00:00Major League Baseball yesterday did do a little bit of movement on the potential for us to play
00:08baseball. We talked about this about a week and a half ago before the World Series where
00:14Major League Baseball is entering into the free agency period. How in the hell do you sign a
00:23player to a free agent deal if you don't know what the cap or what the floor is going to
00:30be for the
00:32next five seasons? You can't do it. You can't negotiate. So it stagnates the entire market.
00:39Or you get a team that says, make me, right? I got the money. I'm going to sign these guys.
00:47Make me not sign him. Make me not honor the contract. We'll go to court and we'll fight
00:54this because I signed the contract before you came up with this arbitrary number of 275 million or
01:01whatever the hell number it's going to be from a cap perspective. So baseball yesterday said,
01:06okay, hold on. Since free agency is here and the bargaining agreement doesn't expire until December,
01:14so we have a month of free agency negotiations. So I don't really know what we're going to do with
01:19these contracts. What if we just say, okay, timeout, let's pause it. We're going to pause that salary
01:25cap for one year and we're not going to implement it until 2028. Now there are other parts of the
01:32deal
01:32that they're going to implement for next year. There are certain things that are there, but the fact
01:38that the owners appear willing to back off on the salary cap for 2028, at least we have a negotiation
01:47starting point. Okay. If you remember the things I was being told by people who are in the new in
01:54the
01:54know about major league baseball, there was a real thought that major league baseball was going to wind
02:00up not even talking until they started to lose games in April. Meaning teams have been telling their
02:08employees, we're not going to spring training. So don't book stuff. Don't plan on things like don't
02:14plan on being in Florida or Arizona in February. Like it's just not going to happen, but this might be
02:20a little bit of a different world now. Okay. This might be different. We might wind up seeing the
02:26owners slow play this and say, Hey, we're going to slowly implement this. Now, again, the players might
02:34say, no, like through hell or high water, we are not going to allow you to put a cap in
02:39ever. So
02:4028, 29, 30, 55, we don't care what year you put this thing into place. We're never going to agree
02:46to a salary cap, but at least the owners are not drawing a line in the sand and saying it's
02:52this way
02:53or no way. At least they are implementing saying, Hey, we understand that if you sign these players,
02:58you can sign a free agent to a one-year deal and we won't put that salary cap restriction until
03:042028. That's when it's going to kick on. If you're willing to go to 28, maybe you're willing
03:09to go to 29. Maybe you're willing to have some type of slow play to implement this. And then you
03:15can negotiate what the number will be when ultimately the salary cap does come into play
03:20and lock in. It also brings into question how long this bargaining agreement is going to go for
03:27five, 10, however many years they're going to have this where there's not going to be labor
03:31unrest. So it's a little bit of good news. I'm not saying it's really good news, but it's a little
03:37bit of good news that the owners are willing to push back the salary cap to 2028. It doesn't mean
03:44the lockout's not coming in December. It doesn't mean we're not going to miss baseball. It doesn't mean
03:48we're going to fix the labor dispute, but it does show at least a little bit on the owner's side
03:54that they're willing to be somewhat kind of reasonable because free agency is open right
04:02now in major league baseball. And there is no way to sign a player for 28 or sorry for 27
04:07rather
04:07without knowing what's going to happen from a cap perspective, 27, 28, 29 going forward. So we'll see
04:14if that gets sides to the negotiating table. If we have some level of conversation, we might,
04:20we might not. I hope we do. I don't know if we're going to, but I hope that that does
04:24wind up happening.
04:25So that is some good news in terms of how things are going.
