When he signed the deal, all of my baseball pods were kind of dumbfounded by it.
But if I remember the details of these, I’m not sure I would call them loans. BLA gives a minor leaguer a lump sum payment. If the minor leaguer never makes the majors, then they never have to pay a cent. If they do, then BLA gets a cut of all future baseball related earnings. Could be less, or a lot lot more than the original lump sum. The player trades upside for an immediate sure thing. Whether that is predatory I guess depends on how informed the decision was.