Ethics CasesSport

Cases · MLB / Minor League Baseball · 2014–2023

Minor League Baseball: Poverty Wages, a Lobbied Exemption and a Union

For decades, most minor league baseball players earned a few thousand dollars a season and were not paid for spring training. In 2014, former players led by Aaron Senne sued MLB for violating minimum wage and overtime laws. In 2018, Congress passed the Save America's Pastime Act, which exempted minor leaguers from federal minimum wage protections. The case continued under state law, and in 2022 MLB agreed to a $185 million settlement. That same year, minor leaguers joined the MLB Players Association, and in 2023 they ratified their first labor agreement, which more than doubled minimum salaries. The case raises questions about developmental labor, lobbying, and baseball's antitrust exemption.

By Tanner Simkins, editor

Timeline

  1. Former minor leaguers, represented by former player Garrett Broshuis, file Senne v. MLB.
  2. Congress passes the Save America's Pastime Act within a spending bill, exempting minor leaguers from federal minimum wage and overtime law.
  3. MLB restructures the minor leagues, cutting the number of affiliated teams from 160 to 120.
  4. MLB agrees to a $185 million settlement of the Senne case.
  5. After a majority of minor leaguers sign authorization cards, MLB recognizes the MLBPA as their bargaining representative.
  6. Minor leaguers ratify their first collective bargaining agreement; the court grants final approval of the Senne settlement.

The ethical issues

  • Minimum wage for workers in a developmental pipeline.
  • Lobbying for a statutory exemption while litigation was pending.
  • Baseball's antitrust exemption and its effect on minor leaguers' bargaining power.
  • Unionization of workers who will mostly never reach the majors.
  • Housing, nutrition and conditions as part of compensation.

Stakeholders

StakeholderInterests & obligations
Minor league playersLiving wages, housing and fair working conditions.
MLB clubsPlayer development costs and control over affiliates.
MLB Players AssociationRepresenting both established major leaguers and minor leaguers.
Minor league communities and teamsLocal baseball and the effects of contraction.
CongressThe legitimacy of carve-outs from labor law.

The case

Every Major League Baseball team runs a system of minor league affiliates where most professional players spend their careers. Only a small share of minor leaguers ever reach the majors. Until 2022, minor leaguers who were not on a team’s 40-man roster had no union.[1] Their pay was set unilaterally by MLB, and many earned only a few thousand dollars over a five-month season. They were generally not paid for spring training or offseason workouts, and they often relied on host families or crowded apartments.[3][8]

Background

Before 2022, most minor league players earned less than $10,000 a season.[1] The money was split in a way that made the players’ situation easy to overlook. The parent major league club pays the salaries and benefits of players and coaches and provides bats and balls. The minor league club pays for travel during the season and its other operating costs.[1] Seasons are long: as of 2022, a full Triple-A season is 150 games, Double-A 138 and the two Class A levels 132 each.[1]

Other workers in the minor leagues had organized long before the players. Minor league umpires formed a union in 1999, and a dispute over salaries at the start of the 2006 season led to a strike and two months of replacement umpires before a deal was reached.[1]

The rules and governance

Different players lived under different rules. Minor leaguers with major league experience or a place on a team’s 40-man roster were covered by the MLB collective bargaining agreement wherever they played. Everyone else had no union and no agreement until 2022.[1] The relationship between major league clubs and their affiliates is governed by standard agreements. Since 2021 these have been called Player Development License agreements, replacing the older Player Development Contracts.[1]

Federal wage law became the battleground. The Fair Labor Standards Act sets minimum wage and overtime rules, and the 2018 Save America’s Pastime Act carved minor leaguers out of them as long as a weekly salary was paid during the championship season.[2][4] State wage laws and the claims for the earlier period kept Senne alive until the settlement.[2][5]

The lawsuit

In February 2014, former minor leaguers led by Aaron Senne sued MLB and its clubs, alleging violations of federal and state minimum wage and overtime laws. Their lawyer, Garrett Broshuis, was himself a former minor league pitcher who had written about players’ conditions.[2][3]

