MLBPA director Bruce Meyer refutes MLB suggestion that TV blackouts are players’ fault

As Major League Baseball continues its media blitz against the players’ union ahead of what is expected to be a fraught and potentially lengthy lockout following the current season, one of the league’s claims isn’t exactly passing muster.

After publicly disclosing its first proposal to the MLBPA back in May, the league has gone to great lengths to equate two separate issues: its proposed salary cap/floor structure and local TV blackouts. MLB’s initial proposal implements the cap/floor system while also introducing fully equivalent media-revenue sharing among its 30 clubs.

As we explained in the days following MLB’s proposal, those issues are connected from a league standpoint. Owners of big-spending teams like the Dodgers, Yankees, and Mets stand to benefit most from implementing a salary cap. It eliminates the arms-race component of attracting top players and will keep payrolls in check long-term.

A salary cap, however, does little to help small-market teams. In fact, those with the lowest payrolls will spend more on their rosters because of the salary floor. So how does the league align the big spenders and the penny-pinchers on this issue? By implementing equal revenue sharing on media earnings alongside the salary cap/floor proposal. It’s a wealth transfer from the richest clubs, which stand to benefit most from a salary cap, to the poorest clubs, which will see their costs rise under the proposed system.

What does this have to do with TV blackouts? As part of the league’s public relations campaign to gin up support for the cap/floor system, MLB has tied implementing a salary cap to eliminating TV blackouts. The suggestion is that the only way MLB could eliminate blackouts is by implementing a salary cap.

This, however, is a complete farce. Blackouts directly reflect the media deals the league and its teams have struck with their broadcast partners. Regional sports networks (and now streamers) will pay a premium for exclusivity, which is only possible with blackouts. Similarly, national networks will pay a premium to ensure the games they air aren’t also available on regional sports networks, which would cannibalize their audience.

In other words, blackouts exist only because the league and its teams want to make more money. It has nothing to do with the players objecting to a salary cap.

And in a recent interview with Foul Territory, MLBPA executive director Bruce Meyer said exactly that.

“Blackouts are one hundred percent something the league has agreed to with network partners.”@MLBPA Interim Executive Director Bruce Meyer explains why it’s unfair for MLB to suggest that the blame for blackouts falls on the PA. pic.twitter.com/3DOBVxacut

— Foul Territory (@FoulTerritoryTV) September 16, 2026

“Nobody likes blackouts, but blackouts is 100% something the league has agreed to with its network partners,” Meyer said. “The Players Association had nothing to do with that. They could end blackouts whenever they want. And again, we’ve proposed to allow them to share more revenues, including media revenues, which might facilitate that. But for them to kind of either blame it on us somehow, the players, or suggest that, like, ‘Hey, if you give us the salary cap, we’re going to get rid of these blackouts,’ I mean, it’s really transparent trying to hold that over the heads of the fans. [MLPBA] has nothing to do with it.”

The league’s suggestion is rather ridiculous on its face. After all, it’s not the players that negotiate the TV deals; it’s the league and its teams. They set the terms, not the players.

So as much as MLB would like to leverage eliminating blackouts as something that is only possible with the implementation of the salary cap to win favor in the court of public opinion, the fact is that the future of blackouts is entirely within the league’s hands, not the players’.