AG Opinion Re: Minor League Baseball Pay

The Office of the Attorney General recently issued an opinion re: the applicability of Texas’s minimum wage laws to minor league baseball players when playing baseball for one of eight minor league teams in Texas. The opinion was in response to a request sent by Rep. Will Metcalf (R-Conroe) in November of last year.

Texas Labor Code section 62.151 exempts “a person covered by” the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) from the minimum wage requirements of chapter 62. Whether a minor league baseball player or the player’s employer is “covered by” the FLSA for purposes of section 62.151 is determined by whether the player “is engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce” or “is employed in an enterprise engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce.” Based on legal precedent and publicly available information, minor league baseball players are “covered by” the FLSA. Whether the player or the employer is subsequently exempt from certain FLSA provisions pursuant to the Save America’s Pastime Act (“SAPA”) depends on whether the player is compensated according to the terms set forth by the SAPA. If the player’s compensation is consistent with the terms of the SAPA, then the player is “covered by” the FLSA but exempt from sections 206 and 207 of the FLSA.

Section 62.158 of the same code exempts an employer from the minimum wage provisions of chapter 62 with respect to employment in an amusement or recreational establishment that: (1) does not operate for more than seven months in a calendar year; or (2) meets certain average receipt requirements. Whether the exemption applies is a fact question that cannot be answered in an Attorney General opinion. However, to the extent a court concludes that a six-month baseball season amounts to the entirety of the annual “operation” of an amusement or recreational establishment, it would conclude the exemption is satisfied.

Read the full KP-0431 Opinion here.