"The winner of the National League Championship Series could determine if Major League Baseball is played in 2027. This might sound far-fetched. It is not. What looks like a best-of-seven baseball series, which starts Monday as the Milwaukee Brewers host the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 1, will play out as a proxy of the coming labor war between MLB and the MLB Players Association."
"Owners across the game want a salary cap -- and if the Dodgers, with their record $500 million-plus payroll, win back-to-back World Series, it would only embolden the league's push to regulate salaries. The Brewers, consistently a bottom-third payroll team, emerging triumphant would serve as the latest evidence that winners can germinate even in the game's smallest markets and that the failures of other low-revenue teams have less to do with spending than execution."
"But in between is not where the two parties stake out their negotiating positions in what many expect to be a brutal fight to determine the future of the game's economics. And that is why whoever comes out victorious likely will be used as a cudgel when formal negotiations begin next spring for a collective bargaining agreement that expires Dec. 1, 2026."
The National League Championship Series outcome could influence labor negotiations and the future of Major League Baseball's economic rules. Owners favor a salary cap and would be emboldened by consecutive Dodgers championships given Los Angeles's $500 million-plus payroll. A Brewers victory, despite bottom-third payroll status, would support the argument that small-market teams can win through execution rather than high spending. Negotiation stances are expected to harden ahead of a collective bargaining agreement that expires Dec. 1, 2026. MLB is expected to lock out players at the agreement's expiration, and teams will use the Series outcome as leverage.
Read at ESPN.com
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