What the court record showed

The Ninth Circuit’s 2019 class-certification ruling set out the employment system the players challenged. MLB’s affiliates employed roughly 6,000 minor league players, and under the Major League Rules every one had to sign a seven-year Uniform Player Contract.[9] That contract “obligates Player[s] to perform professional services on a calendar year basis, regardless of the fact that salary payments are to be made only during the actual championship playing season.” First-year players were paid a fixed $1,100 a month from April through September.[9] Spring training in Arizona and Florida lasted about four weeks. The court found that the contract “strongly indicates that it is mandatory,” that “virtually all players are unpaid,” and that some players said they worked seven days a week.[9] One affiliate’s schedule began with an “Early Van for Treatment and Early Work” at 6:30 a.m. Players not assigned to a team stayed for extended spring training into June, mostly unpaid. After the season, the instructional leagues ran from mid-September to mid-October, and players were “virtually never paid” for those either.[9]

The panel, in an opinion by Judge Richard Paez, affirmed certification of a California class and an FLSA collective. It reversed the denial of classes for work in Arizona and Florida, holding that each state’s law should apply to work performed there.[9] Judge Sandra Ikuta dissented. She warned that the classes covered employees from at least 19 states suing employers based in at least 22, and that the majority’s rule “creates significant practical and logistical problems.”[9] The ruling meant the case would go forward as a broad class action. Less than three years later, MLB agreed to settle.[5][9]

The exemption

In March 2018, Congress included the Save America’s Pastime Act in a large federal spending bill. It amended the Fair Labor Standards Act to exempt minor league players from federal minimum wage and overtime requirements as long as they were paid a weekly salary during the championship season. MLB had lobbied for the change.[2][4] The Senne case continued under state laws and claims for the earlier period.

Settlement and union

In July 2022, MLB agreed to pay $185 million to settle the case. The court gave final approval in 2023.[2][5] Meanwhile, the advocacy group Advocates for Minor Leaguers, co-founded by Broshuis, had been organizing. In 2022, MLB began requiring clubs to provide housing to most minor leaguers. In September 2022, after a majority of players signed authorization cards, MLB voluntarily recognized the MLB Players Association as their representative.[1][6]

In March 2023, minor leaguers ratified their first collective bargaining agreement. It more than doubled minimum salaries at every level and added pay for spring training, housing, and other benefits.[7][8] About 99% of players who voted approved it. The deal ran through the 2027–28 season and added a 401(k) plan, extended health coverage and name, image and likeness rights.[7] MLBPA executive director Tony Clark called it “a giant step forward in treating Minor League players as the elite professional athletes that they are.”[7]

Contraction and the antitrust exemption

The changes came after MLB restructured the minor leagues in 2021, reducing the number of affiliated teams from 160 to 120 and taking direct control of the system.[1] Baseball’s long-standing antitrust exemption, which the Curt Flood Act of 1998 narrowed only for major league labor relations, continued to apply to the minor leagues.

Aftermath

After unionization and the new agreement, minor leaguers received large increases in salaries and benefits.[1] Ownership of the minor league clubs has meanwhile become more concentrated. As of December 2025, 48 of the 120 affiliated teams were owned by a single company, Diamond Baseball Holdings, founded in 2021.[1]

The core dilemma

Should young athletes pursuing a slim chance at a lucrative career be treated as workers entitled to minimum wage, or as trainees whose real compensation is opportunity? And what does it say about the system when the industry’s answer was to change the law rather than raise pay?

Competing values

  • Fair pay vs. opportunity: baseline wages against a development model that depends on large numbers of low-paid players.
  • Democratic legitimacy vs. lobbying power: a statutory carve-out obtained during pending litigation.
  • Collective vs. individual action: a union achieved what years of litigation had not.
  • Major vs. minor league interests: one union representing workers with different priorities.

Strongest arguments

For the players: minor leaguers work full-time for a multibillion-dollar industry under its control. The chance of future riches does not justify paying below minimum wage, and the exemption was special-interest legislation.

