The players. The owners. Everyone is about to lose.

With the NBA and NHL seasons likely starting later for the foreseeable future, MLB is no longer going to own the Summer. There will be NBA, NHL, and NFL games on practically all year, leagues which are having significantly less issues with declining popularity. Once that happens, they will easily lose additional viewers who are more invested in the more popular of sports. When it’s between watching a game of a 162-game regular season, or the final stretch of an NBA/NHL playoff push (or the playoffs itself), many are going to likely choose to watch the more meaningful games. Additionally, in the battle for TV money, they’re going to have to complete for prime-time slots with both NBA and NHL meaningful games late in their seasons, or football coverage early in theirs. All that said, the deck is already stacked against them.

Their one chance to come out slightly ahead was to stick the landing in returning from the delay, and be the US sport which first returns and garners interest. It would have been so easy for them to lap up the support and gain trust from viewers desperate for any sports coverage at all. That didn’t happen. Instead, they’re caught bickering about who has to lose less money, endangering their current season altogether, and causing even some existing fans to roll their eyes while other leagues somehow figured things out just fine.

The MLB as a whole is in danger of losing not only the season, but their ongoing relevance in the American sports landscape. And they still would rather fight over one season’s worth of checks.