How MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred Could Shape His Legacy

Rob Manfred announced his 2029 retirement as Major League Baseball commissioner on Thursday in the most Rob Manfred way. In answer to a question about awarding future All-Star Games, Manfred made an offhand comment about the limited time he had left on the job. The follow-up brought more clarity: he plans to step down when the new contract his owners gave him expires last July.

The odd timing — and even stranger setting, given Florida's public media availability — was the choice of Manfred, who took over from Bud Selig in 2015. His public handling of some of the crises he faced during his tenure as commissioner — the Houston Astros cheating scandal, and the move The Oakland A's and their 2021-22 lockout have turned into crises in their own right. Attracting the masses, of course, is not a prerequisite for the modern commissioner. Manfred's mission is to serve 30 billionaires, and in the eyes of the team owners, his tenure has been a success.

In his first decade as commissioner, Manfred oversaw an increase in industry revenue and a significant jump in franchise value, two factors that owners care about far more than fans. Sometimes it can serve both, as it did with the 2023 Stadium Clock implementation, a stunning success that also coincided with a nearly 10% increase in attendance. But over the past 10 years, he has made it abundantly clear which party he works for, and the company's owners trust him enough to offer him an extension for his $25 million-a-year job.

Which sets up a fascinating half-decade ahead as Manfred balances the whims of his bosses with the legacy he wants to leave. How Manfred handles these remaining years will shape how history views him. For all its warts, baseball is in good, if weak, shape. Amazing athletes fill the game. Business continues to flourish. As always, any mistake could jeopardize this momentum.

His most urgent order of business is to figure out how to weather the impending collapse of the company that handles local television broadcasts for about half the teams in the sport. It also provides Manfred with his greatest opportunity yet to please fans and owners at the same time. Broadcast blackouts have prevented tens of millions of fans from watching the sport, a Faustian bargain that traded the long-term health of the game for the owners' short-term profits. Manfred said he wants to rid the game of blackouts and intends to do so by bundling TV broadcasts for the affected teams and, eventually, bringing all 30 teams under the umbrella of the service.

Navigating such treacherous terrain requires a nimble handler, and Manfred has always looked more like a Doberman than a Dachshund. He faces massive opposition from big-money teams that have their own regional sports networks — the New York Yankees, New York Mets and Boston Red Sox among them — and a package that includes half the MLB teams would be his final half-measure that could deepen the game's widening chasm. Between the haves and the have-nots. Finding an elegant solution would go a long way toward future-proofing MLB.

Just as worrying, if not more so, is the prospect of another long layoff, serving owners trying to squeeze every last penny out of a new collective bargaining agreement in 2026.​​ Recent collective bargaining talks have seen MLB lock up players For 99 days and narrowly avoid ruining the sport. The complexities of the commission — appeasing a coterie of wealthy owners with factions whose loyalties could be jeopardized by the outcome of a media rights deal — are revealed during collective bargaining. Adding to the difficulty of the economic negotiations that define each basic agreement are additional elements that Manfred is looking for — which must be approved by the MLB Players Association.

Manfred said Thursday he wants to name two cities for expansion by the end of his term. Receiving an expansion fee of more than $2 billion per team would require reaching an agreement with the union. Moreover, one of Manfred's main goals over the next half-decade — continuing to increase MLB's reach, in part through international games and special event matches — requires the approval of a group of players who view him as, at best, condescending. Respect and, at worst, contempt.

Optimizing the field product also remains of great importance. The pitch clock made baseball a better game, saving about 30 minutes from each game by cutting dead time. MLB's latest innovation, a computerized zone that brings uniformity to ball calls and batting, could arrive as soon as 2025. Whether the league becomes fully automated or implements a challenge system, change of any kind angers a segment of baseball fans and adds more potholes to the road. the retirement.

Of course, despite Manfred's intentions now — we now know that when he signed his 2024 extension, he suggested to the owners that this was his last term — all this speculation may be for nothing. In December 2006, Manfred's predecessor, Bud Selig, said he would retire when his contract expired in 2009. Almost a year after his announcement, he signed a new contract through 2012 and tied up his retirement until its end. At the request of the owners, Selig stepped back, scoring for two more years before backing Manfred as his heir to one of the most powerful benches in the sport.

Five years later, there is no clear successor to Manfred. Owners could rally around an internal candidate in the commissioner's office. They can rank the team leader. They can look outside. Two owners said Thursday it was too early to speculate. A lot can happen over the next half decade.

Manfred's tenure so far has seen more victories than his critics acknowledge. However, the next five years hold the opportunity to burnish this legacy. A commissioner not seeking a new contract can put aside the politics and appeasement inherent in the job and prioritize the future of the game, not the owners' investments. He could reform the international signing system that sees 12-year-olds agreeing to deals and others lying about their ages to make them more attractive to teams. He can help fix a broken youth program that sends pitchers into professional baseball with scars already on their elbows. He could incentivize teams to spend early in free agency and prevent another offseason effort like the current hemorrhage in spring training.

These are new ideas, and perhaps naive ones too, because Rob Manfred is still here in large part because of his success in making rich men richer. He is the owner of the attack dog and the bulletproof vest. Manfred has repeatedly said he is empowered because he loves the game. As time goes by Major League Baseball's 10th inning period ^{Commissioner, has the opportunity to prove this unequivocally.}