The long and often–acrimonious negotiations about what a MLB season would look like this year appear to be over. MLB announced Monday that their owners had unanimously voted to impose a 60-game season under the current terms, which meant that the only further agreement needed was on health elements of the proposed plan and on a start date. Tuesday night, the MLB Players Association (which had previously indicated their willingness to play under these terms after negotiations on a revised season fell through) announced that the remaining issues have been settled (following a report from ESPN’s Karl Ravech to that extent):
All remaining issues have been resolved and Players are reporting to training camps.
— MLBPA Communications (@MLBPA_News) June 24, 2020
As per ESPN’s Jeff Passan, training camps will open July 1. And as per an earlier report from Passan, that means the season should start around July 24. USA Today‘s Bob Nightengale confirmed that July 24 date Tuesday night:
The season is scheduled to start July 24, with the regular season ending Sept. 27.
— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) June 24, 2020
Of course, there are still some potential hurdles there, especially with the high numbers of positive COVID-19 tests popping up in sports recently (which led to MLB shutting down all of its Arizona and Florida facilities for a deep cleaning as of Friday). But the contractual side of this between the owners and the players now seems clear, and that’s one big obstacle out of the way.
UPDATE: MLB officially announced the 2020 regular season.
Information about Major League Baseball's return to play: https://t.co/TTOvy8C826. pic.twitter.com/kwSlUZUMDl
— MLB (@MLB) June 24, 2020
[MLBPA on Twitter]