Economic problems don't exist in terms of how much the industry is generating. Baseball is an incredible success, generating 20 to 30 times what it generated 20 years ago. The game has never been as flush with cash as it is today. The problem according to owners is how the money is being distributed. The first thing for a leader or the commissioner to do is to quit airing the game's dirty laundry in public.
Fans only care about the game - the pennant races, the chases for cherished records.
The financial problems that the owners are having, no one cares. A strong leader needs to start by directing people in the game as to what needs to be discussed from a business sense with bankers and partners versus how the game itself is being sold. Every time Sandy Alderson, who is a very bright man, decried the Dodgers' signing of Kevin Brown and kept saying how horrible this was for the game, all I could think was that it was Sandy shifting the blame for the A's demise under his stewardship. It's not our fault. We're not gonna be good.