Major League Baseball’s next labor fight officially has its opening proposal.

The MLB Players Association made its first formal offer to owners Wednesday as the sport begins working toward a new collective bargaining agreement, and the union’s initial wishlist is exactly what fans might expect: higher salaries, more player protections and a new mechanism aimed at forcing lower-spending teams to put more money into the on-field product (cough, Pirates, cough).

Among the biggest pieces of the proposal is a massive increase to the league minimum salary. The MLBPA is seeking a $1.5 million minimum beginning in 2027, according to a proposal document posted by USA Today’s Bob Nightengale. That would nearly double the current $780,000 minimum.

The union also proposed expanding the pre-arbitration bonus pool, broadening salary arbitration eligibility, increasing protections against service-time manipulation, eliminating the qualifying offer and removing penalties for clubs that sign free agents.

But the most interesting piece might be the proposed “Competitive Integrity Tax.”

According to the proposal, the tax would apply to clubs that fail to meet minimum payroll benchmarks, reportedly teams spending less than $150 million. In other words, the players are not just targeting the top-spending teams (cough, Dodgers, cough). They’re also taking aim at franchises that collect league revenue while refusing to spend enough on major league talent.

That is where the next labor fight could get especially interesting.

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MLB already has a competitive balance tax, more commonly known as the luxury tax, that punishes teams for spending above certain payroll thresholds. The MLBPA’s proposal would increase the base luxury-tax threshold from $244 million to $300 million and remove nonmonetary penalties, such as draft-pick consequences, according to ESPN’s Jeff Passan.

So the union’s message is clear: stop punishing aggressive spenders so harshly, and start putting pressure on teams that won’t spend.

The proposal also includes changes to revenue sharing. Sports Business Journal reported that the MLBPA’s plan would guarantee every small-market team at least $240 million in annual revenue, but with conditions requiring those funds to be used to improve on-field performance. The proposal would also create penalties for clubs that do not spend revenue-sharing payments on team payroll.

It’s a plan that fans of low-spending teams are likely to get behind (cough, Reds, cough).

Baseball’s economic argument is usually framed around the Dodgers, Mets, Yankees and other big spenders. Owners who want a salary cap often point to competitive balance and the financial gap between major-market and smaller-market teams. But the players’ proposal smartly attacks the issue from the other direction.

Instead of capping what the richest teams can spend, the MLBPA wants to raise the floor for teams that spend very little.

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The union also proposed allowing players with at least five years of service time who have reached age 30 (by Nov. 1) to qualify for free agency. Under the current system, players generally need six years of major league service to reach free agency.

The proposal is only the first step in what is expected to be a difficult labor process. The current CBA expires on Dec. 1, and owners are likely to again pursue some version of a salary cap and floor system. The MLBPA has long opposed a salary cap, and Interim Executive Director Bruce Meyer has argued economic reform can be achieved without one.

That issue is the crux of the dispute.

Players want more money pushed toward salaries without limiting what teams at the top can spend. Owners want more cost certainty and will almost certainly frame a cap-and-floor system as a competitive-balance fix.

The two sides have been here before.

The 2021-22 lockout did not cost the sport any regular-season games, but it did delay the deal until March and compromise spring training. That was MLB’s first work stoppage since the 1994-95 players’ strike.

Now baseball is heading toward another high-stakes labor negotiation with the sport enjoying strong momentum on the field, but with the same basic financial fight bubbling under the surface.

The players have now made their opening move.

And if Wednesday’s proposal is any indication, they are not just preparing to fight the league’s richest owners.

They’re going after the cheap ones, too.

MIRAMAR BEACH, FL – I think the friendship between Ole Miss coach Pete Golding and Lane Kiffin will survive a few hiccups in the media, even if one of them continues spouting off about the other.

The ongoing circus around the former Rebels head coach seemed to hit a tipping point for Ole Miss fans in recent weeks, thanks to an article written by Vanity Fair that quoted Kiffin tying in past racial issues to why some recruits did not want to live in Oxford.

Clearly, as you’ve seen, Lane has taken heat for the comments, even if he’s tried his hardest to clear the air that came in the weeks that followed.

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And while it would be easy for Pete Golding to brush Kiffin off to the side for his antics, sometimes friendship goes just deep enough that some comments can be shown grace.

