Salary Reductions in Professional Sports
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the sports world has been put on hold. This, like much of the world around it, has halted due to this world-wide crisis. This has changed the sports landscape for years to come. With all sports suspending or canceling their seasons—including the NBA and Major League Baseball, with the NBA nearing the playoffs as their league suspension began, and the MLB pausing the season in the middle of spring training, everything is up in the air…including the salaries of players in both sports.
Both the NBA and MLB have doomsday provisions in their respective collective bargaining agreements. This provision will reduce salaries for players currently under contract for the 2020 season and possibly beyond. This provision will reduce all salaries in the NBA by 25 percent beginning on May 14. The NBA season began its suspension on March 12 and up to this point have paid all players in full. There have been questions of the fairness of this provision, with star athletes losing money and affecting future salaries of players, but also reducing revenues for franchises and the league as a whole since the league will have lost two months worth of revenue by May 14.
This doomsday provision is fair in all professional sports, as players are responsible for signing these contracts with these emergency circumstances. NBA players have spoken out in support of the reduction of salaries, including players all across the league such as Zion Williamson, Chris Paul and Lebron James, all making sure that the franchises employees are paid in full during this hiatus. This seems to be more important to these professionals as the consensus is that all players are making millions of dollars regardless, even those on minimum salaries. The minimum salary for a veteran player in the NBA is 2.3 million dollars as of the 2019-2020 season, even these players will continue to make over 1.5 million for the 2019-2020 season. The same remains the same for players on rookie contracts as well, still making upwards of a million dollars. Zion Williamson is currently on his rookie contract—being the number one overall pick in the 2019 NBA draft, he will make more money than any other rookie; however, even if he decided to give back to his organization by donating part of his salary to the New Orleans Pelicans employees.. the team he plays for.
The same remains similar for Major League Baseball. Although there have not been specific instructions as of yet from the MLB league office about the percentage of reduced salaries, given that Major League Baseball is trying to save their 162-game schedule. This will be tricky, as it is hard to continue baseball through November or December, but it is being discussed. The minimum level contract for a player in the MLB is less than that of an NBA player, as there are over twice as many players in the MLB as the NBA. The MLB still consists of a minimum salary for players at about 500,000 dollars…give or take. Even with a reduced salary, players can still expect to make hundreds of thousands of dollars at the very least, depending on the contract of the player. I would say that is plenty fair for an athlete given that they are not playing at all during this pandemic. There have been so many people across the United States who have lost their jobs who did not have the opportunity to play sports or be an employee of a sports franchise or organization. Ultimately, the owners of these franchises are responsible for these reduced salaries and quite frankly, no one is complaining…nor should they.
The culprit is still out on this problem for other professional sports… most notably the NFL. The NFL did host its NFL draft on time on Apr. 23, but it is yet to be seen how this pandemic will affect its players for the 2020-2021 season. The NFL has a 53-man roster per team but also more revenue than any other sport in the United States. The end result for the NFL concerning this is yet to be seen but we can assume that the result would be similar to other major sports, if not in a way better position come this fall. Only time will tell but one thing remains certain—players will receive fair salaries under each collective bargaining agreement. A larger story and one that could be discussed further in the near future is the lack of refunds fans are getting in Major League Baseball before the regular season has even begun. But, that is another story for another time.