There shouldn't be much to notice other than the lack of hot stove activity since Major League Baseball is locked out. The league has taken all player related content off of MLB.com and has put it on roster and stat pages.
MLB's website can be considered a news and information site and players' names, images, and likenesses can be considered fair use if they are flaws. The NHL did the same thing nine years ago, and it was dictated by lawyers who didn't want a challenge on that.
Gambling is an important issue for pro sports, and MLB would love to use it going forward, despite the fact that most of the talk around name, image, and likeness has been in the college sports world. Baseball has already been.
During the playoffs, we saw the encroachment of gambling content into game broadcasts, with Joe Buck awkwardly telling us that if you log on to Fox's betting site, you could get 3-1 odds on Joc Pederson hitting a home run or whatever. This is a bad thing, as prop bets like that offer worse odds for a gambler than straight wagers on the game outcome, which leads to higher profits for Fox or whatever betting partner is getting the business. If players are being used to promote gambling, shouldn't the players get a taste of the revenue being brought in by the league's partnerships with bookies?
If that only seems related, and like it can be covered under the auspices of other sponsorship deals, consider that betting is already present at Nationals Park. As more and more states allow sports gambling, the money involved will only grow, and the players who are vital to making the betting enterprise happen should benefit.
This is part of why the MLBPA should embrace a salary cap, the best way to ensure that players are locked into getting a set percentage of league revenue, rather than the current system where teams can raise their bottom lines while keeping wages flat. The de-facto salary cap known as the Competitive Balance Tax threshold was set years in advance. As the league opens new revenue streams as often as it can, the MLBPA should be against it.
One solution that might be poetic would be to use gambling revenue to help fund ballplayers' pensions, which is already a contentious area in negotiations because management likes less than paying money to players is paying people not actively working for them. Why poetic? The commissioner banned Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle from taking jobs in casinos because they didn't involve gambling.
Baseball is more than happy to take every last bit of money it can get out of sportsbooks, and the league's attitude toward the gaming industry has clearly changed. The league website doesn't work the same without the players being included, which is a shame because they should be getting a fair share of the money that they are helping to bring in. It seems like something everyone should be able to agree on, but since management decided to go ahead with a lockout the instant the previousCBA expired, don't bet on it.
