Prior to Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred implementing a 60-game regular season, team owners and the Players Association were at odds over an economic plan for several weeks.
The union wouldn’t budge on accepting further pay cuts after the two sides agreed in March that players would receive full prorated salaries during a 2020 season that was very clearly going to be shortened.
Team owners argued that such was only possible if fans were able to attend games. And though that prospect remains unlikely, MLB is deferring to local governments to make the decision.
The Texas Rangers and Houston Astros are two clubs that once were thought to be in position to permit fans to attend games at some point this season. Gov. Greg Abbott recently said there was a path for teams in his state to allow 50% capacity.
Los Angeles Dodgers president and CEO Stan Kasten isn’t worried that some teams may gain an advantage over others by allowing fans to attend games, via Jorge Castillo of the L.A. Times:
“That has been discussed and I think the thinking is: ‘Look there are differences in markets all the time, right?’ ” Kasten said. “And who knows better than us? We have more media money than other markets to use an example. So, I’m just not going to worry about those kinds of things this year.”
Texas did experience a surge in coronavirus (COVID-19) cases, and it invariably had an effect Abbott’s plan.
As for the Dodgers, chances are they won’t be able to play games at Dodger Stadium in front of fans this season.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has maintained his stance that sporting and other events within the state were unlikely to have fans this year, unless a vaccine is in place. He only went so far as to previously forecast the beginning of June for when games in empty stadiums could resume.
That’s a blow to the Dodgers, who annually lead the league in attendance. The club set a franchise record last season with 3,974,309 (49,066 average) in attendance for 81 home games, which included 28 sellouts.
It broke the record set during the 2018 season, when Game 163 brought attendance to 3,857,500.
Dodgers excelling with cutouts
The Dodgers are among the teams that began provided fans with an opportunity to purchase a cardboard cutout that is placed in select locations at Dodger Stadium. Proceeds benefit the L.A. Dodgers Foundation and the program fared well enough to the point it was expanded to cutouts of dogs and cats.
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