Written by Alex Putterman at The Comeback
It’s getting harder and harder to deny: Minor League Baseball players get a raw deal. Beside the inconvenience and discomfort of riding buses hundreds of miles at a time, staying at bad hotels in towns you’d never voluntarily visit, and being jerked from one team to another at your organization’s whim, minor leaguers just don’t get paid much.
From a March FTW report:
“Minor league salaries have increased by only 75 percent since 1976, despite over 400 percent inflation during that same time period. And though some players sign for big bonuses out of the draft or in international free agency, minor leaguers start out making only $1100 a month for the length of their seasons, with no additional compensation for the year-round conditioning work expected of professional ballplayers.”
That monthly salary might leave minor leaguers below the poverty line ($11,770 annually, for individuals), according to the New Yorker.
“Depending on how you do the math, pay for minor-league baseball players may work out to something below the federal minimum wage, according to court documents. Working fifty-hour weeks—and sometimes seventy-hour weeks—minor-league baseball players generally earn between three thousand and seventy-five hundred dollars, total, during a roughly five-month championship season, with no overtime pay, according to court documents. Contracts may also restrict their ability to play overseas or for other teams, lawyers said.
Minor League Baseball currently faces a serious threat to this status quo in the form of a lawsuit filed by pitcher-turned attorney Garrett Broshuis that has the industry sweating.
To continue reading this article, click here