If Clemson feels as though they have the Rebels by the throat in terms of tampering with one of their former players, Pete Golding might just have more, according to multiple sources.

And, I’m not referring to the case Dabo Swinney made against Ole Miss over two months ago about tampering with LB Luke Fornelli, who at first transferred to Clemson from Cal. He would ultimately wind up at Ole Miss, after Dabo Swinney accused Ole Miss of tampering to land him.

In reality, Pete Golding has enough proof of tampering from the transition of Kiffin to himself that it would make the NCAA feel as though they were taking crazy pills.

So, the problem for the NCAA is that if they want to come after Pete Golding, they also understand that Ole Miss is ready to start naming others who have also dabbled in some of that good ole tampering.

But in the eyes of Pete Golding, there’s a difference between the professional Kiffin and the personal one, though that doesn’t mean the Rebels head coach won’t get on Lane’s rear end for what he may perceive to be stupid comments.

“I really don’t have a response to it. Obviously there’s a Lane side for us where we’re buddies and friends, then there’s a professional side that I have to get on his ass a little sometimes,” Golding said on Wednesday. “I think every time he gets in front of a camera, theyre bringing up Ole Miss. The break up wasn’t perfect and never will be. 

“But for some of the last comments he made, anybody that’s been in Oxford knows that’s where were not at right now. I’ve lived all over the southeast, we all got our own issues, you know. I think the biggest thing is people come to Oxford, and see it for themselves”

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As for Lane mentioning that Ole Miss might have had a chance to win a national championship if the Rebels administration would’ve allowed him to stay with the team after accepting the LSU job, even Pete Golding thinks that is a bit far-fetched.

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“I don’t think you’ll find any coach who will say they were better off with me not being there, you won’t hear any football coach saying that,” Golding said with a laugh. “No, i don’t think that had any impact on not winning the game against Miami.”

In what felt like back-to-back pieces attacking the Ole Miss program, the Rebels found themselves on the back end of multiple stories that did not exactly provide them the best type of public relations.

First, it was the Vanity Fair piece involving Lane Kiffin. Then, though it was done weeks prior, an interview with Steve Sarkisian was released in which the Texas head coach tried to use Ole Miss as a punching bag while discussing the Longhorns academic standards.

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You remember, right? Does basket-weaving. ring a bell?

Well, Pete Golding was once again not taking things too seriously, this time while discussing the comments from Steve Sarkisian.

“It’s a hard thing to do. You ever tried it? I haven’t,” Golding said of basketweaving. “Obviously from an academic standpoint, I don’t have to sit up here and talk about what Ole Miss does. I think that was a little out of context. Sarkisian hit me up right after that happened. It was a month prior, then the timing of it kinda piggybacked the other. But, no, I’m not worried about anything.”

But, the question is whether Sarkisian called to apologize. Turns out, it didn’t take very long.

“He hit me as soon as it went public like ‘Look, this was a month ago, no point intended’.,” Golding said of Sarkisian. “We all heard the basketweaving deal growing up and all that type of stuff. Said he was just trying to talk about Texas and how hard it was. I told him I appreciated it. I know if I’m gonna transfer, I’d much rather take basketweaving than marine-biology.”

Now, whether Kiffin reached out to Golding in regards to his interview with Vanity Fair is a whole different topic.

The problem for Pete Golding is that Lane might actually reach out to him too much.

“Lane hits me up everyday, so I get twelve text messages a day from Lane. It’s what I decide to look at, so. I was not looking at that one. But no, we’re good.”

Ever seen that movie “Step Brothers”? The relationship between Golding and Kiffin might actually be the appropriate way to summarize these two coaches.

Matthew Perry’s live-in assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, was sentenced to 41 months in federal prison Wednesday for conspiring to distribute ketamine to the actor, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

In addition to the three-year sentence, United States District Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett also issued Iwamasa a $10,000 fine.

Iwamasa, 61, obtained and repeatedly injected Perry with ketamine, including the fatal dose that ended Perry’s life in October 2023.

Victim impact statements submitted by Perry’s sisters, Caitlin and Madeline Morrison, said Iwamasa was a man who “left him in a hot tub to die,” according to People magazine.

