In professional sports the more crucial metric is the number of butts in the bleachers and watching on the tube. Winning more games sure helps with that. But in baseball there's a tension between winning more games and playing more exciting games with more action. With those things going in the opposite direction, the whole business model is threatened. Politics have been blamed for the ratings drop, but a lot could be just that games have gotten progressively more boring.

I wonder what rule change in baseball could fix this, along the lines of the basketball shot clock. From a business perspective, the leagues as a whole should be refining that instead.

Up to a point, anyway, given that gladiatorial combat to the death would probably be a huge draw. "Next on ESPN, The Hunger Games XXIII. Stay tuned!" Maybe we're already evolving in that direction with the popularity of competitions like "Alone" and the battle royales on Twitch.