The number to watch in the Los Angeles Angels’ offseason planning isn’t a roster stat or a payroll figure. It’s 60.
That’s the threshold Evan Drellich and Andrew Marchand of The Athletic point to as the number of games that could be lost if the coming lockout drags on. If at least 60 games are wiped out, most of MLB’s national broadcast contracts would be extended for another year.
That kind of delay would matter for everyone in the sport, but especially for a club like the Angels, who already have plenty of next-year decisions to sort through and now have to do it with a lockout looming over everything. The situation gets even murkier with a new ownership group coming in, because the team’s direction on this issue is still unclear.
The real pressure point is money. The owners are looking at the possibility of pushing back a big payday, while the league’s media future hangs in the balance. The NBA has set $7 billion per year as the benchmark MLB should be chasing with its next big media deals, with the NFL’s $11 billion-a-year figure sitting there as the lofty target.
There is, however, one bit of protection baked into the current setup: the owners would still get paid even if no games are played in 2027.
Of course, the idea that a room full of billionaires will patiently stand together and wait for that payoff is hard to buy. The source of the standoff is familiar enough - the owners pushing for a salary cap, only to back off once games and revenue start disappearing.
The players are expected to give as well, though in a different way. The lower end of the pay scale, the “low-level” millionaires, would feel the strain of lost games most sharply, and the MLBPA would likely start trimming concessions in search of a deal.
For the Angels, the key question is where the new ownership group lands. Arte Moreno was described as a hawk who badly wanted a cap. Stan Kroenke’s position, though, remains unknown.
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Angels Ownership Twist Could Keep John Mozeliak In Charge
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Angels Face One Offseason Test They Cant Afford To Flunk
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With new ownership in place, the offseason now carries a real test of whether the organization can finally address a problem that has become too familiar. The discussion is less about finding one quick fix than building a group that can handle leverage situations without turning every close game into a nightly scramble, and the pressure to get it right is obvious. [Read more 🡒]