Baseball fans are soaking up the last month of the regular season and getting excited for the playoffs, but the idea that this could be the last MLB action for a while lingers in many minds.
MLB and the players union, the Major League Baseball Players Association, will have to ratify a new collective bargaining agreement before next season, and with contentious issues like a potential salary cap in the balance, it’s very possible the 2027 could start late — or even be canceled entirely.
Labor attorney Catherine Burgett of the firm FBT Gibbons recently told Dodgers Nation in an exclusive interview that while fans aren’t at the table, they are still stakeholders in these negotiations, and their wants and needs could play a big role in determining how much of the season is missed.
There’s a lot of support for the owners’ salary cap
That issue of a salary cap — and likely, a salary floor — is something that has broad fan support.
According to a survey by The Athletic earlier this year, roughly three quarters of baseball fans either somewhat or strongly agree that the difference between payrolls for MLB teams creates an unfair fight.
Fans, especially those of smaller market teams, want the cap-and-floor system to both rein in spending by the wealthiest teams and to force owners to spend more on their players.
That concept may seem a bit foreign to Dodgers fans — after all, the Dodgers have one of the highest payrolls in the sport — but for fans of the teams from whom the Boys in Blue and other big spenders sign talent, it’s got support because those fanbases have been heartbroken so many times.
For a recent example, look at the newly signed star pitcher Tarik Skubal.
The Tigers would likely lose him in free agency after this season, so they traded him away to the Dodgers when they still had the chance, sending a beloved player across the country.
“They get players, they fall in love with their players, they support their players for five or six years, and then they lose their players, right? To LA — not solely to LA — but they lose those players,” Burgett said. “So it is hard to build a team. It is hard to build that franchise. It is hard to build the loyal fan base because people get frustrated with it.”
While the owners’ plan for a cap has fan support, that feeling is likely to wane as time goes on, Burgett explained.
Citing the “collective trauma that baseball fans have from 1994,” when the postseason and World Series were canceled due to a strike, Burgett noted that popular opinion will turn against the side most believe to be keeping ball from being played.
In this instance, she believes “the players get leverage” as time goes on.
“Nobody wants to see Opening Day postponed,” she said. “Nobody wants to imagine another year without a World Series, and so that leverage can change the closer you get to something that matters more to the other side. In this case, the owners wanting to make sure that next season is uninterrupted.”
A strike or lockout could cost more than just baseball games
If there is a work stoppage, more than just a few games are at risk.
The sport is experiencing a renewed popularity this season, with viewership up as much as 40% for nationally televised games.
Baseball isn’t the only sport growing, though. So, too, is soccer, especially after the 2026 World Cup, and there’s a chance that if baseball isn’t being played, those sports fans may find a new fascination.
“Each side has to be thinking about that,” she said.
It’s part of the bigger picture calculation that can sometimes get lost in negotiations like these.
Those at the table may be hyper focused on the salary cap or another key issue, the length and timing of the free agency period, but it could be a case of missing the forest for the trees.
“I think people can become entrenched in their ideas,” Burgett explained. “They can become entrenched in what they believe and what they know, and lose sight of the bigger picture, or lose sight of ideas that are there that could solve the problems that everybody has. And I think both sides would would be well advised to not lose sight of the big picture and try to think creatively about how to solve the problems and keep people playing baseball.”
If both the union and the owners take their eye off that big picture, it could be devastating for the sport.
“It really depends on what happens between now and December, and how people are going to to feel about it, how it gets portrayed, what kind of moves get made,” she said, “but there there is a very real risk of not only eroding the relationship between the parties, the players and ownership, which is an important relationship to maintain, but eroding relationships between owners and their markets and players and their fans.”
