MLB Owners clearly want all or nothing for rest of 2020

For MLB owners and the MLBPA, here’s the case for having a 2020 season.

To make the argument for MLB wanting to be the only professional sports league operating in 2020, it’s all about that sixty-plus page health and safety protocol.

ESPN’s Jeff Passan goes into exhaustive detail on it here, managing to mix in enough esoteric AP Literature references that my wife actually liked the article despite the handicap of being about sports. Being both a lit major and a baseball junkie, I loved the piece, though I think shoehorning Brobdingnagian into the article was a bit of a shameless flex.

Anyway, the point is that the plan outlined by MLB in that report is overwhelmingly complex and intricate, especially considering that baseball involves the least physical contact of any of America’s five professional sports leagues (you’re welcome soccer fans).

Which begs the question: If this plan is either adopted by MLB and the MLBPA or rejected by the MLBPA because it isn’t safe enough, how in the world do fans end up with any other sports taking place?

Does the NFL become a flag football league? Does the NBA just become the world’s most expensive game of HORSE? Will all of those NHL expanded playoff games be decided by one big shootout?

Maybe enough of baseball’s core components can remain intact with distance measures so that it still largely resembles the game we know. But the no-huddle offense doesn’t mesh with no contact defense, and I’m pretty sure Aaron Gordon has already shown us how much fun a couple of months of a glorified NBA Dunk and Skills Contest will be to watch.

If baseball players get to be that safe, other professional athletes will be fully justified in seeking similar protections. And I’m just not sure those protections translate to any other sport. Yes, NBA and NHL owners have agreed on a plan for what the rest of 2020 will look like. Yes, the NFL has released its schedule and is planning on the season to start as normal. That’s not the same thing as players agreeing to participate in it.

This leaves MLB in the catbird seat as the only live team sport to watch, capitalizing on all that sports thirst revealed by ratings for the NFL Draft and that Jordan doc.  Maybe 2020 still isn’t that profitable. However, this would be the most profitable scenario, with the most promise of winning over new fans that will spend future dollars on future tickets and concessions.