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“It is difficult to put into words the sense of betrayal I felt when I found out what Kenny had done,” Madeline wrote.

“In many ways, it felt like my brother died all over again. Everything I believed about the day he died — everything Kenny told us — was a lie.”

She added, “The idea that someone my brother considered family could betray him in such an unimaginable way is something I never could have conceived.”

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Madeline remembered one of the “most surreal and heartbreaking experiences” of her life when she chose clothes for Perry to be buried in.

“I remember how manic and unsettled Kenny seemed. He repeatedly volunteered his version of events without being asked, as if he were being interviewed rather than mourning a friend,” she wrote.

“In reality, he was trying to distract us from the truth: that he had injected my brother with a lethal dose of ketamine and left him in a hot tub to die.”

Iwamasa’s presence at Perry’s funeral was equally difficult for the family to process.

“Kenny even spoke at Matthew’s funeral,” she wrote. “The person responsible for my brother’s death stood up and addressed the people who loved him most. That is like a cruel joke I still struggle with. He didn’t just take my brother’s life — he tainted our final memories of saying goodbye.”

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Perry’s mother, Suzanne, wrote, “Kenny’s most important job — by far — was to be my son’s companion and guardian in his fight against addiction. His number-one responsibility — ensure that Matthew remained what he wanted to be: drug free.”

“And when he had killed my son, he kept a sharp eye on me.”

Iwamasa is the fifth and final defendant to be sentenced in connection to Perry’s death, with defendants including “Ketamine Queen” Jasveen Sangha, Dr. Salvador Plasencia, Dr. Mark Chavez and drug broker Erik Fleming.

The “Friends” star died on Oct. 28, 2023, after an apparent drowning in the hot tub at his Pacific Palisades home, authorities confirmed to Fox News Digital at the time. He was 54.

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Iwamasa procured dozens of vials of the dissociative drug ketamine over a span of weeks, and was responsible for performing multiple injections on the day Perry died, according to the plea agreement he made with the Department of Justice.

U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Martin Estrada said at one point that the defendants distributed approximately “20 vials for approximately $50,000 in cash” to Perry for Iwamasa to distribute the drug to the actor.

During another sale, the dealers “took advantage of Mr. Perry” by selling approximately “50 vials of ketamine for approximately $11,000 in cash.”

Iwamasa used multiple sources to secure the drug for Perry, and purchased more than $55,000 worth of ketamine over a nearly month-long span leading up to Perry’s overdose death at his home in October 2023.

Perry was introduced to Dr. Salvador Plasencia, a ketamine source, by Iwamasa. Plasencia, who obtained ketamine from Dr. Mark Chavez, allegedly taught the assistant how to inject Perry with ketamine. Chavez previously ran a ketamine clinic and allegedly submitted a bogus prescription in the name of a former patient to secure the drug.

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Beginning on Sept. 30, Plasencia met and injected Perry with “approximately two shots of ketamine” at his home in the Pacific Palisades. He then gave Iwamasa instructions on “where to make injections” on Perry’s body before leaving behind one vial of ketamine “with liquid still remaining in it.” Iwamasa paid Plasencia approximately $4,500 in cash.

Throughout communications, Iwamasa and the accused defendants used code words to describe the drugs, including “Dr Pepper,” “cans,” and “bots” or “bottles.”

On Oct. 10, Plasencia met Iwamasa in a Long Beach parking lot, and injected Perry with ketamine while he was sitting in the back seat of a car. Two days later, Perry visited a ketamine clinic at a doctor’s office before returning to his home where Plasencia administered another “large dose” of the dissociative drug.

Plasencia claimed Perry had an adverse medical reaction, which spiked his blood and caused his body to “freeze up” so that Perry couldn’t move or talk. He allegedly told Iwamasa, “Let’s not do that again,” before leaving additional vials of ketamine with Iwamasa.

The day before Perry died, Plasencia allegedly texted Iwamasa, “Hi I know you mentioned taking a break. I have been stocking up on the meanwhile. I am not sure when you guys plan to resume but in case its when im out of town this weekend I have left supplies with a nurse of mine.”

Iwamasa injected Perry six to eight times a day between Oct. 24 and Oct. 27, authorities claimed. He pleaded guilty Aug. 7 to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine causing death.