MLB commish Rob Manfred gets five-year extension after unanimous vote

Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred won’t be leaving his post anytime soon.

On Thursday, at one of MLB’s thrice-yearly owner’s meetings, Manfred got a five-year contract extension as baseball’s top boss. He needed 16 votes from the 30 MLB owners, but Manfred got all 30, making him the unanimous choice, according to USA Today’s Bob Nightengale:

Manfred will now be in his role through the 2024 season. He took over for Bug Selig after the 2014 season, getting a five-year contract that went into effect Jan. 1, 2015. He had one year left on that deal, but there was little doubt that Manfred would get a new one.

Before taking over for Selig, Manfred spent a year as MLB’s COO and was the league’s executive vice president of labor relations for 15 years before that.

Thus far, Manfred’s tenure in office has been marked by new initiatives as the game tries to modernize itself. He’s focused on pace-of-play, launched a high-profile domestic violence policy and entertained numerous ideas to build the game nationally and internationally — that includes games in different countries or in new U.S. locations, like Fort Bragg or the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

The biggest problem has been head-butting with the MLB Players Association, specifically after the free-agent freeze of last winter. That may have more to do with league owners being less likely to spend money on free agents, but it falls to Manfred, too, as their representative.

Manfred’s biggest challenge under his new contract will be keeping labor peace in the league. MLB hasn’t had a strike since 1994, one of the top achievements of the Selig/Manfred era, and it would prefer to keep it that way.

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Mike Oz is a writer at Yahoo Sports. Contact him at mikeozstew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @MikeOz

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