Major League Baseball has reached a new labor agreement with its players’ union, ending a three-month lockout and paving the way for the season to start next month.
The tentative deal with the Major League Baseball Players Association still needs to be approved by team owners, a union spokesman said Thursday. Opening Day is scheduled for April 7, a week late, with the league expected to play a full 162-game schedule, ESPN reported.
The deal averts potential disaster for MLB, which was already dealing with the loss of viewers and looking for ways to speed up games that now average more than three hours. Long contests have made baseball a harder sell for a younger generation raised on YouTube videos.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]
The deal is welcome news for television networks including AT&T Inc.’s WarnerMedia, Walt Disney Co.’s ESPN, Fox Corp. and Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc., which carry the games.
The league is also trying to reach cord cutters who don’t get cable TV. On Tuesday, Apple Inc. reached a deal with Major League Baseball to stream Friday night games on its streaming service, marking the iPhone maker’s first major foray into streaming sports.
But the sport will need more ways to reverse the decline in interest even from its loyal fans. Attendance fell to 68.5 million in 2019, the lowest since at least 2006. TV viewership rebounded last year, with viewership for the World Series on Fox rising 20% to nearly 12 million viewers. Still, that was well below the recent peak of 23.4 million in 2016.
Owners locked out the players in early December after their existing employment contract expired. The players’ union said salaries were not keeping up with revenue and sought changes to a system the union said offered big paydays to a handful of star free agents but failed to benefit many others.
On Wednesday, the league said it would cancel more games after two late-night trading sessions failed to reach an agreement.
—With the help of Brian Eckhouse
gb7
Not all news on the site expresses the point of view of the site, but we automatically transmit these news and translate them through programmatic technology on the site and not from a human editor.