For MLB’s earlier position: minor league pay is a form of training investment; most players never reach the majors, and clubs spend heavily on development. Higher costs could reduce the number of roster spots and opportunities.

Applying the frameworks

Justice

A justice lens asks whether it was fair for a multibillion-dollar industry to pay most of its developing workforce less than minimum wage, defending the pay as an apprenticeship. It also examines the use of political lobbying to change the law instead of the pay, and the eventual redistribution through bargaining.

Rights

A rights lens focuses on workers’ rights to fair pay and to organize. Minor leaguers lacked a collective voice for decades. Voluntary recognition of the union in 2022 and the first agreement in 2023 changed the balance of power, illustrating how labor rights translate into material change.

Utilitarian

Consequentialists weigh higher pay and better conditions, which improve players’ welfare and possibly their development, against the costs MLB cited: fewer affiliated teams and jobs after contraction. The lens asks whether total welfare improved and who gained or lost.

Walk it through: the Simple Decision Model

  1. Spot the issue. You are an MLB labor executive in 2017 as the league considers lobbying Congress to exempt minor leaguers from federal wage law. The stakeholders include minor league players, clubs, major league players, fans, communities with minor league teams and Congress. The codes in play are the Fair Labor Standards Act, state wage laws and MLB rules.
  2. Gather facts. What do minor leaguers actually earn per hour, counting training and travel? What would compliance with wage law cost?
  3. Test options. Options: (a) lobby for the exemption; (b) raise pay to comply; (c) negotiate with player representatives on a new pay structure. Weigh financial costs and legal risk against fairness to players.
  4. Check codes and law. Would you be comfortable if the lobbying and the pay data became public? Are you treating players as workers or as a cost to minimize?
  5. Decide and document. Record the analysis and the decision.
  6. Communicate and follow up. Communicate the reasoning openly with players and the public, and review the decision as legal and public expectations change.

What’s settled and what’s contested

  • Settled: the 2018 exemption; the $185 million settlement; union recognition; the 2023 agreement and its pay increases.
  • Contested: whether baseball’s antitrust exemption should survive; whether pay and conditions are now adequate.

Why this case matters

The minor league story shows how labor rights in sport can be won through litigation, organizing and public pressure together, and how quickly an industry can obtain a legislative exemption when it has the political resources.

Key terms

Myth of amateurism
The critique that athletes generate large revenues without the pay or labor protections other workers have. Tested by justice, consent and dignity.
Agency
An athlete’s ability to make decisions and act independently about their body, career and voice.
Distributive justice
Fairness in how scarce opportunities, resources, benefits and burdens are shared.
Legal but unethical
Law sets out what can be punished; ethics asks what is right. Compliance is a minimum, so an action can be lawful and still wrong.

Definitions from the Ethics Cases glossary.

Discussion questions

  1. MLB argued minor leaguers were seasonal apprentices training for a chance at the majors. Is that a fair description? Should apprentices be paid the minimum wage?
  2. Was it legitimate for MLB to lobby Congress for an exemption while the wage lawsuit was pending?
  3. How does baseball's antitrust exemption affect minor leaguers' bargaining power?
  4. Can one union fairly represent both major leaguers and minor leaguers, whose interests sometimes conflict?
  5. Did unionization accomplish what the lawsuit could not? Why?

Sources

  1. Minor League Baseball — Wikipedia
  2. Garrett Broshuis — Wikipedia
  3. Minor league players file wage lawsuit against Major League Baseball — Sports Illustrated
  4. Baseball players in minors to lose minimum wage protection — Associated Press
  5. MLB to Pay $185 Million Settlement in Minor League Wage Dispute — The New York Times
  6. Minor league baseball union leads huge change — The Athletic
  7. Minor league baseball players overwhelmingly ratify first labor agreement with MLB — USA Today
  8. A CBA for Minor Leaguers — MLB Players Association
  9. Senne v. Kansas City Royals Baseball Corp., Nos. 17-16245 et al. (9th Cir. Aug. 16, 2019), opinion — U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit