Players union pushes back on perverse MLB ad campaign as sides try to win over fans

PHILADELPHIA — The bosses of Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association spoke Tuesday and expressed belief the game is doing well — which is about where their agreement ended.A chief disagreement: Both suggest fans are on their side, and MLB’s effort to ensure support has not been appreciated by the union.To win fan support, MLB launched a “Level the Playing Field” advertising campaign that has become inescapable, particularly on its TV network.The league says it is responding to fan concerns about competitive balance by attempting to overhaul the economic system and install a salary cap and floor — which players are fighting — in the next collective bargaining agreement.“I have watched over the last few years the owners, the commissioner’s office, try to convince fans — the consumers of their product — that the product is broken,” Bruce Meyer, the interim executive director of the MLBPA, said at a gathering with reporters before the All-Star Game.

“Trying to convince fans and the world that, you know what, you are going to these games in record numbers, including small-market teams that have actually been at the forefront of increases in attendance — and instead, the league, the supposed stewards of the game, has spent an inordinate amount of time trying to convince those same fans that they don’t have hope, or they shouldn’t have hope.“… I think it’s perverse.”The league argues it is reflecting a view heard overwhelmingly from fans.“We’re listening to our fans,” commissioner Rob Manfred said in a separate Q&A with reporters.“What our fans in a number of our markets are telling us — better than half of them — is there’s a lack of competitive balance in the game and everything we propose is directed at addressing that fan concern.”At the heart of the labor fight is ownership’s assertion that small-market teams lack a fair chance to succeed, and the players’ arguments that payroll does not g...