Los Angeles: Major League Baseball and the league players union reached an agreement on a new labor deal on Thursday, paving the way for the start of the 2022 season next month, reports said.
Less than 24 hours after a last-ditch round of marathon negotiations ended in deadlock, the MLB and MLB Players Association have finally settled on a new collective bargaining agreement.
The deal, which must be formally ratified by both sides — expected to be a formality — means the 2022 MLB season will start on April 7.
On Wednesday, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said the new season would not start before April 14 after canceling a further slate of games.
The season had been due to get underway on March 31 but was delayed amid increasingly acrimonious wrangling between teams and players over the terms of a new labor deal.
Under the new agreement, a full 162-game season will be played with the lost first week of games being made up by doubleheaders during the season.
The surprisingly swift resolution of the dispute on Thursday ends a near 100-day lockout that began when the previous labor deal expired in December.
A breakthrough had looked unlikely after a 16-hour round of talks that wrapped up in the early hours of Wednesday morning failed to end the deadlock.
Manfred later claimed teams had gone to 220;extraordinary lengths” to satisfy the demands of the MLBPA.
A report on Major League Baseball’s official website said the new deal was likely to include increased minimum salaries, a new pre-arbitration bonus pool to reward young players, and increases in the league’s luxury tax thresholds.
