MLB lockout is about economics. What needs to be fixed is the sport.

That’s not a knock on hockey as a sport or the NHL as a league. What it is: an acknowledgment of the reality that baseball, if not tended to and cared for and thoughtfully fixed, could be on a path to becoming a niche sport. Hockey in the United States has pockets of dedicated and passionate fan bases in markets both traditional and not. Rarely, though, does it drive the national sports conversation the way the NFL and NBA can. Baseball is on the precipice of ending up in the same place, and the way the game is played on the field is a far greater factor than how billions in revenue are split between players and owners.