5 things to know about the MLB lockout now that Opening Day's officially canceled

After a weekend of intense speculation, the day baseball fans have feared is here. Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred announced on Tuesday that he is canceling the first two series of the MLB regular season after owners and players couldn't come to an agreement on a new collective bargaining agreement to end a league-imposed lockout. For the first time since 1995, MLB regular-season games will be canceled because of a work stoppage.

But what does that mean for the Red Sox and for baseball as a whole? Here's five things to know about the lockout and what happens next.

Money is at the heart of the disagreement...

The lockout, which started on December 2, came after the last union contract expired. Owners and players couldn't come to terms on a new one, leading the owners to lock out their players.

The previous CBA was very beneficial to the owners financially, and this time around they were looking to add in an even larger playoff field, which would rake in even more money for them.

For players, they were concerned about everything from a bigger slice of MLB revenue to reforms of the free-agency system to increased pay for younger players. But after more than two months of a lockout, the two sides couldn't compromise, and MLB’s Opening Day of March 31 is already a distant memory.

...but the owners have less to lose than the players, at least in the short term

While it's easy to paint the fight as "millionaires vs. billionaires," it isn't necessarily that simple. The average MLB career lasts only a little over two and a half years. And that's something owners are counting on.

Victor Matheson, a sports economist at the College of the Holy Cross, told GBH News that the owners have a lot more time to play with than players.

"A six-year career is pretty long for a Major League Baseball player, and if you lose a year of that, that's a huge chunk of your entire lifetime earnings," he said. "So [the owners are] basically banking on the fact that they have deeper pockets, they can sit this out longer and the clock isn't ticking on them as much as it is the players.

"That being said, the owners really start losing money pretty quick here," he continued. "And they start losing money — especially if you were to lose a World Series, for example, you know an entire year. That's a lot of revenue loss, that's $10 billion. And even among a group of 30 billionaires, a billion here and a billion there starts to add up."

The Red Sox's first two home series are wiped off the books

The cancellation of the first two regular season series of the MLB season means the Red Sox's Home Opener against the Tampa Bay Rays on the 31st is off the books — plus their follow-up series against the Baltimore Orioles, which also would have been at Fenway Park.

As of right now, the earliest game on Boston's calendar is an April 7 matchup on the road against the New York Yankees and their earliest home game would be April 15 against the Minnesota Twins. But at the rate negotiations have gone, it's anyone's guess if that schedule will stick.

What happens next?

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement to reporters Tuesday that owners "want to bargain and we want an agreement with the Players Association as quickly as possible." He said the earliest an agreement can come now is Thursday.

But the statement from the players' union following Tuesday's announcement makes it clear there's still a large divide between the two sides.

"What Rob Manfred characterized as a 'defensive lockout' is, in fact, the culmination of a decades-long attempt by owners to break our player fraternity," the statement said. "As in the past, this effort will fail. We are united and committed to negotiating a fair deal that will improve the sport for players, fans and everyone who loves our game."

What's at stake?

A whole lot. MLB has already been through two straight seasons where COVID-19 bit into revenues as fans faced exclusion or restrictions from ballparks around the country. And now, with the potential for a lengthy lockout, it could be the sport's third straight year with a major disruption.

For baseball, the very hearts of the fans may be at stake.

"The really big gamble that the owners are playing here is that we can miss, essentially, an entire season in 2020 thanks to COVID...we can have a pretty disrupted season in 2021 and then miss a bunch of games in 2022 and have people actually keep caring about the sport," Matheson said. "I don't think baseball's worried about fans being angry at Major League Baseball, I think what they should worried about is just fans just becoming disinterested in Major League Baseball."