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Charlie Kirk is the Founder and President of Turning Point USA, the largest and fastest growing conservative youth activist organization in the country with over 250,000 student members, over 150 full-time staff, and a presence on over 2,000 high school and college campuses nationwide. Charlie is also the Chairman of Students for Trump, which aims to activate one million new college voters on campuses in battleground states in the lead up to the 2020 presidential election. His social media reaches over 100 million people per month and according to Axios, he is one of the "top 10 most engaged" Twitter handles in the world. He is also the host of “The Charlie Kirk Show,” which regularly ranks among the top news shows on Apple podcast charts.
Charlie Kirk and Paul Zeise Make the Case for MLB Salary Cap and Floor to Save Baseball
Charlie Kirk sits down with Pittsburgh Post-Gazette sports columnist Paul Zeise to discuss why Major League Baseball desperately needs a salary cap and floor. While the NFL and NBA have created competitive balance through salary restrictions, baseball remains dominated by five or six big-spending teams, leaving small-market franchises struggling to compete. Kirk and Zeise explore how super agents like Scott Boras control the current system, why both owners and the players union resist change despite it hurting mid-level veterans, and what it would take to finally bring parity to America's pastime. From the success of small-market teams like the Kansas City Chiefs to the struggles of the Pittsburgh Pirates, this conversation reveals why baseball's free-market approach might actually be killing the sport's competitive integrity.
Charlie Kirk opened the discussion by expressing his frustration with the current state of Major League Baseball, noting that he's tired of seeing the same four, five, or six teams dominate year after year simply because of their spending power. Teams like the Dodgers, Astros, and Yankees consistently outspend smaller market teams, creating an uneven playing field that diminishes the fan experience and competitive balance of the sport.
Paul Zeise, sports columnist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, joined Kirk to discuss his recent column about how the MLB Players Association under Tony Clark is steering players down the wrong path by resisting a salary cap system. Zeise argued that while he and others continue to advocate for a salary cap in baseball, progress remains difficult as long as super agents control the league and the players association.
How Super Agents Control the System
According to Zeise, super agents like Scott Boras effectively run Major League Baseball and the players association. These agents benefit enormously from the current system, securing massive contracts like Shohei Ohtani's $700 million deal and Juan Soto's $650-700 million contract. The super agents have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo because it allows them to negotiate these astronomical deals for their superstar clients.
However, this system comes at the expense of mid-level veterans who struggle to find contracts and often have to wait until the end of spring training when they're desperate for work, forcing them to accept below-market deals. Zeise pointed out that every year around the end of March, there are 20 to 30 quality players still unsigned because teams know they can wait and sign them for less money.
Lessons from the NFL and NBA
Kirk and Zeise examined how other major sports leagues have successfully implemented salary caps to create competitive balance. The NFL has a hard salary cap with severe penalties for violations, as evidenced by the New Orleans Saints' current struggles after playing games with contract deferrals. This hard cap creates true parity where mid-market teams like the Kansas City Chiefs can draft well, develop players, and build dynasties that compete equally with large-market teams like the New York Giants or Los Angeles Rams.
The NBA provides another successful model, with small-market teams like the Indiana Pacers reaching the finals and teams from San Antonio winning multiple championships. Zeise noted that without the NHL's salary cap, Pittsburgh would never have enjoyed Sidney Crosby's career—he would have ended up in a larger market like Kansas City. The salary cap in hockey has allowed small-market teams to remain competitive and retain their stars.
Kirk emphasized that he believes baseball would actually grow bigger and become more exciting with a salary cap. The increased competitive balance would make the sport more marketable and increase team values, meaning owners should actually want this system.
Why Owners and Players Both Resist Change
Despite the apparent benefits, Zeise identified three groups that resist implementing a salary cap in baseball. First, the super agents oppose it because they want to continue securing massive deals for their superstar clients. Second, small-market team owners actually don't want a salary cap because it would come with a salary floor, forcing them to spend more money than they currently do.
Third, large-market team owners resist because they want the freedom to spend whatever they desire to acquire star players for their star-driven markets. This creates a situation where all three sides publicly claim they'd like to make a salary cap work, but privately don't want it to happen.
Zeise also explained that if the players association were competent in negotiations, they would demand an end to the cheap labor system as a tradeoff for accepting a salary cap. Currently, teams get years of extremely cheap labor from young players—Paul Skenes, arguably the best pitcher in baseball, is making only $850,000 this year. The union would likely insist that if owners get a cap, players must get earlier access to market-rate salaries.
The Importance of a Salary Floor
Kirk asked why a salary floor matters as much as a cap. Zeise explained that a floor would prevent teams like the Pittsburgh Pirates from operating with $40 or $50 million payrolls when other teams spend $300 million. If teams were required to spend at least $100 million, mid-level veterans would suddenly have more opportunities to get paid fairly for their services.
A salary floor also ensures that teams are genuinely trying to be competitive. While bad teams still exist in the NFL and NBA, their struggles typically result from cyclical rebuilding or incompetent management rather than an unwillingness to spend. Zeise pointed out that it's absurd for baseball to have teams with $300 million payrolls competing against teams with $30-40 million payrolls—at that point, they're not even playing the same sport.
What Would It Take to Change the System
When Kirk asked about a potential path forward, Zeise explained that change would require mid-level veterans and pre-arbitration players to take control of the next collective bargaining agreement. These players would need to tell union leadership that they won't accept any deal unless it includes provisions to help them, not just the Juan Sotos of the world.
The reality, Zeise noted, is that even baseball's supposed "free market" isn't truly free because only five or six teams can afford to sign the top players, and those teams can't sign everyone. This means many quality players end up taking less than market value simply because there aren't enough big-spending teams to drive up prices.
Zeise also pointed out an important fact: the highest-paid athletes in sports are no longer baseball players. Both in terms of annual salary and total contract value, baseball has fallen behind other sports that have implemented salary cap systems. This undermines the argument that baseball's free-market approach is necessary to properly compensate top athletes.
The Current State of Baseball Spending
The conversation highlighted the current spending disparity in Major League Baseball, where teams like the Dodgers and Mets maintain payrolls near $300 million while teams like the Pittsburgh Pirates operate with a fraction of that amount. This creates a system where even historically significant franchises like the Cubs are no longer spending at the levels they did during their 2016 championship season.
Zeise shared his personal frustration as a Pittsburgh sports fan, noting that his city faces a "double whammy" of being a small market with an incompetent owner who has hired an even more incompetent general manager. Teams like Tampa Bay and Milwaukee have managed to compete by hitting "lightning in a bottle" with their draft choices and player development, but even when they build competitive teams, they watch the Dodgers or Yankees sign away their players, sending them back to square one.
The interview concluded with Zeise encouraging people to follow his work at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and on Twitter, where he writes daily and produces a nightly podcast covering sports issues. Despite their disagreement over baseball team loyalties—Kirk supporting the Cubs and Zeise presumably backing the Pirates—both agreed that baseball needs fundamental structural changes to preserve competitive balance and serve the interests of players beyond just the superstars.
