Everyone who follows baseball at all knows that a lockout is coming after 2026. MLB and league owners have essentially confirmed that at every opportunity, and the players have been busy fortifying their position ahead of what is likely to be a brutal labor fight and stoppage. What we haven't been able to discern just yet is which side is best positioned to survive a long work stoppage. Surprisingly enough, it is the Atlanta Braves that may have given us our biggest hint as to where things currently stand.
Despite some leadership struggles that followed the resignation of Tony Clark, the MLBPA has been busy accumulating funds to help weather the lockout on the player side with a war chest that has reportedly grown to at least $415 million. Thanks to the Braves' status as a publicly traded company, they just provided a big clue that the owners and MLB have even more cash at their disposal.
Braves' financial disclosures show that MLB and the owners are in this for the long haul, for better or worse
Since the Braves are a publicly-traded US company (and the only one in MLB for that matter), they are required to disclose their legally required financial information to provide transparency to investors. Not only has this quality led to everyone seeing how much money the Braves are making after their move to Truist Park and The Battery, but it also means we know how much they have been contributing to the lockout money vault.
Recent reporting has shown that not only has the league set aside $75 million per team across MLB to help weather the lockout (which, by itself, is over $2 billion), but they also run an investment fund called Baseball Endowment L.P. (BELP), which could be used to fund MLB and the owners' lockout plans as well.
According to the Braves' most recent financial disclosure, their "carrying amount" (a fancy accounting term which is a rough estimation of their investment's value that can be considered to be their share) in BELP is currently $47 million. We don't know exactly how shares in BELP are divided out across the league, but it doesn't take a math major to see how much money is probably involved here.
In short, both sides are gearing up for a lengthy fight that will likely center around competitive equity and the possibility of a salary cap. Based on the amount of money everyone is saving up, we probably shouldn't expect a short lockout unless one side completely caves early on. In fact, the money involved suggests that both sides may be willing to let this thing linger into the 2027 regular season.