Potential Mets owner A-Rod says players should accept salary cap

Alex Rodriguez thinks it's time for baseball to have a salary cap.

The former three-time MVP signed several record contracts during his iconic playing career but believes players should now accept some form of a cap in negotiations with owners.

Rodriguez - who is currently bidding to purchase the New York Mets - thinks a cap and revenue-sharing system would be beneficial to the sport in a time of extreme labor strife between players and owners.

"The only way it's going to happen is if they get to the table and say the No. 1 goal, let's get from $10 (billion) to $15 billion and then we'll split the economics evenly," Rodriguez said during a Thursday conference call, according to Ronald Blum of The Associated Press.

"But that's the type of conversation instead of fighting and fighting against each other because there's too much competition out there right now."

MLB is the only major North American sports league without any kind of salary cap. The players' hard-line stance against it helped prolong the infamous 1994 strike. Rodriguez, who made his big-league debut with the Seattle Mariners shortly before the strike, thinks today's players have less leverage to hold out against a cap because MLB no longer has the "stranglehold on professional sports" that it did 26 years ago.

Major League Baseball Players Association executive director Tony Clark - a former teammate of Rodriguez's - addressed the comments, citing the lucrative deals Rodiguez signed during his playing days.

"Alex benefited as much as anybody from the battles this union fought against owners' repeated attempts to get a salary cap," Clark said. "Now that he is attempting to become an owner himself, his perspective appears to be different. And that perspective does not reflect the best interests of the players."

Retired MLB pitcher Brandon McCarthy also lashed out at A-Rod:

Following Thursday's conference call, Rodriguez released a statement to say he never mentioned a "salary cap" and that his answer pertained to the expiration of the collective bargaining agreement in 2021.

Rodriguez signed a 10-year, $252-million contract - then the largest in sports history - with the Texas Rangers in 2001. Texas traded him to the New York Yankees three years into that contract, and he opted out of the deal in 2007. The Yankees then re-signed him to a 10-year, $275-million deal.

Rodriguez, now 45, wasn't paid in 2014 while serving a suspension for using performance-enhancing drugs, and New York released him in 2016 before his second megadeal expired. Still, he made approximately $448 million in salary over his 22-year playing career, according to Blum.

A-Rod has worked as a television analyst since his playing career ended and will call games on Sunday Night Baseball for ESPN this season.

His ownership aspirations began in earnest earlier this year when he and his fiance, entertainer Jennifer Lopez, formed a group to try and purchase the Mets from the Wilpon family.

The couple's camp is one of four prospective ownership groups that advanced to the second round of bidding for the team, Sportico's Scott Soshnick reported Tuesday.

MLB's collective bargaining agreement expires in December 2021.