What’s the Difference Between a Lockout and a Strike?

Professional athletes are among the most highly paid workers on the planet. The owners of professional sports teams are one of the few groups richer than the athletes who work for them. As such, they seem unlikely to be at the center of high-profile, protracted work stoppages. After all, wasn’t the American labor movement born out of the need to address the most egregiously cruel working conditions? And while work stoppages can win improvements in working conditions for athletes, lockouts and strikes—some even forcing the cancellation of entire seasons—have become more common in major sports since the first unions were formed in the 1950s and 1960s, a time when owners wielded far more control and players made far less money than they do now.

With a Major League Baseball work stoppage almost a certainty after the 2026 season, here is a look at key times when labor and management couldn’t agree—and the fans were the big losers.

1994–95: MLB strike

It would be hard to overstate the impact of Major League Baseball players going on strike on August 12, 1994. The work stoppage meant the rest of the season was scuttled—including the World Series, which would not be played for the first time since 1904. (Consider that a labor action did what two World Wars could not.) At issue was an owner initiative to institute a salary cap and new rules of free agency, which owners argued would limit skyrocketing player salaries. And as negotiations dragged on with no deal in sight, owners declared an impasse and sought to begin the 1995 season with replacement players. That’s when a then-federal court judge by the name of Sonia Sotomayor weighed in, ruling that owners could not field teams with replacement players. That ruling basically brought the eight-month strike to an end. In all, the longest work stoppage in MLB history meant that more than 900 games were canceled, and the loss in owner revenue and player salaries was estimated at more than $750 million.

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When play resumed for the season on April 2, 1995, players, owners, and perhaps most especially fans, had been left with a bitter taste in their mouths. Would Americans walk away from their national pastime? They might have, if not for one player, who in his “Iron Man” fashion put the game on his back and enthralled the nation with the pursuit of a record that had at one time seemed unbreakable: Cal Ripken of the Baltimore Orioles became baseball’s unlikely savior. By the time Ripken broke Lou Gehrig’s record of consecutive baseball games played (2,130) on September 6, 1995, some of the bitterness was replaced by a national euphoria that had Pres. Bill Clinton in the ESPN broadcast booth for part of the history-making game. Baseball had dodged a bullet, and both players and owners seemed to know it.

Other MLB work stoppages of note and the years affected include:

• 2021–22: In December 2021 baseball faced its first work stoppage since the fateful 1994–95 season, this time in the form of a lockout. When no deal was reached throughout the winter, spring training games—and ultimately the first two weeks of the season—were canceled. When a deal was reached in March 2022, players had won an increased minimum salary and a bonus pool. Changes to rules—including an expansion of the number of playoff teams, adoption of the universal designated hitter, and consideration of a pitch clock—were also part of the deal.
• 2026–27?: The current collective bargaining agreement (CBA), or contract, between players and owners expires on December 1, 2026. At issue (again) is a salary cap, which owners say is necessary in a world in which players such as Shohei Ohtani can make $700 million over 10 years. Players argue that some team owners don’t spend enough to field a winning team and are proposing a “salary floor.” (This is often referred to as the disparity between big-market teams, such as the Los Angeles Dodgers or New York Yankees and smaller-market teams such as the Milwaukee Brewers or Pittsburgh Pirates.) Regardless, a lockout seems inevitable, and if games are canceled, the impact could go beyond the regular season—some observers are concerned that MLB players might not play in the 2028 Summer Olympics.

1994–95 and 2004–05 NHL lockouts

You might have thought that the National Hockey League would have learned something from the MLB strike that was underway in the fall of 1994, but instead, on October 1, 1994, NHL owners locked out players. At issue (pardon us if some of this sounds familiar) were rising player salaries, the perceived need for a salary cap, and the revenue disparity between big-market and small-market teams. Faced with missing an entire season, on January 11, 1995, after a 103-day lockout, owners and players reached an agreement that instituted a rookie salary cap and was largely seen as a win for the players. It set the stage for a drama that would play out a decade later.

Perhaps the most lasting impact of the 1994–95 lockout was the bitterness that remained—and deepened—between players and management. Without the feel-good story of a Cal Ripken to turn things around, NHL owners simply stewed. So when the contract that was agreed upon in 1995 expired in 2004, owners knew what they wanted and were determined to prevail. On September 16, 2004, players were officially locked out, but unlike in 1995 when the prospect of the season being canceled led owners to blink, owners remained united, and on February 16, 2005—exactly five months into the lockout—the season was canceled. It would be more than five additional months before a deal was officially struck. After 310 days and more than 1,200 lost games, the longest work stoppage in professional sports history was over. The owners had a contract that included a salary cap, a pay cut for players, new rules governing free agency, and a new drug policy.

