Every professional sports league in the United States has some sort of Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) between league owners and the league’s players association. But what is a CBA? 

According to Oxford Handbooks, a CBA is an agreement that covers a wide range of terms and conditions, including draft rules, free agency, salaries, luxury tax and more. CBAs are the reason most lockouts begin and it has been a long time since Major League Baseball (MLB) has been in a lockout, though other leagues have recently been in lockouts themselves. 

The National Football League (NFL) and National Basketball Association (NBA) both had lockouts in 2011, with the NFL’s ending before the beginning of the 2011 season and the NBA’s ending in December of 2011, two months after the normal start of the season. Prior to the strikes of 2011, the National Hockey League (NHL) had a strike during the 2004-05 season, causing a complete cancellation of the season. As for the MLB, prior to 2021 the last strike occurred during the end of the 1994 season, which caused the cancellation of over 900 regular season games and the entire 1994 playoffs.

The MLB is currently in its second lockout in the modern era with the lockout starting on December 2, 2021. The MLB’s former bargaining agreement ended at 11:59 p.m. on December 1, and the Owners and the Players Association (MLBPA) could not reach an agreement before that time, causing the lockout to begin. Since the beginning of the lockout there have been no bargaining sessions between the MLBPA and the league owners, going over a month without any back and forth. According to CBS Sports, the two sides will meet for the first time on Thursday, January 13, with the hope to make progress toward a new long term agreement. 

The current executive director of the MLBPA is Anthony Christopher Clark, a former MLB player of 15 years who has served as the executive director since 2013. Clark works closely with high ranking members of the MLB like Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Max Scherzer, Oakland Athletics infielder Elvis Andrus, St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Andrew Miller and recently retired infielder Daniel Murphy to voice the opinions of all players. Clark and the other members mentioned above will act primarily as the voice of the MLB players, likely with a few other, at this time, unknown players to discuss with the owners of all 30 MLB what should and should not be in the new CBA.