The WNBA refuses to admit that the grift is over

In two days, the deadline for the WNBA and the WNBPA to come to terms on a new CBA will be here, and no agreement seems to be in sight.

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It’s November 28. The WNBA’s collective bargaining agreement expired at the end of October, but the deadline for it to actually end was pushed to November 30, a month later, to give the league and the players time to continue to bargain before the seemingly inevitable happens. We’re two days out from that date now, and things aren’t looking great as far as resolutions go.

The WNBA recently made a proposal that generated headlines, with a new maximum salary for players of $1.1 million. That might not sound like much, but remember that players in the W aren’t pulling in what their NBA counterparts are — a $1.1 million maximum salary is a massive jump from the current max of just under $250,000. The problem, as multiple outlets have brought up in the week-plus since this offer, is that the salary the WNBA is offering in this proposal isn’t actually for $1.1 million.

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Thoughts on MLB’s 2025-2026 offseason

Some thoughts on what to look out for this offseason, as MLB and the MLBPA enter the final year of the current collective bargaining agreement.

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A little bit of end-of-season collecting of loose ends here, to start the offseason. We’re entering the final season of the current collective bargaining agreement between MLB and the Players Association, so while there are always trends or happenings to watch out for, that’s even more the case in this scenario — what can be gleaned from the last full offseason before MLB decides to go lockout mode in 13 months?

First, there is going to be a lot of discussion about the Dodgers, and if they are ruining baseball because they spent a ton of money. There is actually some nuance to this discussion — I’ve already seen a whole lot of everything-is-a-nail style arguments about their spending both in terms of those who are against it and those who support it — that is being missed, but here’s where I stand.

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MLBPA’s Tony Clark talks prop bets

The NBA betting scandal and arrests, combined with a wave of MLB’s own in-season issues, has the MLBPA reconsidering prop bets.

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Full disclosure here, but I’m not big on the whole legal sports betting thing, at least not in the way that society has decided to implement it. I love a Las Vegas trip and all, I have an ongoing poker game in my life, and a local casino can be a great time, but those are locations designated specifically for this degenerate [complimentary] activity — being able to bet from anywhere at all times from the supercomputer in your pocket is terrible even for people without gambling issues.

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Notes: WPBL announcements, WNBA CBA battle, Stop Falling For It

A new league makes announcements, WNBA bargaining is getting heated, please stop assuming that the Dodgers will force a salary cap, and more from my recent writing.

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The WPBL announces its first four cities, sort of

The Women’s Pro Baseball League will play its inaugural season in 2026, and used this week where baseball fans are quietly waiting for the World Series to make some announcements. First, the first four cities were selected, and they make a whole lot of sense: New York, Boston, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. All four are historic MLB cities with massive media markets and fan bases, which should give them a built-in edge when it comes to getting attention.

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90s kids remember Bud Selig, George F. Will, and Japanese baseball

Deeper looks at two freelance pieces I wrote this week,

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I had two reasons to dip into the past this week in my freelance writing. At Baseball Prospectus, I wrote about how the present-day Red Sox and Dodgers, at the least, seem open to the idea of Rob Manfred’s centralized broadcast revenue and TV rights plan, which would allow MLB’s revenue-sharing to look more like that of the NFL’s — albeit without a salary cap, since, as has been discussed before, that’s just not likely at least during this round of bargaining, not if the owners want 2028’s broadcast negotiations to pay off as they hope and need them to.

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Notes: Pirates frustration, Mets collapse

The Pirates are a joke even to their players, the Mets collapse isn’t as much of a joke as it seems, and what I’ve been working on around the internet of late.

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Pirates players are as frustrated as their fans

If you’ve ever wondered whether players on a team like the Pirates are as tired of losing as their fans are, well, look no further than a report that published this week. (Though, don’t actually look, as it’s from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the News Guild members of which remain on strike.)

To be fair, you don’t actually need to read the story to get a sense of it, if you know anything about an organization that has lied to the public about their finances and spending capabilities, and straight-up misled its own front office about the available budget. Basically, players are frustrated enough that they spoke, on the record, about their lack of belief in the organization to do what needs to be done. Meaning, to acquire players that can help them be better than they are, which is not a very good team — one wasting the absurd potential of Paul Skenes.

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Notes: Manfred confirms reported broadcast deals, playoffs too big update

Rob Manfred speaks on broadcasting, the playoff picture is still bugging me, and assorted work of mine from around the internet.

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Manfred acknowledges rumored broadcasting deals

Speaking at a Front Office Sports conference Tuesday, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred spoke up about the rumored broadcast deals that the league was working on with the likes of ESPN, NBC, and more. Awful Announcing has the details:

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Notes: Dodgers ruining baseball, Rio Foster, arena rumors

The Dodgers’ attitude toward the regular season is a problem, Arte Moreno needs to open up his considerable wallet, and what’s going on with Bill Chisholm’s arena desire.

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Not like that, though

Baseball Prospectus published a piece on Tuesday, written by Craig Goldstein, that explained how the Dodgers are ruining baseball. Not in the offseason “oh no, a team is spending money!” way that the worst columnists you know latched onto last winter, however.

Goldstein explained that the way the Dodgers treat the regular season — with bored indifference, as a preamble to the postseason they expect to get to as a baseline — is what’s causing problems.

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2025’s playoff races a reminder the postseason is already too big

MLB might want to try for another round of postseason expansion in the next CBA talks, but 2025 has been a reminder of why going bigger than 12 just isn’t going to play well.

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When the current collective bargaining agreement ends after the 2026 season, we’re sure to see a few things happen. For one, MLB is likely to lock the players out while shaking their head back and forth so you know they don’t approve of the action. They will probably demand a salary cap even if they don’t actually expect to get one, as starting there could help land them an even more restrictive luxury tax-style system than is in place.

And they might broach the subject of expanding the postseason even further. Why? Because there would be additional money in it, in the forms of larger and more television deals. At present, 12 teams make the postseason: three division winners in each league, plus another three wild cards apiece. Expanding to 12 was a compromise: before the current CBA was put into place at the end of the 2021-2022 lockout, 10 teams made the postseason, and the owners had demanded 14 during bargaining. They’ll surely shoot for 14 again, especially when they are looking to find ways to increase the value of their next television deals. That subject will come up again after the 2028 campaign, in the middle of the next CBA, so having the expansion in place in advance would do wonders for those talks and their wallets.

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Notes: A’s in Vegas, MiLB attendance, broadcasting

More on the Las Vegas Athletics stadium and future, MiLB attendance has dropped (and a theory for why), and an update on the MLB broadcasting sales.

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The A’s will play in Vegas, sort of

Construction of the new stadium in Las Vegas continues, in the sense mounds of dirt are being moved around and there is some basic infrastructure being constructed there, but as J.C. Bradbury pointed out on Bluesky this week:

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