Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association have been the leading story in all of sports lately. Unfortunately, it is for the wrong reasons as a lockout is going on. It seems as if the owner of a Chicago White Sox division rival is behind a lot of the problems.
The Athletic’s Evan Drellich ($) reported that the Detroit Tigers were one of four Major League Franchises to oppose the MLB luxury tax increasing to 220 million dollars. That is a very interesting development as the lockout has now eaten away at regular-season games.
Tigers owner Chris Ilitch, Bob Castellini of the Cincinnati Reds, Ken Kendrick of the Arizona Diamondbacks, and Arte Moreno of the Los Angeles Angels are the ones behind this opposing of the new luxury tax.
Sources: Angels, Diamondbacks, Reds and Tigers owners opposed MLB luxury tax increase to $220 million. MLB also proposed including player meal money in calculation of luxury tax, which irked players. https://t.co/gBKrqAx9wV
— Evan Drellich (@EvanDrellich) March 4, 2022
Of course, if the luxury tax increases, the big market teams will spend more which will force the smaller teams to spend more as well if they want to compete. That means that these four owners seemingly have no interest in spending enough money to compete in the big leagues.
This is a bit surprising to hear after the offseason that Detroit has had. They have made a few different moves that make their team significantly better and hit the pocketbook a little bit. Why Ilitch would reject this is a complete mystery.
The league has seen its revenue go up over the last ten years but player salaries have actually gone down on average. All the players want is a fair deal but the greedy owners don’t seem to get it and Rob Manfred is doing nothing about it.
The Chicago White Sox and Detroit Tigers running the AL Central would be awesome.
Yes, as White Sox fans, it would be nice to see the Tigers not spend a lot of money so that they don’t even come close to threatening them for the top of the division. However, the game of baseball is what’s most important right now.
Ilitch is starting to look like one of the faces of the 2021-22 lockout ($) which is a tough thing for the sport. If the White Sox and Tigers were able to battle it out for the division year after year because both franchises run their business the right way, both would thrive financially. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like anyone in power sees it that way.