I think there is commentary that due to the all of the new online media sources that right now there is overpaying for sports content like Amazon etc, once this gets sorted out you would imagine money will go down to the leagues, also sports gambling is influencing is my guess as well, at least the potential is whats driving up speculative pricing..

Correct.

All one has to do is compare the Yankee average game attendance of 40,000 each of the last few non covid years and they dwarf the attendance numbers in Ruth's and Mantle's Yankee times. They aren't even close.

In the 1960's the Yankees outdrew the New York Rangers by only a few thousand fans a game.

Do the same for the Cubs. Not even a comparison. The NHL was more popular in the 1960's than the Cubs were. The Blackhawks outdrew the Cubs on a per game average.

So if these attendance numbers are considered as "baseball is dying" then what the heck was baseball when Hockey out-drew them? In a coma?

All these reasons given as to reasons of "baseball is dying" have been said for every generation when compared to the previous generation. Nothing new. Just a new generation of older people doing the same thing that was done/said to their own generation when THEY were younger.

It is more of a "get off my lawn' phenomenon than anything else.

Could be, but the "speculative pricing" in all things related to baseball has done nothing but increase dramatically for my entire lifetime, and I'm 76 years old. I remember when a consortium led by Edward Bennett Williams bought the Orioles in the 1970s for $10M, then sold it to in the mid-80s for $70M. How many billions would it go for today? Yes, much of this appreciation derives from new sources of revenue, but those seem to keep popping up, i.e. merchandising, cable TV, naming rights, now gambling, and doesn't that all boil down to consumer interest anyway, including the explosion of our hobby during this time? Even with live attendance, requiring enormous effort and expense on the part of multiple generations spoiled by the comforts and convenience of having every sport imaginable brought to them on large HD screens while they sit on the couch devouring delicious foods of all kinds delivered to their doors, they rouse themselves in numbers unheard of in my youth to freeze at ballgames in April and October. If this is all a bubble, as predicted by many for this entire time and continuing today, it sure is taking its time popping. At some point, and we're 150 years into it now, maybe it's time to attribute all of this to the fact that baseball is truly a great and fascinating game, so much so that no matter how hard they try, the idiots that run it can't seem to kill it off.

you make good points..at least baseball doesnt have the concussion and life altering injuries compared to football as well...