Los Angeles Dodgers celebrating the National League Champion trophy. The trophy was awarded to the Dodgers after defeating the Milwaukee Brewers 5-1. Photo courtesy of @dodgers on Instagram

Baseball is staring down the barrel of one of the biggest crises not only in MLB history, but in the history of North American professional sports.  

And, like almost any major problem in the world, it all comes down to big-time money.  

The major four North American leagues, the NHL, MLB, NFL and NBA, function differently in terms of salary and contract rules with the most notable constant of three of those leagues being a salary cap, creating rules on how much a team can spend on player contracts.  

The NHL has a hard cap, while the NBA and NFL allow for more flexibility.  

The MLB is the only one with no cap at all. 

This has caused a monetary imbalance for a long time now. The New York Yankees, Los Angeles Dodgers, Toronto Blue Jays and other teams have consistently been the highest spenders.  

It’s impossible to fully guarantee a championship in any sport, no matter how much you spend. Although with good management, it’s certainly possible to buy a better chance.  

The Dodgers have done just that. Their ownership has allocated so much money into winning right now, trading for and extending any and everybody that makes even a semblance of sense and overall building a roster that should make them unstoppable for years to come. 

The 2024 World Series champions are looking just as unstoppable now, because despite some major injury and bullpen concerns, the Dodgers will be playing in the Fall Classic Friday for the second straight year.  

The Dodgers entered the year with the highest total payroll, while their opponents, the Blue Jays, came in at fifth. And LA’s opponent last year was the Yankees, who have their own history of spending rampantly and seeing success, even causing the luxury tax to exist to try and deter teams from overspending.

On the other side are the cheap teams who won’t spend more money. 

The bottom spenders will frequently grow talent from their farm system, until their contracts become too expensive, then they trade them to a richer team for a haul of prospects, creating an ongoing cycle. 

For most teams, this results in very little success, whereas any playoff run will be followed up by the roster being blown up almost immediately after.

National League Champion trophy held up by Los Angeles Dodgers. The trophy was awarded to the Dodgers after defeating the Milwaukee Brewers 5-1. Photo courtesy of @dodgers on Instagram

Even for the teams that do this and have found ways to consistently compete, like the Brewers, it rarely leads to a title. Despite five NL Central titles and seven playoff berths over the last eight years, Milwaukee has only seen two series wins in that time.  

The thing is these owners who refuse to spend more still want to succeed. Ticket sales come from success, so the cheaper owners find it unfair that other owners can spend so much more.  

The NLCS this year featured the Dodgers and Brewers; two teams built off opposite spending habits.  

ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported that the winner of this series would provide a crucial argument for the owners or the MLBPA in Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) negotiations, as the CBA expires on Dec. 1, 2026. 

The CBA is an agreement between the MLB Players’ Association (MLBPA) and the MLB that allows either side to propose changes to rules on and off the field. If there is a disagreement, one side could hold out on agreeing to a new CBA.  

No CBA means no baseball.  

The specific topic of the upcoming CBA discussions will center around the salary cap. 

The owners want a salary cap so they don’t need to spend as much money, while they can become more competitive and earn more revenue. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred has taken the owners’ side on this. 

However, The MLBPA does not want a cap, as the current state of the league is seeing an exponential uptick in salary. A cap would hamper this, meaning less money for the players.  

The reason this series mattered is that if the Brewers were to win, it could serve as proof that the lesser-spending teams can still win, helping the players’ case. But if the Dodgers were to win, it would be yet another example of the big spending team beating the small spenders, giving owners a strong argument for a salary cap. 

Not only did the Dodgers win the NLCS, but they swept the Brewers, and it wasn’t particularly close.  

The Blue Jays being the Dodgers’ opponent fuels the fire even more, as the Jays also have a top five payroll. 

With so much money on the line, both sides will be looking to do almost anything to get their way.  

If the NHL’s 04-05 season, which was canceled entirely due to a lockout over this exact issue, says anything, it’s that the MLBPA will likely care more about the money than they will about playing baseball.  

It’s tough to see a hard cap as tight as the one the NHL has being implemented in a league like the MLB where contracts are rising so quickly, but the indication of a partial or full season lockout is not misguided. 

Whether or not this is all irrelevant remains to be seen. It is entirely possible that both sides find a middle ground at any point in time. But all the signs right now point towards a problem, one that may take a lot of time to fix.