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I saw my first MLB game in 1954, as an 8-year old, when my grandfather took me to see his team. the old Saint Louis Browns. A few later my family moved to St Louis, and me, as a 13-year old could take the Manchester bus all the Grand Blvd, pay a buck and watch the Cardinals. Over the next 60+ years I have seen MLB games in nearly 20 different cities. Ticket prices vary widely - on a trip 9 years ago, I saw the Chicago White Sox on a Monday (way up high!) for $8 bucks, but I paid $47 to see the Phillies on a Saturday.I lived in Florida from 1961 to 2020. So I saw a lot of Spring Training games. Almost every MLB team which has tradionally trained in Florida has extorted the local communities (i.e., we need a bigger/nicer/newer stadium, or we’re gonna look around. My team (Braves) is probably the worst offender. They trained in Fort Lauderdale, then moved Bradenton for some years, on to West Palm for a few years, then to Walt Disney’s Wide World of Sports (large, MLB worthy, nice sight-lines, good location), and finally to North Port.My home town of Cocoa Florida once housed the Houston Astros (who moved to Kissimmee, and then to South Florida). The Stadium still hosts amateur baseball (not gonna lie, back in the 1970’s it was decrepid). A mere six miles away in unincorpated Viera, a new stadium was built for the Florida Marlins, who left, and then the Expos/Nationals came - Nationals moved on to South Florida. Look at the photo of this stadium - nothing shabby about it at all. When the Nationals abandoned us just a couple of years ago, we also lost our Class A MiLB team, who couldn’t afford the upkeep. A Sports Federation finally came along and the taxpayers salvaged some of their investment.Over on the West Coast, along Saint Petersburg’s Bayfront stands what was formerly called Al Lang Field. It sits along the water and you can see sailboats in the Bay everyday. The stadium has hosted the Rays, the Yankees, the Cardinals, Mets and Orioles. Now, as the photo below reflects, it hosts professional soccer.The entire state of Florida is littered with the sites of old baseball stadia built by taxpayers for major league teams. Why? Well, baseball learned that there is a lot of money available to lure teams away, and that if you locate along either of the two coastal interstates, those Northerners fleeing the snow and ice will into Orlando, rent a car and go down the coasts to vacation and watch a little baseball. They will pay top dollar - most of these venues have between 5,000- 10,000 seats and some sell out the entire Spring Training games. Ticket prices are astronomical.In a word - greed is what is killing baseball. The teams get the taxpayers to build the stadiums (with a scant few exceptions, if that many), they charge exorbitant prices for tickets, parking, concessions, and gear. The days when I as a teenager could see the Cardinals play for a buck, were gone decades ago. Now you have an owner who bragged about spending “stupid money” for a single player who signed a contract for well north of $350 million dollars.Make no mistake. The greed wars are coming. Millionaire players vs. billionair owners. Baseball is going to be in trouble. Attendance is down year over years for the last decade, and the drop in attendance from the last strike (1994) never recovered. The age demographic is trending older and older, and the youth of today are not that into it. The black players now number in the low single digits percentage wise (from a high of 16%), and black fans are not flocking to see baseball. (Negro league teams occasionally sold out MLB stadiums, outdrawing the MLB teams.)With the development of advanced metrics, the formula for success is so-well developed that a handful of teams can easily throw enough money into purchasing top talent to remain competitive in most seasons. (Yankees, Dodgers, Cubs, Nationals, Astros, Phillies* come quickly to mind), while other teams seem more or less doomed each year (Pirates**, Orioles, Tigers, Reds, Brewers). Obviously, market size alone does not account for this. Seattle is a large market with an astoundingly poor 20 year record of futility. The Angels of Anaheim are another underachiever, while both the Rays and Cardinals in the small market category typically do quite well.The problem with the economics of baseball is rather simple. If an owner also owns its local (better yet, regional) broadcast rights, that owner will luxuriate in the high hay year after year. Obviously, his/her baseball losses (and all teams lose money on their baseball only operations, trust me. With good baseball people on staff, such a team can afford to be competitive year after year. If an owner, with or without owning a broadcast network, owns the development rights in close proximity to the stadium (looking at you, Atlanta Braves), the same applies. If an owner (usually an aged one) has a ton of money and wants to win at any cost, that team will absorb the operating losses simply to “win”. (Looking at the I believe now deceased owner of the Tigers). This latter type of owner is becoming a rarety.So teams lose money for their owners, who make up these losses with the broadcasting or development money. The Rays would lose money, but they are so low budget that the revenue-sharing money usually puts them in the black. I know many of you are going to say they don’t lose money, but that’s bullshit. Almost all teams have owners who can afford to lose money each year, because they make it all back and then some when they sell. This is what happened to the low payroll Marlins. Got the local government to build them a spanking new (I’ve been there, and it is), stadium after threatening to leave and fucking lying about how much money they were losing, then the SOB sold the team and pocketed a huge, huge windfall***.The Marlins are interesting regarding payrolls and World Series wins. Remember when their rich owner assembled a team of superstars to win, and came home with a WS trophy. Well, he lost a ton of money getting that trophy, and immediately sold off his roster - he was rich, but didn’t like losing money. Well, six years later, the new owner (the one who stole all that money from the taxpayers) had either the lowest or second-lowest payroll in baseball and won the World Series.So baseball is in serious trouble. New stadiums are going to be built to accommodate no more than 25,000 to 30,000 fans. The ticket prices will go up, as will the cost of parking and a beer. The new mantra of success will be that the race won’t go to swiftest, but to the teams with at least two players earning 10-digit salaries. Team values will increase by leaps and bounds. A great time will be had by all. But this model will collapse of its own weight. Has to. It is an expanding bubble, with a brittle base.*I included the Phillies even though their “stupid money” spent on Bryce Harper and JT Realmuto hasn’t paid off. They are 3 games under .500 for last two years. They will do better this year. They invested in some knowledgeable baseball people.**The Pirates pulled a fast and ugly on their citizens. Owner poormouthed that he couldn’t afford to keep the team in Pittsburg without a new stadium. He promised to make the team competitive if he got one. He got the stadium and the son-of-bitch immediately cut the next years payroll by $10 million (back when that was serious money). Three-thousand irate fans marched to the team offices in the stadium to protest. The Pirates had one, maybe, two playin/playoff seasons after his heist.***The MiamiDade government sued the former owner to cough up some of that windfall citing terms in the government’s financing agreement that arguably would require him to do so. That son-of-a-bitch went so far to protect his theft by claiming the claiming the team was not subject to the local court jurisdiction because the team was owned by a foreign corporation. A hardworking reporter from Miami blew this apart when he tracked the “Corporations” headquarters to a small post-office box in the foreign country- not even an office or a phone. The lawsuit is still pending some half-dozen years.Google Image Result for https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7a/Rowdies_Soccer_Config_2015.jpgImages Al Lang Stadium - Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre es.wikipedia.org Images may be subject to copyright.https://images.app.goo.gl/aeH75CFNzW7J9RhY7