Neal: What does Juan Soto’s contract say about the future of baseball?

Baseball scribes assembled in Dallas for the 2000 winter meetings, wondering who was going to hook the big fish of the free agent market that year — shortstop Alex Rodriguez.

We found out on Dec. 11 — 24 years ago Wednesday — that A-Rod was headed to the Rangers for 10 years and a whopping $252 million dollars, the richest contract in professional sports history. The previous richest contract was Kevin Garnett’s $126 million deal with the Wolves, which means A-Rod and uber agent Scott Boras were touting that the shortstop was twice the athlete as KG.

Jaws dropped throughout the Anatole Hotel in Dallas once the numbers were revealed.

“I have said this for a number of years,” Houston General Manager Gerry Hunsicker said in the lobby of the hotel that day, “that payrolls would continue to grow until something catastrophic happens, a franchise going bankrupt or consolidations of franchises. This just takes us a little closer to Armageddon.”

The Twins were valued at $91 million at the time. They opened the 2000 season with a league-low $15.7 million payroll. It sure seemed things were headed in that direction.

On Monday, Juan Soto agreed to a 15-year, $765 million contract with the Mets. None of it is deferred, as was the case last season when Shohei Ohtani signed his deal with the Dodgers for a whopping $700 million. Still, the total was stunning.

No team has gone bankrupt, as Hunsicker feared. Twins fans did have to endure a contraction threat a year later, but the team is still around and worth $1.5 billion — or two Soto contracts.

The Twins payroll of $130 million is ranked just above the bottom third of the league, although fans wish it was higher.

We are not far from the first $800 million deal now, but I’m here to let you know that Armageddon won’t happen.

I just hope it gets as close to Armageddon as possible.

Baseball owners, and Commissioner Rob Manfred, have allowed disparity between top and bottom markets to grow exponentially to where, in most cases, smaller-market teams are basically developing players for the handful of clubs who annually are linked with the top free agents.

Change is on the horizon, but it might take a few more years of suffering.

Owners likely will propose payroll disparity solutions with the players association when the current collective bargaining agreement expires following the 2026 season. That, however, could lead to a work stoppage

Owners shared 48% of their local television revenue in 2023, a number that should have been adjusted upward years ago. That would help the smaller markets to not be outspent by so much. Although I’m not sure there’s a solution short of a hard salary cap that would keep Mets owner Steve Cohen in check.

Manfred has indicated that 2028 could be the year in which revenue sharing will shift. That’s when about two-thirds of the league’s teams have their current media rights deals set to expire. Manfred then can package them and sell them to the highest bidder, then bring in the remaining teams when their deals end. Hopefully, that also means no more blackouts.

In 2024, the Mets outspent the Athletics by $252 million, according to spotrac.com. The Yankees outspent the Pirates by $224 million. Twins fans who have screamed that the Pohlad family is cheap: This is one aspect in which you can’t hate the player, hate the game. And baseball’s financial game is busted. Teams with fat local television deals can buy the best free agents.

Owners have allowed this to happen without realizing that, for the greater good of the game, they should have shared more local television revenue. It will get worse before it gets better, and they deserve to deal with the consequences.

So let’s see more eye-popping contracts. Corbin Burnes could sign for as much as $250 million. Alex Bregman could surpass $200 million. Both Blake Snell and Willy Adames signed for $182 million that surpassed projections. Next offseason, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. could hit the free agent market at age 26, and Kyle Tucker at age 28.

Let’s grow this disparity so much that the embarrassment of letting it get to this point will put everyone on the same page about fixing it. We didn’t know in 2000 how bad the financial landscape would get when A-Rod inked his big deal. It has not been catastrophic, just ridiculous. And fans of many teams have suffered from it.

Come on owners, keep opening up those pocketbooks until this can be fixed for good. The greater the suffering, the greater the peace.