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Trump says it's 'shocking' Major League Baseball still hasn't implemented a salary cap
By Dan Zaksheske, Matt Reigle
Published June 06, 2026
There's a lot of talk about whether the MLB needs to adopt a salary cap, and now President Donald Trump is giving his opinion on the matter.
And he is quite firmly in the salary cap camp.
OutKick's Dan Zaksheske asked the president about the MLB's current situation aboard Air Force One.
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"If you don't have a salary cap, you don't have a sport," Trump said. "They can't help themselves. In sports, they can't help themselves. Football has a salary cap."
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Not only does the NFL have a salary cap, so too do the NHL and the NBA, leaving the MLB as the only one of the four major North American professional sports leagues without one.
President Donald Trump speaks with reporters on his way to Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, on Friday. (Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images))
"They should've done it a long time ago," the president said. "I know so much about sports, they should've done it a long time ago."
Trump then mentioned his administration's efforts to enact laws regarding NIL, something he likened to a salary cap in professional leagues, and pointed to major schools losing hundreds of millions of dollars.
"You can't have that," he said. "Nobody can afford that."
The president circled back to baseball.
"Major League Baseball — it's shocking, frankly, that they didn't put a cap on years ago," he said. "They had a chance to do a cap, and they blew it."
MLB players want to raise the payroll floor, challenge cheap owners and reshape the salary cap debate before the CBA expires in December 2026. (Justin Edmonds/Getty Images)
The MLB and MLBPA are in the early stage of collective bargaining talks, and the first proposal for any kind of salary cap came this week.
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The league proposed a salary cap of $245.3 million for 2027.
This season, the league's highest Opening Day payroll belonged to the Los Angeles Dodgers at $415.2 million, while the lowest belonged to the Miami Marlins at $81.8 million.
https://www.foxnews.com/sports/trump-says-shocking-major-league-baseball-still-hasnt-implemented-salary-cap