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Labor deal to cut A’s revenue-sharing funds
- Updated: December 3, 2016
OAKLAND — Baseball’s new collective bargaining agreement will have significant monetary implications on the A’s, who should be further motivated to build a new ballpark after learning of the deal’s terms.
As part of the labor agreement, the details of which were officially revealed on Friday, the A’s will be phased out of the league’s revenue-sharing plan over the next four years. Their share of these annual dollars, worth more than $30 million last year, will be cut to 75 percent in 2017, 50 percent in ’18 and 25 percent in ’19, before it’s gone completely in ’20.
That’s no small chunk of change for the A’s, who in recent years have relied on this pool of money — redistributed income from richer teams to poorer teams as part of a competitive-balance measure — to make up more than one-third of their payroll.
The A’s, despite playing in a large market, have been included in the program only because of their aging stadium, and MLB’s decision to incrementally eliminate them from receiving these funds stresses the urgency for a new ballpark and, perhaps, forces the team’s hand.
New A’s president Dave Kaval acknowledged as much Friday, first in a statement that read, “The new CBA again highlights the importance of getting a new ballpark built in Oakland. A new ballpark will allow for the most competitive level of play on the field. We are laser-focused on making that happen as quickly as we can.”
Kaval also fielded questions on a conference call, the majority of which sought answers not just about the organization’s …
