League Baseball is finally growing in popularity again. Especially with younger fans, who are attracted to the game by the fast pace of play, and a group of historic stars like Shohei Ohtani, Bobby Witt Jr., and Aaron Judge.

Ratings are high throughout the game. League-wide attendance has steadily increased, with some teams seeing significant growth as early as 2026. All this momentum, however, may be lost after the 2026 season. How? With extended lockout.

Negotiations between the league’s owners and the MLB Players Association have begun, and predictably, they are already contentious. The players, who are sensitive to the income gap between the big market teams and the small market teams, suggested that the sharing of funds to be distributed from the rich teams has been less successful.

Any team that does not reach $150 million in player wages will be penalized. Domestic television revenue will be dynamically redistributed, while a high percentage of revenue from home stadiums will remain with the teams. Basically, the more you win, the more fans buy tickets, the more money there is to keep.

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The owners, of course, balked. Their proposal set a total salary of $245.3 million, and a salary floor of $171.2 million. Sounds good, right? The floor is higher than the level of the proposed player penalty, and the limit will affect only six teams this year. Fans, especially of small market teams, are very happy. Redistribute television revenues and suppress consumption. Surely, that would allow teams that spend less money to compete, right?

“Our limited salary and floor proposal levels the playing field while sharing baseball’s revenue with the players 50/50 as we grow the game together,” MLB spokesman Glen Caplin said in a statement. “Furthermore, by sharing media revenue equally as part of our proposal, we can address some of the concerns of top supporters of the local TV blackout.”

Well, it turns out, that ownership proposal includes all kinds of fringe benefits in their “cap,” and pre-arbitration bonus pools. As MLBPA CEO Bruce Meyer explained this week, the owners would take “billions of dollars” in the 50/50 split first, and player salaries would be severely depressed under the arrangement.

“It’s not even a real 50%. It takes billions of dollars up before they propose to share any of that,” Meyer said. “The player share under their proposal will decrease. The player share for this season, for 2026, is expected to be more than 50%…If the MLB proposal were to be implemented in 2026, we estimate that the players would lose more than half a billion dollars.”

Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred speaks to the media before the game between the Milwaukee Brewers and the San Francisco Giants at American Family Field in Milwaukee, Wis., on May 25, 2023. (Stacy Revere/Getty Images)

Here’s the problem with salaries, fans rush to take the ownership side, thinking the cap will “fix” the game. Owners don’t care about competitive balance. Many use baseball teams as a real estate development, and don’t count the money that comes from baseball spending. The Atlanta Braves, for example, own The Battery, a shopping and dining complex near Truist Park. They own it, they generate revenue, and they don’t count it on their baseball team’s bottom line.

Those developments are not without a baseball team there that will draw millions of fans, but the revenue will be taken out on a 50/50 split, to full ownership, just because it’s outside the stadium gates. That $245 million cap and $171 million floor includes more than $23 million in player benefits. And the rookie bonus pools total around $20 million per team.

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So the team’s payroll would go to around $205 million, and the floor would drop to $128 million. It is a way for owners to reduce spending, not to narrow the perceived competitive gap. As Meyer explained, the league’s current system allows any team to use whatever they want. If they choose not to, cheap owners and other supporters then point to income inequality as “evidence” of competitive balance problems. Although that salary difference is entirely up to them.

Every team has the ability to put a competitive team on the field, every team,” he said. “One of the things that I find strange in a perverse way, if team X decides that we’re not going to spend money on players, that increases income inequality.”

The Miami Marlins spent $74 million on player payroll this year. The argument from fans and owners is that the Marlins will spend more money under the cap system, due to increased revenue sharing. Except the Marlins are already getting about $70-75 million in profit sharing. If a player-led proposal gives them more money than the Dodgers or Yankees, why wouldn’t they just spend up to $125 million in salary anyway?

Obviously, Marlins ownership doesn’t care about winning a few more games a year. They invest in long-term fans by showing a commitment to putting a quality product on the field. They are investing in the development of “Miami Live!” That’s a new dining and entertainment district coming up next door.

Or, as the 2025 press release explained, “…an innovative entertainment development at LoanDepot Park to enhance the state-of-the-art ballpark experience. The development will include outdoor dining and recreation areas intended to inspire the community and elevate the fan experience…”

That’s the real goal. The way the Marlins act is as part of a real estate investment based on the “entertainment district.” Or, more commonly, the mall. All of that Miami Live revenue will go to the team’s ownership, with no requirement that it be used to develop the program. Or that mall wouldn’t exist without a million people a year paying in one way or another to watch the Marlins play.

We also have evidence that the more teams win, the higher the attendance. The Blue Jays made the World Series in 2025, one title short. Their attendance per game so far has increased by 12,366 fans per game. Seattle topped 6,500 fans per game after reaching Game 7 of the ALCS. Milwaukee added more than 3,200 fans per game. Win more, do more. It’s that simple.

All of this is to correct a non-existent competitive balance gap that ignores actual reality and historical data. The Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets have spent nearly the same amount of money over the past five seasons, including 2026. $ 1.752 billion compared to 1.751 billion. However, the Dodgers beat New York with 67 wins in that period. LA’s collective winning percentage is .622, compared to the Mets’ .527. The problem is not money, it’s using it wisely.

MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred looks on before game one of the National League Wild Card Series between the San Diego Padres and the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field in Chicago, Ill., on Sept. 30, 2025. (Michael Reaves/Getty Images)

The Angels play in the second-largest media market, have spent more than a billion dollars on player payroll over the past five years, and have combined to be nearly 100 games under .500 in that span. Milwaukee had the best record in baseball last year, despite the lowest accumulated payroll. The Guardians are generally one of the cheapest teams in baseball, yet they have won three of the last four division titles and are on track for a fourth in five years. Yes, the Dodgers won the World Series in 2024 and 2025, but it was just two years ago that they were called “chokers” because the unorganized nature of baseball’s postseason meant they didn’t always win.

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The lesson the fans have taken from this is that owners should be allowed to spend less money on players to close the gap in competitive balance that cannot be fixed anyway. If the cap is $200 million or $250 million, the Dodgers will be at the limit. If the floor is $100 million or $128 million, the Rangers, Marlins, and Pirates will be below. The best players will move to LA, where they have a better chance of consistent success and off-field sales revenue. The Pirates will still cry under reports that they are the most profitable organization in MLB.

Fans should support winning and trying to win, not improving the franchise’s values. That’s what the owners are counting on.