Which Side Budges First?

[Trov]

First off, I hate that the players and owners keep putting their proposals in the media for fans to fight over, because there are no winners for the fans.  We all know there will be a lockout, and the owners want a cap and the players say no way ever. So one side will have to budge.  The owners have already increase the proposed number and giving different things like no more  QO and short time to FA.  Players still say no way ever to a cap, making statement if they agreed the players as a whole would lose out on billions. 

Additionally, the players want the current soft cap they call it, when it really is just a tax limit for teams that want to go over they just have to pay a lot more, to increase, and make basically a floor, that teams that get revenue sharing need to pay the players with it, or it is given up, not sure who gets the money then. Like if say the A's do not spend enough from the revenue sharing, and they do not get to have it, does it just sit in MLB bank account, does it go back to the teams it was taken from, that is not clear from what I have read. 

So who budges first?  Both sides can have a long hold out as the players have a huge war chest, and the owners do not live off the revenue from baseball, but use the "investment" and realize the money when they sell, while making billions off other businesses.  Ultimately, I think the owners could hold out longer than players, mainly the young players that have yet to get their big payday will possibly waste a whole year of earning potential, in a job that you are generally capped to a short number of years to earn.  The lower earning pen guys, back of rotation, bench players that earn around league min will possibly waste a full year of earnings.  Sure, they will most likely be fine, but there will be a whole new crop of players from minors that will be ready to take their jobs when they can. 

The superstar players will always be fine, but will a long stoppage affect the lower rung guys, maybe.  What about the owners though, they have billions from other businesses, but they are business men and women for a reason.  They do not sit on assets and let them lose value.  They do not run businesses to lose money.  Even though they have to sell the team to realize their investment, they still see a loss in value of the team due to long hold out a loss.  Then there is the real money they still need to pay others, that are not the MLB players.  The minor league players still have to get paid, the managers, coaches, front office people, grounds crew, and many other workers and other bills that continue to build up even though games are not played. That money needs to come from somewhere, and normally it comes from earned revenue during the season along with the media deals.

No games, no money coming in, at least not much.  So to pay the people they still have to, they need liquid funds.  Sure the teams will have some on hand, but mostly it will now have to come from liquidating money from their other businesses. Most of these owners do not have that much in cash, but in non-realized stocks.  So to get liquid they either need to sell the stock, or take out loans using the stock as collateral. How much of that are they willing to do before it becomes too much?

I do not know who budges first, but I do think a reasonable compromise is a soft cap, similar to NBA, and not a hard cap like NFL and what owners are proposing.  It is similar to what MLB has now, but with a floor imposed, and owners could still spend over the soft cap to sign their own players, there would just be rules on ability to bring in outside players when over the cap.