No context, no truth. And there is only one context here: while the NFL institutionalized the salary cap as the backbone of its economic model three decades ago, making it “the new king of American sports,” in the MLB, that debate still reeks of gunpowder. And of hypocrisy, thus losing not only the crown baseball once held, but something much deeper.
In a recent meeting between players and the commissioner’s office, Bryce Harper, the Phillies’ star first baseman, didn’t hold back and expelled MLB commissioner Rob Manfred from the dugout, as reported by ESPN’s Jeff Passan.
The verbal outburst wasn’t accidental. Nor was it new, although the leak of this news is certainly new. But it was the echo of a story that the MLB has tried to silence since 1994, when a failed attempt to impose a salary cap ended with the cancellation of the World Series. The only time that’s happened in more than a century.
MLB: A Luxury Without Limits (and With Consequences)
Unlike its sister leagues in the United States—the NFL, NBA, and NHL—American professional baseball has never imposed a formal salary cap. It tried, but failed. Since 1997, it has applied a “luxury tax,” a fine to teams that exceed certain thresholds. A system closer to aesthetic punishment than real control. A simulation of fairness.
History is unforgiving. In 1975, the Seitz ruling blew up the reserve clause and gave rise to free agency. Since then, players have defended their contractual freedom as if it were a constitutional right. And with good reason. Every attempt to limit their income—such as the massive collusion between owners in the 1980s or the famous 1994-95 lockout—has ended in conflict.
The 1994 strike was the climax: 948 canceled games, a vanished World Series, and a union rift that never fully healed. The union won. The cap died before it was born. And since then, MLB has been walking between two waters: market freedom for players, but obscene inequality between franchises. And this is the real context, but one that no one tells you, of why franchises impose sabermetrics over the talent of players, managers, and coaches. Although you may not believe it, here is an essential relationship to understand the whole picture.
NFL: The Success of Imposing Caps
Meanwhile, the NFL implemented a real salary cap since 1994. And not just any cap. One that is directly linked to the league’s gross revenue, audited, negotiated, and rewritten every few years. The result? A brutal parity. Small-market teams win Super Bowls, like the Denver Broncos of the 1990s. Seasons are unpredictable. And players, although limited by their contracts, receive a fixed and transparent slice of the pie.
The NFL has done things right in the front offices, distributing the money in better portions for everyone, in addition to having involved African Americans in the sport. More fans, more business: it’s simple.
The only labor crisis in the cap era was the 2011 lockout. It lasted 18 weeks, not a single game was missed. It was a short circuit, not a fire.
Today, the NFL is the most profitable and stable professional league in the United States. And it’s not because of its morality, because it has its shady dealings like any large corporation or big business. But it is the best because collective bargaining agreements oblige each player to abide by the rules. There are limits. But there are also certainties.
What is the MLB really afraid of?
Every time a commissioner, an owner, or a columnist proposes revisiting the salary cap in MLB, the union reacts as if it were 1994. And they’re partly right. But the underlying question isn’t whether there should be a cap. It’s a more uncomfortable one:
Why has the MLB failed for three decades to distribute its revenue equitably without imposing a cap?
Because it doesn’t want to.
Mechanisms like the luxury tax and revenue sharing were designed to contain inequality. But in practice, the Yankees, Mets, and Dodgers continue to compete with war-sized budgets, while the A’s and Marlins juggle triple-A salaries. “Free competition” exists only on paper. And in television contracts that prioritize market size—small markets over large ones—which creates unfair competition in a business (MLB) that has stopped growing compared to other sports, this is the sad truth of baseball. It’s still a multi-billion-dollar industry, of course, but it’s in decline and has a terrifying long-term outlook.
Harper, who fiercely represents the players, knows this. So does Manfred. The union doesn’t fear the cap because it creates inequality. It fears it because it would formalize it. And the owners don’t insist on imposing it for fear of another strike. But the reality is clear: the current system benefits those who already have power, and allows them to operate without real controls.
