But keep in mind it's primarily aimed at MAGAs who support a salary cap.
For the record, I am adamantly OPPOSED to a salary cap.
I am NOT a...
Just because I am a liberal Democrat who favors a progressive income tax on earnings does not mean I favor a wealth tax on what has already been taxed or putting a ceiling on what a ballplayer, a business owner or a factory worker can earn (so long as that income earned is accomplished legally).
As for MLB, the current Collective Bargaining Agreement has a Competitive Balance Tax (CBT) or "luxury tax." Perhaps that needs adjusting and perhaps penalize teams that don't meet a floor (since they are recipients of the CBT). More sharing of local TV revenue (make it 50-50 per game). The gate should be a 50-50 split. It takes two teams to play a ballgame. And yes, that means the Dodgers and Yankees earn more because they draw bigger crowds and have a bigger TV audience. But teams should keep 100% of their concession and merchandising.
Perhaps give the non-playoff teams (and let's cut down on the amount of them) an extra round of draft picks. Perhaps limit the years a player can be assigned to a AAA club ("options" currently cover a player's career).
And let's have no more "Bobby Bonilla" contracts.
But a salary cap means parity. In theory, it means every team should have an equal chance of winning the World Series every year. But parity also means mediocrity. There's enough of that on the South Side.
No doubt some of you old fogies probably even want to return to the days before free agency when players were BOUND FOR LIFE to the team holding or having been assigned their first contract (i.e. the "Reserve Clause").
That's MORE
thinking!
And I'd wager most of those holding such opinions are MAGAs. Talk about HYPOCRISY!
If those of you in Miami who are ticked and whine that you guys get outspent by us, the Yankees and the Dodgers (and just about everyone else, too) and allegedly can't afford to keep your players despite having the 10th wealthiest BILLIONAIRE owner in MLB, then maybe you shouldn't have been awarded an expansion team in 1993 and instead been satisfied enjoying spring training games.
We had plenty of decades where the team in the biggest market could afford to spend the most on salaries and thereby win the most championships. It's more sporting and interesting to put teams on a more equal salary footing and see what clever strategy and training and good management can achieve.
[Or, alternatively, to be amused by what poor strategy and poor management can regularly fail to achieve, despite spending up to the cap!]
@beckyromero I'm referring to the folks who call themselves "America's Team."
My wife introduced me to football. For many years it appeared to me to mostly be large men pushing each other down, but I began to learn more about the intricacies of the game and to appreciate it on TV. The moneyball aspects of the game are also quite entertaining.
There are two 16-team conferences in the NFL; thus four (out of 32) teams play in conference finals every year. The last time Dallas played in a conference final game was in 1995!
The team with the poorest record gets the #1 draft pick for the next season, and those rookie contracts usually last 3 years. This mechanism, plus the salary cap, should allow teams with bad records to eliminate weaknesses, while teams with top records suffer attrition. Except management weaknesses persist, draft after draft after draft!!
BTW, moneyball has reached college players, who can profit thru "Name, Image, and Likeness" earnings. The top 25 college football players all earned over $2 million/year in 2025 with #1 Texas QB Arch Manning at $6.8 million according to https://www.foxsports.com/stories/college-football/top-25-college-athletes-highest-nil-valuations
The team with the poorest record gets the #1 draft pick for the next season...
That's what the NHL used to do... until New Jersey and Pittsburgh tanked one year, trying to get the #1 pick of Mario Lemieux. Still, it took many years for the league to institute a lottery system to lesson the odds of the worst team automatically getting the #1 pick.
One big difference is that the NFL doesn't have a minor league system and so virtually every player comes from the college ranks. With baseball, while some high schoolers might get drafted (a few, like Hall of Famer Dave Winfield, never even spend a day in the minors), most 18 year old HS graduates as well as college players start their professional career in the minors. While the top picks generally are the best players, a lot can happen in 3 or 4 years in the minors.
Some players even switch sports!
The Kansas City Royals in the mid 1980s might have an outfield consisting of Bo Jackson, Dan Marino and John Elway!
@beckyromero NFL teams start training with 90 players, and cut to a 53 man roster. But they can retain 17 men on their practice squad. There are lots of rules about elevating men from the practice squad to the players roster for a game. It's even possible to grab guys from other teams' squads.
Practice squad players are employees of their specific team but can be signed to the active 53-man roster of any other NFL team at any time. However, a team cannot sign a player from their upcoming opponent's practice squad unless it is at least 6 days before the game (or 10 days if during a bye week).
One big difference is that the NFL doesn't have a minor league system
So the practice squad system acts as a sort of mini minor league pool of players who can be immediately elevated. In addition, with elite college players earning in excess of $1 million/year, they can have 4 years (5 with "red shirting") of a lucrative career without ever entering the NFL. There's also Canadian League football and European league football; really it all adds up to a pretty healthy minor league system.
Capping won't keep the industry from making money. The money will just go to the owners. It does seem unjust that so few make so much. But that is just the sports phenomenon The Entertainment community is in high demand. I'm not sure how to change the values in society.
@beckyromero I believ the argument is over a salary cap -/the idea being that players make too much money where as other noble professions do not. I don't believe salary caps will do anything for society. I am saying that I don't know what would /could raise income in other professions...such as fire dept police dept education
@beckyromero Most of the time I forget it. I just never got used to the idea of needing one.
For thirteen years I lived in the mountains and only needed to used the cellphone for an emergency once. And likely I really didn't even need it then.
There just wasn't any landlines to my place. Hence the need for a cellphone at all.
I sort of lived like a monk without the monastery.
For California the place was as hick as you can get. Heck you needed a 4wd just to get there in the winter, with over a mile of dirt roads.
My brother's place had more modern amenities than mine. And his wife nearly left him just because of the lack. He had a landline. Was far closer to the city. With a paved road not even a ¼ of a mile away.
