Scores of fans donning Texas Rangers red, white and blue shuffled into Globe Life Field Thursday afternoon, ready to watch their team face the New York Mets. The game, a 3-1 win by the Rangers that was crucial to the team’s postseason hopes, represented the final home match of the 2026-27 regular season.
However, a looming work stoppage in MLB means fans may have to wait longer than usual for Rangers regular-season baseball to return to Globe Life Field.
As labor contract negotiations continue between team owners and the MLB Players Association, or MLBPA, fans said they are hopeful that the two parties can come to an agreement but would be disappointed to see it affect the next season.
“You can’t do anything about it, but it’s unfair to the fans, and if (owners and players) don’t mind losing money, that’s their thing,” Michelle Salazar, a Fort Worth resident at Thursday’s game, said regarding potential canceled games. “They need to come to some compromise.”
The current collective bargaining agreement between the MLBPA and owners ends on Dec. 1. If the two sides are unable to reach an agreement on a new contract, they could extend the current deal for further discussions, or the owners could formally lock out all players, prohibiting them from entering the workplace. That would also mean freezing free agent and trade transactions.
If the contract negotiations are protracted to late March or early April, when the regular season usually begins, games could be delayed or canceled until terms are reached.
The last lockout occurred in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic before the 2021-22 season, lasting 99 days but not affecting the regular season.
In 1994, labor negotiations led to a player strike in August. That stoppage led to the cancellation of the rest of the season and the World Series.
Jack and Susan Trykoski drove from Frisco to Arlington to watch their favorite teams: the Rangers and Mets, respectively. Jack said they don’t make the trip very often, but he has been going to games since before the Rangers moved from Choctaw Stadium to Globe Life Field and can remember the 1994 strike.
Asked what he remembers about the strike and its consequences, he stated his opinion plainly.
“Professional baseball, basketball and football players are all overpaid,” Trykoski said. “They’re prima donnas.”
One large piece of the negotiations has been a salary cap proposed by the league. Under the proposed rules, teams would have a cap on how much they can spend on their rosters’ salaries.
The MLB has stated the salary cap would level the playing field for teams, ensuring one team does not benefit purely by spending more than another club.
MLBPA representatives have indicated a salary cap is a nonstarter, saying the system takes money out of players’ pockets.
“We believe in a meritocracy,” MLBPA Executive Director Bruce Meyer said in February, according to the Associated Press. “We believe in a system, and players believe in a system, that rewards players for performance.”
The salary cap was also central to the 1994 negotiations. That dispute ended in March 1995 when a federal court issued an injunction restoring the previous collective bargaining agreement.
Fans said they worried about how a potential stoppage could impact local businesses and the employees of the Rangers as well.
Rockwall resident Joe Hoofnagle, a Rangers fan for roughly 45 years, said he doesn’t believe there will be a lockout leading to game delays or cancellations and hopes they resolve the dispute quickly.
“It’ll harm tourism, it’ll harm restaurants,” Hoofnagle said.
Salazar, who routinely attends games with her mother, Tomasita Garcia, said she hoped owners and the players would consider how a lockout and an affected season could hurt Globe Life Field staff.
“It’s just not fair to the employees,” Salazar said. “Look, we don’t know how many of these people survive off what they make here. As much as it hurts the fans, it hurts the employees more.”
A delayed or canceled season could also take revenue from the city.
Rangers games bring in fans from North Texas and beyond, which brings the city revenue through the sales tax, along with other fees and taxes associated with the tourist trips.
During the 2026-27 budget process, Arlington City Manager Trey Yelverton pointed to the city’s business continuity reserve fund as a relief valve if the season is delayed or canceled.
When the council unanimously voted to pass the budget, it also authorized Yelverton to pull from that roughly $4 million reserve fund in case of an MLB work stoppage.
“What we would suggest is that we allocate the ability to be used if there is a lockout and we start seeing lost revenues as the offset of that, to have those dollars available so that we’re not just sucking it up in the middle of our already tight budget, and if there’s no lockout, no harm, no foul,” Yelverton told the council during an Aug. 4 work session.
Chris Moss is a reporter for the Arlington Report. Contact him at chris.moss@arlingtonreport.org.
At the Arlington Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
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