Threats Of A Lockout In The MLB Hark Back To A Different Era

Sports fans in their early 20s likely don’t really know what a sports lockout is. Over the last two decades, the United States’ major sports leagues have managed to mostly avoid strikes and lockouts. And where they have taken place, they’ve mostly had little to no impact on game schedules.

This is because teams, players, and league commissioners have a lot riding on ensuring that the show goes on and industrial action of any kind puts all of that in jeopardy.

The NFL makes around $16 billion of revenue each year, but much of that could be put at risk if a lockout were to prevent it from running an entire season.

However, in addition to a potential cancellation of Winter Meetings, a lockout in Major League Baseball could begin before the end of the year due to the collective bargaining agreement ending.

These agreements are used to ensure fairness among the way players are paid, ensuring a minimum wage for every single one signed to an MLB team. Typically, a player is paid at least the minimum for the first three years of a contract, with the rate for the following three years agreed on through arbitration.

The MLB hasn’t faced a lockout since the 1990s, with its last one forcing the 1994 World Series to be cancelled. But at the time, it wasn’t just professional baseball enduring industrial disputes.

NHL Lockouts

The NHL has had four lockouts in its history. The first took place in 1992, postponing 30 games. The next happened in 1994-95, resulting in the shortening of the regular season, but the worst occurred a decade later.

The entire 2004-05 NHL season was cancelled due to a lockout. It began on September 16 2004 after a collective bargaining agreement that was reached after the 1994-95 lockout expired.

It lasted just over 10 months and resulted in 1,230 games going unplayed. It also saw the cancellation of the Stanley Cup for the first time since 1919.

Running for nearly a year, the NHL lockout was a boon to other sports. The Canadian Football League saw huge increases in game attendance and TV ratings, as did the NBA, NFL, and MLB.

On top of that, the lockout is credited with helping to increase the popularity of online poker. With empty spaces on their networks, TV broadcasters began airing coverage of the World Series of Poker during prime slots. After being exposed to the sport for the first time, many of these fans then headed online to have a go themselves. Many turned to poker freerolls to play online since these allowed them to take part in tournaments without having to spend any money of their own.

NFL Lockouts

The NFL has seen six strikes and lockouts during its history. The first was in 1968 and the second in 1974 however, neither had much of an impact on the season as they took place before games were scheduled.

In 1982 and 1987, two NFL strikes saw seasons shortened to nine and 15 games per team respectively. Both were due to disputes around collective bargaining.

A similar lockout occurred in 2011, but it happened during the off-season, resulting in no change to the league’s schedule.

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1990s NBA Lockouts

The NBA has had four lockouts in its history. Three of them occurred in the 1990s, with the first beginning in 1995.

The 1995 lockout began after the NBA Finals were concluded and was settled before the start of the 1995-96 season. The following year, the 1996 NBA lockout lasted less than a day.

However, the 1998-99 NBA lockout lasted more than half a year, forcing the regular season to be shortened to just 50 games per team. The effect of this lockout saw ticket sales drop for the following few seasons, prompting most major leagues to try hard to avoid this type of thing happening in the future.

Unfortunately, another lockout occurred in the NBA in 2011, though it wasn’t as long and didn’t have as big of an impact on the league.