Cord Cutting Will Hurt Major League Baseball

It has been 22 years since Major League Baseball last dealt with a labor stoppage. National and local TV deals have surged through the roof. Teams are fetching astronomical sale prices. Player salaries have soared to record highs . All told, MLB is now a $10 billion industry.

Money's flowing even more heavily into the NBA and NFL. Three years ago, the Clippers sold for $2 billion. In March, the soon-to-be Las Vegas Raiders unveiled plans for a $1.9 billion stadium . Middle-of-the-road players are fetching gigantic contracts . Like MLB, the NBA and NFL can also be measured in 11 figures. While both the NBA and NFL experienced labor strife just six years ago, a tidal wave of cash has lifted all boats since then.

Enjoy it while it lasts.

As the recent layoffs at ESPN showed, the current economics of sports are unsustainable. Cable subscribers are dwindling every day, creating cash crunches for even the biggest media behemoths. Those shortfalls at ESPN and elsewhere have thrown the careers of hundreds of talented and hardworking writers, editors, broadcasters and producers into chaos.

None of those layoffs would seem to affect tunnel-visioned fans, who for now still get to watch their favorite leagues and teams, without fear of interruption. But that could soon change. If a sports cable network buying TV rights leads to bad outcomes for the shareholders of its parent company, that network will be less inclined to bid for those rights next time around. If bidders start backing down, teams will end up with less money in their war chests. If that happens, teams could go back to the same approach they've adopted many times in pro sports history: Try to take money out of players' pockets. And if that happens, years of labor peace could evaporate, and the games that sports fans have come to expect might get thrown aside over money disputes.