What now?
The current CBA (Collective Bargaining Agreement) expires after the 2026 season. Everything indicates that the discussion will return. The inequality between franchises is unsustainable, revenue is not distributed equitably, and some owners are already pushing to reopen the debate.
But beware: if the salary cap returns disguised as fairness, without a credible revenue audit, without respect for free agency, and without eliminating tax cheating between franchises, it will just be a new face of the same old deception.
The problem isn’t the cap. It’s the lack of clear rules. MLB doesn’t need a straitjacket. It needs transparency.
Harper, with his vehemence, isn’t defending his paycheck. He’s warning that the league can’t sustain itself on such an asymmetrical structure without exploding from within. Again.
Because as we’ve already said, without context there is no truth. And the context screams: either reform the system… or repeat 1994.
The MLB model is shaken by the Trump Administration’s new taxes
Major League Baseball has never implemented a formal salary cap. What it has is a “Competitive Balance Tax” (CBT) system, a fancy way of calling an excess tax. In theory, the CBT penalizes those who spend too much. In practice, it’s a punishment that some teams gladly pay… and others with resignation.
The thresholds for 2025, set by the current CBA (2022–2026), are clear:
Base cap: $241 million
First additional threshold: $261 million
Second: $281 million
Third: $301 million
But if you’re a fan of the Yankees, Dodgers, or Mets, those numbers are merely warnings. In 2024, nine franchises violated the base threshold, resulting in a record tax collection of more than $309 million. The Dodgers alone contributed $103 million to the sports treasury. An act of fiscal patronage, rather than restraint.
The MLBPA—the most militant union in American sports—considers this system a kind of hidden cap. They don’t say it quietly: “the luxury tax isn’t progressive, it’s coercive,” it has been said in internal meetings.
Even worse: the tax becomes more aggressive for repeat offenses. Increasing fines of up to 50% on the excess, plus tiered surcharges that reach 60% if certain consecutive thresholds are crossed.
And as in any regime without real control, the result is predictable: more inequality, more tension, more conflict.
Today, the same cap-free model faces a similar scenario. But with more money at stake. And more inequality than ever. And if we understand the fiscal deficit that the United States government resembles, then we will understand many things.
NFL: Cap with a Scalpel, Stability with a Scalpel
While the MLB insists that disorder is freedom, even though it’s really “libertinism,” the NFL designed a surgical model: a salary cap that is updated every year, directly linked to total revenue.
Competitive balance, fiscal control, job stability. It seems easy, but it cost a war. That same war that the MLB has been avoiding until the model collapsed, and that is the danger of “killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.”
In 2025, the NFL salary cap will reach $279.2 million per team. Some, like the Patriots and the Lions, have more than $45 million in available room to strengthen in free agency.
And it’s not a rigid system: there are adjustments called smoothing, which allow the cap to be raised or softened based on variations in revenue. Financial intelligence, not creative accounting.
A model that limits without impoverishing
The NFL cap doesn’t prevent players from being paid well. It just prevents some teams from behaving like Arab emirates in a small-town market. Parity. Predictability. Logic.
Unlike MLB, where one franchise can spend five times more than another without direct sporting consequences, in the NFL no one can break the bank without breaking the rules.
And it shows: Jacksonville and Kansas City can fight as equals. Cleveland and San Francisco can share the same dream. This isn’t about romantic justice. It’s about financial architecture.
Is uncontrolled spending freedom?
The MLB defends its cap-free model as a symbol of freedom. But the context tells a different story: it’s an unequal, unbalanced freedom, and one that’s permanently at risk of breaking down. In other words, a freedom that generates cases translates into debauchery.
The looming question for 2026 isn’t whether there will be a cap in the MLB. It’s whether the league can survive without one, while the gap between rich and poor grows, and the union prepares for battle.
Because, as we always say: without context, there is no truth. And the current context is this: either the MLB changes its rules, or it will once again play with fire.
Who buys talent, who develops it, and who loses it?
