Despite MLB's six-year, $2.5B TV deal with Fox beginning
next season, there have been "questions about a possible"
lockout in 2002, according to ESPN.com's Peter Gammons. But
one team president said, "I don't think there will be a labor
shutdown in 2002, no matter what cold war rhetoric there is
right now. There might be a signing freeze for a while, but
the players will get their money. But there won't be a
lockout because of all the new ballparks and the Fox money.
I think most everyone realizes that the revenue disparity is
about owners versus owners, and to shut down the industry to
try to get the players to help them out is a pipe dream.
This is not the NBA. The baseball players are not basketball
players, and there is no comparison between the union
leadership of the two sports." Gammons wrote that another
"reason to believe" there will not be lockout in 2002 is that
the MLB All-Star Game that year "is scheduled to be played"
in Milwaukee (ESPN.com, 10/28). BUSINESS WEEK's Mark Hyman
asked MLB Commissioner Bud Selig, "To fix the disparity
issue, when do you move from persuasion to coercion?" Selig
said, "Shortly. I've spent enough time establishing all the
facts" (BUSINESS WEEK, 11/6 issue).
