SI's Bri Amaranthus and Chris Halicke discuss the rocky start to negotiations between MLB and the Players Association over the economic structure of a hopeful 2020 season.
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00:00 It's been over two months since a pro sport has actually even been played in the United States
00:06 Which is just mind-blowing and shocking
00:09 But if MLB doesn't get started
00:12 Even if the players are justified because of financials are the players going to be the ones that get blamed in your opinion Chris
00:19 Well, there's gonna be blame on both sides
00:22 personally, I
00:24 really think the owners are the ones who are gonna need to just bear down and
00:29 Have to probably take the brunt of whatever
00:32 Financial hit this is going to be just because it's their game. It's their reputation. That's going to suffer the longer
00:41 These negotiations go the NHL on the same day that these first negotiations happened between
00:48 MLB and the Players Association the NHL announced their return to play plans
00:53 And this is a league that has seen three work stoppages under their current commissioner now
00:58 If they can get it figured out
00:59 why can't baseball get it figured out and that's a really really big thing that I think people are going to be looking at is
01:06 We're in the middle of a pandemic
01:08 There are millions and millions of Americans who are unemployed right now and they're watching millionaires and billionaires fight with each other over money
01:14 It's not a good look for the game whatsoever
01:16 It's not a good look and in my opinion
01:19 It's a total missed opportunity when you you mentioned the NHL there if they come back first
01:25 Imagine all of those fringe fans that are now all of a sudden going to be so intrigued because we're all so desperate to watch
01:32 anything
01:33 Exactly and hockey is an action-packed sport even with no fans in attendance. There's a lot of action going on on the ice
01:40 Compare that to baseball with no fans in attendance
01:43 Unless you're a fan of the strategic aspect of baseball that you know
01:49 You might want to go change the channel to go watch hockey
01:52 so baseball needs to take advantage of this opportunity to be the first sport to come back and
01:56 If they can't take advantage of it, it's it's gonna it's gonna hurt the game pretty badly
02:03 You know both in the short term and the long term
02:05 I do think it would be a mistake though for fans to blame players if this does get postponed because
02:12 They're in this situation the workers
02:15 They're not the employers the employers should be the one that take on the risk that take on the liability
02:21 Financially in my opinion. Well, especially since the Oakland Athletics are not going to be paying their minor league players
02:27 $400 a week now just put that into your mind
02:30 $400 a week. They are not going to be paying them at the you know after May 31st now the Miami Marlins said they're gonna
02:37 Be paying them through the end of August and that's great
02:39 That's almost the entirety of what the 2020 season would have been
02:42 But when a team like the Athletics is not going to pay their minor league players when their owner is worth over two billion dollars
02:49 Again, it's a bad bad look for the game. They need to get things figured out and very quickly
02:53 You
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