The regulatory space of arbitration in baseball

This chapter will explore how arbitration resolves labour disputes in the regulatory space of professional baseball in Major League Baseball (‘MLB’) in the United States and Nippon Professional Baseball (‘NPB’) in Japan. These two leagues are the world’s premier baseball competitions, constitute the largest labour markets and have the highest level of remuneration. Inside the regulatory space of baseball, MLB and NPB have different regimes of grievance and salary arbitration that compete with global sports law’s Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS’). Variation exists in the rules, structure, format and operation of each regime. This chapter utilises regulatory space theory to understand how arbitral regimes influence the autonomous self-regulation of labour in baseball.