This probably feels all too familiar. Before the 2015 season, Major League Soccer (MLS) and the MLS Players Association (MLSPA) were negotiating a new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) and barely made it onto the field for the first game of the year (reaching a deal two days before the season started). That deal expired following the 2019 season and the 2020 negotiations went much smoother, with a deal being announced well before the season started.
At the time of that announcement (February 6, 2020) the global pandemic was just getting started in other parts of the world, and while it had arrived in the United States, it wasn’t clear to everyone (apparently including MLS owners) how big of an issue it was going to be.