Jamie Nye: MLB owners risking more than just 2020 season with bad offer

Major League Baseball is an interesting case study in the give and take between owners and players to get back to work amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The owners claim they’ll take significant losses and have most recently asked players to take tremendous pay cuts of well over half of salaries for the top-paid players, even though the owners want to play 82 games — which is just over 50 per cent of a typical baseball season.

But don’t forget who takes the risk when it comes to health during a pandemic. The players take all the health risk and now are being asked to take a huge financial cut.

While the NHL and NBA were almost done their seasons and the players got most of their pay, MLB was just about to get started.

The negotiations are ugly right now and the time is running out for a 2020 season.

But the owners need to think about 2021 and beyond. If they’re going to tell their fans, many who have lost their jobs, that they aren’t playing — not because of COVID-19 but because of greed — it’s going to be a hard sell for fans to give a dime next season.