A youth baseball program owned and operated by the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) is under federal investigation for how it allocated resources, according to an ESPN report released Thursday. The criminal probe comes as the sport’s highest-profile event of the year, the 2025 World Series, beams from televisions around the world.
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Who is the main target of the investigation?
An anonymous whistleblower accuses MLBPA executive director Tony Clark of “self-dealing, misuse of resources, abuse of power and nepotism.” The criminal investigation run by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn, New York, centers around Players Way, a youth program created by Clark in 2019.
The Florida-based program spent at least $3.9 million over the past six years, and a source told ESPN that figure could be as high as $10 million. In that time, the program hosted just a handful of live events while barely clearing “six figures” in revenue, the report stated.
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The Major League Baseball Players Association’s budget is: Operations ($27.5 million), MLB Players Inc. licensing firm ($7.1 million) and a players-approved “discretionary” budget (unreported).
Players Way funds “largely paid the six-figure annual salaries of its executives and consultants,” which includes “a handful of former major leaguers, some of whom were simultaneously working other full-time jobs outside the union,” sources said. The union would not say where the $3.9 million was spent.
Clark, who has not been charged with a crime, denied the allegations in a statement to ESPN.
“Any suggestion that Players Way has not been supported by our elected Player representatives and broader membership is patently false. Players Way has been front and center at every annual meeting of the MLBPA Executive Board in recent memory,” Clark said.
Why was Players Way started?
Clark said he formed Players Way to fix what many in baseball see as a broken youth system involving travel teams and disregard for young athletes, who Clark believes are exploited by today’s billion-dollar youth sports industry.
“The mission of Players Way has been clear,” Clark said. “To empower tomorrow’s generation of players by providing access to the knowledge, experience and talents of the best our game has to offer — our current and former members — and to serve as an oasis for young athletes and families who too often get exploited in today’s billion-dollar ‘youth sports’ machinery.”
Players Way partnered with the United States Specialty Sports Association when it launched and hired several former big league players. Former MLB catcher Chris Iannetta promoted the initiative in a YouTube video last summer.
“At all Players Way events, we focus on pure development,” Iannetta said. “We want to make you be the best that you could possibly be. So come to one of our events and work alongside former Major and Minor League Baseball players who will help you develop and become a better baseball player.”
Those events, according to the report, have been few and far between. Players Way held just six youth clinics, four “mental skills webinars” and a few “panel discussions” from 2019 through November 2024. The current schedule on the Players Way website shows three past and five upcoming events through March of 2026.
How does the investigation affect the league?
Multiple former union officials said Players Way operates with “no standard accounting practices” and “no annual budget circulated among senior finance officials,” per the report. A former official said there were no events, activities or partnerships with other youth baseball companies.
Clark took charge of the MLBPA in 2013 after the death of union head Michael Weiner, making him the first former major league player to hold the position. The whistleblower complaint said one of his daughters worked for Players Way, and he’s accused of arranging for her to work at the NFL Players Association in 2022. She reportedly resigned from Players Way in 2024.
The investigation comes as Major League Baseball finds itself in the middle of a thrilling World Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Toronto Blue Jays. But looming labor talks this offseason could threaten to derail that momentum. Clark warned that a lockout is likely once the current collective bargaining agreement expires after the 2026 season.
Federal investigators declined to comment on the ESPN report, which is typical for ongoing investigations. The probe is part of a larger inquiry into the MLBPA’s financial dealings with the NFL players’ union and the company called OneTeam Partners.
