Media Update | Feb. 12, 2026

Quotes from the Athletic article above (click for access to full article).

Impact on Players

“The salary cap is bad for players at all levels, because it converts the system into a zero-sum game, which is to say a system where every time a player gets paid a dollar, that dollar has to come from another player’s pocket,” (Bruce) Meyer said. “The middle-class players get squeezed because they pay the stars, and everyone else gets basically whatever is left.” (The Athletic)

“You never see salary caps that would pay players more than the aggregate fair-market value — there’s no point to it from the owners’ standpoint,” said Don Fehr, former head of the baseball and hockey unions. (The Athletic)

Guaranteed Contracts

“Today, baseball players are entitled to the salary their agreements call for, regardless of how the industry fares in a given year. A cap would require salary adjustments depending on how much money actually comes in. In some leagues that’s achieved through escrow, putting money aside until the results are in. For the 2024-25 NBA season, players had to effectively give back nearly $500 million amidst declining TV revenues.” (The Athletic)

“MLB players particularly benefited, and the owners suffered, from being outside a cap system a few years ago. When a shortened season was played during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, MLB players fared much better than their counterparts in cap leagues, where a drop in revenues meant player salaries sharply declined.” (The Athletic)

Competitive Balance

“Salary caps in the other sports have not led to competitive balance,” said Bruce Meyer, the deputy director of the union, in an interview with The Athletic. “In fact — baseball, which is the only one of the four major sports that does not have a salary cap — actually has better competitive balance than the other sports. A salary cap punishes competition, punishes clubs that want to go out and acquire the best players and put the most exciting product on the field for the fans. It gives owners who prefer not to compete an all-purpose excuse not to do so.” (The Athletic)

“The problem is not with the teams that are spending money to try and make their teams better,” (Bruce) Meyer said. “The problem is with the teams that are willing to go along and not do everything they can to put the best team on the field, even though they can afford to. That affects fans in many markets, and can be addressed without a salary cap.” (The Athletic)

“I’ve been hearing this competitive balance bulls— for 30 years now,” said Gene Orza, a retired MLBPA lawyer. “It’s nonsense. That’s just a ruse, that’s propaganda, that’s not real. The Yankees won three in a row — ‘competitive balance, competitive balance’ — now the Yankees haven’t won in 17 years.” (The Athletic)

*MLB Playoff Statistics over the last 15 years

• 10 different World Series Champions

• 18 of the 30 Clubs played in the World Series

• 29 of the 30 Clubs had multiple playoff appearances.

Player Share of Revenue

“Last summer, commissioner Rob Manfred said the players’ share was about 47 percent. (Bruce) Meyer countered Wednesday that, “if you include all the compensation paid pursuant to the current major league CBA, the players’ share is comfortably over 50 percent.”(The Athletic)

*2025 Player Share

As Players reviewed at the Executive Board Meeting last November, because we are not in a cap system - there is no “definition” of Player share. That said, if you take all of the compensation under the current Major League CBA, Players’ share of MLB reported revenue in 2025 was approximately 54%.