The true measure of a system is not what it allows, but what it prevents. And in that sense, the free agent market is the most brutal mirror of every league.
In the MLB, free agents operate under a logic of free competition… on paper. But the reality is different: the freedom to negotiate is conditioned by the purchasing power of a few franchises. The result: the best talents always rotate among the same teams. The Yankees, Dodgers, Mets, Padres, and, most recently, the Phillies account for more than 70% of multi-year contracts exceeding $150 million.
There are no rules against spending. But there are systemic conditions that prevent competition. Teams like Oakland, Pittsburgh, and Kansas City are unable to access the elite market. Not because of mismanagement, but because of an uneven financial architecture.
The luxury tax, far from mitigating these excesses, has become a simple “luxury toll.” Some teams gladly pay it. Others don’t even reach the minimum payroll limit. And the players know it. Today, a free agent doesn’t just evaluate salary, but the club’s economic ecosystem.
The question is awkward: how many teams have a real chance of signing Shohei Ohtani, Juan Soto, or Gerrit Cole in the same winter?
In the NFL, the salary cap doesn’t eliminate competition for free agents, but it forces us to think in terms of equations, not checkbooks. Each contract must be measured based on its overall impact on the cap. That’s why practices such as prorated signing bonuses, void years, restructurings, and performance clauses exist. Creativity is the key, not the size of the purse.
Teams with good cap management—like the Eagles, Chiefs, or 49ers—manage to maintain competitive cores without upsetting the financial balance. And that creates something the MLB doesn’t have: an illusion of opportunity for all.
The star receiver can sign with Detroit. The defensive lineman can end up in Atlanta. Anything is possible, because the cap establishes a level playing field. Or at least, a fairer one.
And what do the studies say? Performance, efficiency, and competitiveness
Several academic studies have attempted to answer whether salary caps are efficient for the spectacle and economics of sports. There is no complete consensus, but there is a clear trend:
🔹 A study from the University of Pennsylvania (Wharton) concluded that in the NFL, the cap does not reduce individual quality, but it does improve collective efficiency: “teams that manage the cap well achieve more wins per dollar invested.”
🔹 Researchers from Illinois Wesleyan College determined that the NBA and NFL have greater vertical mobility of smaller teams to the final stages, while in MLB, the concentration of championships and postseason appearances has remained stagnant among the same 10 franchises since 2000.
🔹 The report “Competitive Parity and Economic Design,” published in The Journal of Sports Economics, reveals that the NFL has achieved a significantly lower Gini index (sports inequality) over the past 20 years than MLB, which translates into a greater variety of finishers and winners.
🔹 Even a Forbes SportsMoney report points out that the NFL salary cap increases the value of small franchises because the redistributive model increases financial predictability, favoring local investments, regional sponsorships, and stadium renovations.
Can you compete without spending? It depends on the league
In the NFL, the answer is yes: you can reach the Super Bowl with $60 million worth of key players… if you plan well. In MLB, no. Competing without spending today is a statistical exception (Tampa Bay Rays, Cleveland Guardians) that confirms the rule of structural privilege.
The Rays can win 90 games with $70 million. But they can’t retain their stars. Every free agent they develop ends up in New York or Los Angeles. Because baseball rewards capital, not efficiency.
More than contracts, what’s at stake is the model
The discussion about salary caps isn’t moral. It’s structural. It’s not about deciding who deserves to earn more. It’s about ensuring that more can earn.
The NFL system demonstrates that a cap doesn’t kill the spectacle. It redistributes it. The MLB model, on the other hand, concentrates it. In franchises. In contracts. In bank accounts.
And when the CBA renegotiation comes in 2026, the discussion won’t just be about a salary cap. It will be about whether MLB can sustain its freedom without sacrificing its sporting legitimacy.
The context tells us this: if the playing field isn’t leveled, sport becomes a financial aristocracy. And baseball, just another currency. And remember, if we talk about the economy, everything devalues.
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