Major League Baseball's owners and players put the NBA and NFL to shame on Tuesday as they signed a new labor agreement before the current deal even expired. While the NBA considers the possibility of losing the 2011-12 season, the new MLB CBA guarantees labor peace for an unprecedented 21 years dating back to the 1994-95 strike.
The new CBA features a variety of tweaks to the existing system that will attempt to improve competitive balance, while also preventing teams from taking advantage of the system. The San Francisco Giants are not drastically impacted by the new CBA, but the Oakland A's could very well feel the impact in good and bad ways.
The new CBA includes an intriguing "Competitive Balance Lottery", which will provide teams with the lowest revenues and in the smallest markets with the chance to obtain additional amateur draft picks and apparently have the ability to deal them away. Teams currently cannot trade any of their draft picks, which differs from the other three major North American sports.
The A's could be negatively impacted by a new market disqualification test that could prevent teams in large markets from receiving revenue sharing. This is something that would take some time to kick in, with 2017 being a target date. The Oakland A's are a team that is low revenue, but technically still in a major market given the size of the Bay Area. They find themselves battling and losing to the Giants when it comes to revenue in the Bay Area. Part of this comes from the lack of a new stadium, which continues to remain a struggle for the A's.
There are signs some kind of resolution could happen before the start of the 2012 season. Given that the LA Dodgers mess is being resolved and this new CBA is finished up, Bud Selig is running out of excuses for not dealing with the A's current stadium situation. Time is running out and something needs to be done.