It has now been 76 days since Major League Baseball was supposed to start, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to start anytime soon. In April, Baseball Commissioner, Rob Manfred, proposed a plan to the MLBPA (Major League Baseball Player Association) where all players would go to Arizona and would play at stadiums around the Phoenix area. They would stay in hotels where players, coaches, and staff would be monitored 24/7. 

Players were split about the proposal; some were okay with the plan, while others, not so much. In an interview with the Today Show,  First Basemen, Ryan Zimmerman, was asked about his opinion on the proposal. He said, “We want to play; we want to give people something to watch on TV; people love sports. But you’ve got to consider the human element. Maybe pump the brakes a little bit. Maybe this wasn’t supposed to be leaked yet. I don’t know if we’re at the point to set this sort of thing up yet.” Shortly after this was said, most players voted against the proposal. 

The MLB owners will have a meeting in the coming months about what they need to do about paying the players’ salaries. Some of the money cuts that they would be making would go something like this: a player that is supposed to make 1 million dollars this year would instead make $434,000. Now, 12 players were projected to make 35 million or more, and they would make 7.84 million dollars instead. Here is an example of why coaches are making such a drastic change in how much money the players are making. The Orioles made 256 million dollars last year and had a payroll of $80,814,882. Since the pandemic started, the Orioles are already losing a total of 77 percent in sales, merchandise, etc. The reason why teams around the league are asking to take about 30.8 percent away from their salaries is to be able to pay everyone on the staff in the organization. This example is just the Orioles who are under budget in payroll and annual money, but a team like the Yankees would have a massive drop in how much they would be making from a regular season. 

Now, here comes the real question: why did the Commissioner and owners reject a 114 game season when they could profit a good amount in some sales? Instead, they want to have a season of 50 regular-season games and then jump into the playoffs. In the long run, baseball cannot afford to not have a season this year. In a recent survey made by Gallup, baseball is ranked third in popularity. If the MLB Player’s Association and the team owners are not careful, baseball will start to fade and football and basketball may take over as America’s favorite past time.