Owners Unveil Revenue-Sharing Plan : Baseball: Team officials also schedule a meeting for Feb. 9 to consider spring training lockout.

With baseball’s owners scheduled to meet Feb. 9 to decide on a spring training lockout, their Player Relations Committee presented an outline of its revenue-sharing concept to representatives of the Major League Players Assn. during collective-bargaining talks Wednesday in New York.

Aimed at eliminating arbitration for players with zero to six years of service and protecting clubs in smaller markets, the revenue-sharing plan calls for all salaries of players in the zero-to-six category to be shared equally by the 26 clubs and for those salaries to be determined by performance statistics.

The union was aware of that basic framework but had also been interested in learning how the committee would define revenue and how much of that revenue would be shared with the players on a salary basis.

While neither side would confirm it, the PRC plan apparently calls for 48% of the owners’ gate and media (TV-radio) income to be shared with the players on a salary basis.

“They are excluding concessions, parking, licensing and a number of other income sources,” Don Fehr, the union’s executive director, said by phone at the end of Wednesday’s meeting.

“What they are talking about sharing is substantially less than their entire revenues, no matter how you define it.”

And his reaction?

Fehr said he was reluctant to make a premature evaluation and response but that the union opposed any pay-for-performance system that did not account for a variety of intangibles, and would not turn back the clock by giving away already-held bargaining rights such as arbitration.

He reiterated that the union would accept the status quo, providing the new agreement contained assurances against collusion and improvements in pension and minimum salary, which the union is attempting to raise from $68,000 to $100,000.

Thus, if there is a spring training lockout it will stem from the resolve of the owners to overhaul a system that is expected to produce an average salary in excess of $500,000 this year.

On Tuesday, the PRC instructed the clubs to put their spring training plans on hold until the owners meet in Chicago on Feb. 9, six days before camps are scheduled to open.

Charles O’Connor, acting head of the PRC, said Wednesday that the union has known for a year that the owners want an agreement before spring training. The aim, he said, is to avoid the pressures of a mid-season stoppage, by which time the players would have collected more than half their 1990 salaries while the clubs would still have 80% of their TV revenue--stemming from postseason games--at stake.

“I don’t know if we can cross all the t’s and dot all the i’s or even find all the t’s and i’s by Feb. 9,” he said, “but surely we can reach an agreement that a change in direction is needed and then fill in the blanks during the season.”

Fehr said he was not surprised by the PRC memorandum because there has been speculation about a lockout.

He said the imposition of a deadline was unfortunate in that it compounded a difficult process.

“They took months to put together this radical proposal that we get for the first time today, and they’re asking us to absorb it and reach an agreement within weeks.

“I think it’s unlikely it can be done that fast and that it would be terribly tragic to stage a lockout simply if there is no agreement on Feb. 15.

“If their objective is to test the players, then they’ll test them, and nothing I can say will prevent it, but I would suggest that it won’t get them anywhere.”

The next bargaining session isn’t scheduled until Jan. 24. The clock is ticking. Fehr reflected and said of the owners: “We’ll see if they’re simply following a script or legitimately bargaining. It’s too early to tell.”