I think it started around 06-07 and steadily built up to now.
Once the revenue sharing came into place, the Yanks and Sox and a few other teams couldn't just buy up all the good players. When that stopped happening and there was more parity, the rivalry got less significant and nothing really replaced it. Another thing is baseball thrived off its history for awhile and because of the steroid era, a lot of those records just don't mean much anymore. There really can't be any discussion of them. And water cooler/hot button type discussion drives a lot of interest in sports.
And then also there is the obvious fact that technology has made the world far more fast paced and baseball is slow as shit.
Go to a game recently? Half the people are on their smartphones.
Man that's some really good stuff right there.
I was not expecting anyone to give me some honest reasons in a thread like this but I think you are on point.
Yea I thought about the Yankee/Red Sox deal but did not really coralate it to revenue sharing as the core cause.
Come to think of it maybe revenue sharing is a major reason.
Even though baseball has always been regional there was always exceptions.
Boston/NY was a national story that has not been replaced .
And yes the home run era has had an effect.
Even casual sports fans would enjoy watching people hit 70 hrs.
That has not been replaced.
Now for question #2.
Is there a solution for baseball or is it simply passed its national prime ?
My one thought has been the MLB network.
I think they do a great job of covering baseball. Better then the NFL or NBA network and they have shifted enough viewership that was formerly watching sports center for baseball .
Not leaving enough interest for ESPN to cater to like before the MLB network.
