CPBL Players Get No Respect

The upcoming series between the Dodgers and a team of CPBL stars was originally scheduled for two games, to be held in Taipei and Kaohsiung. But due to popular demand a third game was proposed, and negotiations were put in motion to make that happen. There were several hurdles that the independent company promoting the event needed to overcome,  the biggest of which was getting consent of the organizations involved. Appearance fees needed to be agreed on, player unions needed to be consulted, and other extraneous matters needed to be sorted out.


On the MLB side, the Dodgers agreed when their appearance fee of $1 million U.S. per game was met. The MLBPA signed off on the deal when the team agreed to pay the players for their performances, and Manny Ramirez seems to have managed to finagle a personal appearance fee.


On the CPBL side, the four teams agreed to send their players once their appearance fee was raised to NT$ 7 million for the series. The teams then decided to keep this money for themselves, declining to offer their players appearance fees for their performances.


Once the local players got wind of this plan, they justifiably weren't too pleased. Yesterday, players from all four teams issued a joint statement denouncing the blatantly unfair practice of the league using them as free labor. It appears that now the league has gotten rid of the players in its ranks that can be bought off, it is intent on pissing off the remaining players by refusing to pay them for their work.


Personally I fail to see how players are supposed to say no when asked to accept money for losing, when their own team won't even pay them for playing.