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The NHL would face yet another lockout:

• 2012–13 lockout: When the contract that owners had fought so hard for in 2005 expired on September 15, 2012, once again owners locked the players out. This time, a big issue was how hockey revenue was divided between players and owners. Before the 2012–13 season, players were earning about 57 percent of revenue; owners wanted to cut that to 43 percent. In early January 2013—time enough to avoid losing another season—owners and players agreed to a 10-year contract that included a 50-50 revenue split.

1998–99: NBA lockout

Before the lockout of 1998–99, the National Basketball Association had never had a work stoppage that had cost the league games. This 202-day lockout would trim the regular 82-game season to just 50. It would cost the owners an estimated $1 billion and the players half that much. Neither group would prove to be sympathetic figures to irate fans. At the heart of the dispute (and if you’ve been reading carefully, this will come as no surprise), was the desire of ownership to control skyrocketing player salaries. In fact, even the players seemed to recognize that there was an issue of salary disparity in the league. While the minimum salary at the time was $275,000 (about $550,000 in 2026 dollars), some 20 percent of NBA players were making the minimum while just nine players were hauling in 15 percent of the players’ revenue.

In the end, a deadline for canceling the rest of the season—set by the NBA as January 7, 1999—loomed large in efforts to reach an agreement. While minimum player salaries increased on a sliding scale, the owners won limits on individual salaries of star players, a move that gave owners more control over player costs in the NBA than in any of the other major sports.

As seems the rule, more labor unrest was to come:

• 2011 lockout: At the heart of this dispute was a revenue-share deal in which owners wanted to trim the players’ share from 57 percent to 47 percent, and they wound up settling at a roughly 50–50 split (perhaps the NHL paid attention and mimicked that solution a year later). The other significant issue (and again, this may sound familiar) was the disparity between big- and small-market teams. But unlike in other disputes, the players did not hang together, expressing significant division with union leadership. A deal was reached only after the union voted to dissolve and then ultimately reestablished itself. The regular season was trimmed from 82 to 66 games.
• 2026 WNBA lockout/strike that wasn’t: After marathon negotiations, the Women’s National Basketball Association and the players’ union reached an agreement on a contract in March 2026 that would ensure that the WNBA season would not be disrupted. Salaries were increased significantly under the contract, but more importantly for players, the league salary cap would no longer be an arbitrary fixed number but tied to the revenue generated by the league, as it is in the NBA. For a league surging in popularity, that element provided what the players’ negotiating committee called “player empowerment.”

2011: NFL lockout

While the 2011 NFL lockout was the longest work stoppage in league history, spanning from March 4 to July 25, the most financially successful major sports league managed to reach a contract without missing any regular season games in 2011. That is not to say that there wasn’t acrimony. In the early days of the work stoppage, players voted to decertify their union in a bid to prevent owners from imposing a lockout. While that move failed, the subsequent legal action—which included star quarterbacks Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, and Drew Brees as litigants—led to a federal judge ordering owners to end the lockout. Much of the subsequent negotiations were held in courtrooms and not at bargaining tables.

A key element of the contract, which owners and players agreed to in July, was a redistribution of revenue, with the players’ share being divided into broadcast, merchandise, and ticket revenue at varying levels. The deal also instituted a rookie salary cap, with the money saved being distributed to more veteran players. It also provided some salary guarantees in the event of season-ending injuries and agreements to offset the long-term impact of football-related conditions, such as Alzheimer’s disease.

The outcome of the 2011 work stoppage was far more favorable to players than that of the cataclysmic 1987 strike:

• 1987 NFL strike: As you’ve seen, strikes—that is, players taking the action of refusing to work—are quite rare. But in September 1987 NFL players went on strike largely over the issue of free agency, which involves the right of players to test the market and potentially earn enormous paydays by negotiating with other teams when their individual contracts are up. The strike lasted 24 days, from September 22 to October 15, and the owners had the upper hand. From the start they made clear that they would hire replacement players, whom they would pay very little, to ensure that the NFL season went on. Ultimately, players voted to end the strike; but owners, recognizing their leverage and being what many would call mean-spirited, refused to allow players to compete in that weekend’s games.