Chicago Cubs Strike Of 1981

It all started before the 1981 Strike, since 1973 players and owners have been battling with work stoppage. The players evidently did not want anything from the owners, the owners were provoking the strike, a strike to break the players union, because of free agent compensation. The strike the owners provoked started in February of 1980. There were 26 arbitration hearings and the players won 15 of them. Chicago Cubs pitcher was awarded the most significant amount of 700,000, compared the Cubs offer of 350,000. On March 18th of 1980, the owners withdrew their salary scale proposal, but retained their demand for professional player compensation for free agent signings. Fast forward to July of 1981. During the first 48 days of the strike, 17 negotiating

For 50 days play was stopped which equaled 712 games. Since the players went on strike against the owners, Major League Baseball lost an estimated 146 million dollars in player salaries, ticket sales, and broadcast, and merchandise revenue. All this money was lost because the owners mainly provoked the players to go on strike because the issue wasn’t just high salaries, it was freedom, so the owners got what they deserved. For every MLB club through the 1981 season, their attendance dropped drastically. The 1981 strike resulted in the loss of 717 regular season games (34% of the total), but the strike was resolved before the postseason so these games were not lost in 1981. Perhaps due to this fact, MLB suffered no let down in attendance in the following year unlike after the 1994 strike. The loss of 34% of games in 1981 should result in income losses of $53.8 million per host city. A crazy thing is since the 1981 season was cut in half because of the strike, the Cincinatti Reds and the St. Louis Cardinals both failed to make the playoffs. They both failed to place first in either of baseball’s strike-induced “half-seasons” finishing a close second, even though respectively, they owned the first and third best records in the Majors. The 1981 season was lost financially for every Major League ball club because of their

Free Agent compensation is compensation for the loss of free agents which has been an issue since the free agent era began in 1976. In 1981 the statistical ranking system that was established, was scrapped for the current agreement, that began in the 2012-2013 season, of qualifying offers. Qualifying offers; “a team would be entitled to draft pick compensation if a player left as a free agent after failing to accept a one year contract for the average salary among the 125 highest-paid players (17.2 million in 2016) and the signing club would lose a top pick.” A player pool was formed to compensate teams losing free agents, a settlement that came upon because of the 1981 strike. Because of the compromise, MLB clubs that lost ranking free agents, received professional players as compensation as well as an amateur draft choice. The owners fought for compensation and when the players and owners agreed on a compromise. There was a compromise reached between both sides because everyone in baseball just wanted the game back because money was going away and fans were getting upset. The negotiations were so bitter that when a compromise was finally reached between both sides, Players Association representative Marvin Miller and the owners' negotiator Ray Grebey refused to pose with each other for the traditional "peace ceremony"