NEW YORK — MLB team owners are still going full bore after a hard salary cap in labor talks with the MLB Players Association, as league commissioner Rob Manfred said the sport’s existing luxury tax has “failed.”
Marking some of his most direct comments on the subject, Manfred said that more than two decades’ worth of attempts to make the tax an engine for greater competitive and economic balance have been increasingly ineffective.
“We have tried mightily over several rounds of bargaining to use a competitive balance tax to address competitive concerns, and sometimes you’ve got to admit you failed,” Manfred said as the league is holding an owners’ meeting this week here.
To that end, a record nine teams paid luxury-tax penalties following the 2024 and 2025 seasons. The Dodgers by themselves paid $169.4 million in the tax last year.
“When you see more and more tax getting paid, you realize that is not the kind of speed bump that would help on the issue of competitive balance,” he said.
