As far as revenue, baseball is in 2nd place, a distance behind the NFL but solidly ahead of NBA.

But baseball's problem is that the sport skews old (The average fan is like in their 50's while the NBA's is in their mid 30's and I'm guessing the NFL is a around that figure.)

So, in 10 years, baseball is going to be at a cross roads. With the sport's fans phasing out, the sport needs to do something to appeal to younger fans. Now whether adding a pitch clock or limiting mound visits is enough, I don't know. And there's the notion that baseball players aren't 'fun' enough. Puig, who shows about the same emotion as an NBA player, is shunned while in the NBA emotion is embraced and celebrated.

The sport isn't in a crisis, but Manfield is probably spot on in his initiatives to change the game in order to maintain the health of the sport.

As far as the salaries, obviously even basketball players aren't signing 300M and 400M contracts, but I don't get the sense that MLB's middle class is as strong as the NBA's. (someone correct me if I'm wrong.) Plus baseball has the strongest union out of the four major sports which certainly helps.