Not surprising, the MLB has been in a death spiral for decades. Their problems are entirely political. Two teams (and I don't know why this article mentions the Dodgers, they're not even in the top 10 in terms of revenue) make the majority of the sport's money, and even among them one is far larger than the other. The entire sport revolves around the Yankees and, to a lesser extent, the Red Sox.<p>Those teams' considerations are given undue weight when determining league policy and have been for what in the sports world would be considered an eternity. This has led to a league designed to keep the Yankees winning and the Sox picking up their crumbs, which might seem great to the 25% of baseball fans who love one of those teams but alienates the rest.<p>Pittsburgh may be gaining $39m a year from revenue sharing, but they're losing a ton compared to what they'd make in a well-run league. If the MLB really believed that a rising tide lifts all boats they'd implement a salary cap and be done with it. The cap (along with revenue sharing) is the biggest reason for the NFL's parity, which in turn has driven the league's success. Whoever your favorite NFL team is, there's a very good chance they've been Super Bowl contenders in your lifetime. Most baseball fans cannot experience this.<p>For whatever reason, maybe because it was the scrappy upstart and it had to outfox it's larger competitor, the NFL owners have come together in a way that no other sport has to dethrone America's former pastime. If the MLB wishes to compete going forward they're simply going to have to adapt their business practices to align the incentives of the team owners (making money) with that of the fans (winning) and there's no proven way to do this other than a salary cap.
Only tangentially related, but should be of interest to most HNers:<p>If you haven't read _Money Ball_ (<a href="http://tinyurl.com/28ryy4b" rel="nofollow">http://tinyurl.com/28ryy4b</a>) you really should. It's the story of how a coach and a stats guy hacked major league baseball; they took one of the poorest, losing-est teams in the league (Oakland A's) and turned them into serious winners. I found it well written, informative, and quite a pageturner...and I don't even /like/ baseball.
The only way to fix this is for Pirates fans to stop going to the game. As a Pittsburgh fan and living there for a summer I am pretty confident in saying Pittsburgher's will never quit going.
Here's a great J.C. Bradbury piece on why revenue sharing really does nothing for competitive balance.<p><a href="http://www.sabernomics.com/sabernomics/index.php/2010/08/revenue-sharing-incentives-and-competitive-balance/" rel="nofollow">http://www.sabernomics.com/sabernomics/index.php/2010/08/rev...</a>