Reacts: MLB fans side with players over owners

Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across MLB. Each week, we send out questions to the most plugged in Giants fans, and fans across the country. Sign up here to join Reacts.

There’s still hope that the 2020 MLB season will happen, and that we’ll get to watch San Francisco Giants games this season. But that hope is fading, as MLB owners and players stand very far apart on one key issue: money. Players want their full salary, prorated to however many games they play. Owners want players to take a paycut to make up for the loss of live gate, as games will be played without fans.

And those very fans are also a little conflicted, according to the latest SB Nation’s Reacts survey.

The majority of baseball fans who responded — 66% — said they are on the player side of negotiations. On top of that, only 22% say players are being unreasonable in their requests, as opposed to 36% who said the same about owners.

While fans side with the labor, they’re also okay with the players giving up some money to find a compromise.

When asked what was a reasonable amount of money for the players to give up, 54% of responders said they would be fine with players giving up at least 30% of their normal contract, of which 29% said they would be ok with 40% of the contract being given up.

While pay is the biggest issue, time is quickly becoming an obstacle as well. Under the initial MLB proposal, teams would be getting ready to start Spring Training within the next week or two, and beginning baseball in July. They’ll need to come to an agreement very quickly if they want to keep that timeline.

Still, fans are decently optimistic, with 58% of those polled thinking the league will still start by early July – a drop from 69% three weeks ago. That timeline would allow at least an 80-game season.

At the same time, the majority of fans believe players will need two to three weeks to get ready for the start of the season. Which would mean both sides would need to come to an agreement and get back to work in roughly the next week.

For now, both sides appear far from an agreement. All we can do is hope they find a fair agreement so that we can have baseball this year.

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