MLB and MiLB are spending money to avoid spending money

In order to avoid having to pay minor league players more money, those involved in the business of Major and Minor League Baseball are making donations to members of Congress.

A very interesting coincidence has just taken place in the United States Congress in regard to minor league baseball and federal labor laws. The expense undertaken by MLB and MiLB to influence members of Congress could be about to pay off.

According to Mike DeBonis of The Washington Post, a new spending bill in Congress could include a provision that would exempt minor league baseball teams from federal minimum wage and overtime laws. If it becomes law, it would be a significant victory for MLB and MiLB in an on-going dispute over how much minor league baseball players should be paid.

One such dispute is currently in litigation before the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Former MiLB player Garrett Broshius alleges in the suit that minor league baseball teams are in violation of federal minimum wage and overtime laws. Similar suits have been dismissed in the past citing MLB’s broad antitrust exemption and MiLB’s use of an exemption that exists in federal laws for migratory and seasonal workers.

If this provision is included in the federal spending bill, it would spell doom for Broshius’ and other lawsuits. It would codify explicitly an exemption for MiLB that would be nearly unchallengeable. While players could still challenge MiLB’s compliance with local and/or state minimum wage and overtime laws, the effects of such lawsuits even if successful would be very localized. The hope of broad, industry-wide reformation being mandated by courts would largely be lost.

That’s the exact result that MLB and MiLB have been seeking, and they have used their checkbooks to try to reach that end. MLB spent over a million dollars last year to try to influence members of Congress to be friendly to their desires.

That activity wasn’t isolated to 2017, either. So far in 2018, spending by the political action committee National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues has enriched the coffers of two members of the United States House of Representatives and one member of the United States Senate. One of those members of Congress is Brent Guthrie (R-Ky., 2nd district). Guthrie was a co-sponsor of the 2016 “Save America’s Pastime Act”, an earlier attempt to codify a similar exemption which failed.

Over the entire time that MLB and MiLB have been spending money on lobbying Congress and fighting lawsuits, the amount that they have spent amounts to millions of dollars. The question begs to be asked, at what point would it actually represent a savings for MLB and MiLB to reach a more equitable agreement with players as compared to continuing this fight in the courts and lobby members of Congress?

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It seems spending money in that way is preferable to compensating minor league players with that same money and that both MLB and MiLB are more committed to this dispute on principal than cost. Perhaps the better question to ask is, is victory at all costs what MLB and MiLB are looking for?