I think baseball as a whole is short sighted with streaming. League pass is great for nba because people want to watch non-local teams, extra innings falls short because most baseball fans are largely fans of their local teams
Baseball and hockey both have this problem. NBA teams do to some extent too, but have big national games with all their stars, so they are a little more insulated. Lots of the big NBA games are nationally televised and I assume blacked out on league pass, so a cable or virtual bundle is needed.
The problem is how do they monetize the local streaming, and do it without cannibalizing or breaching their (for now) lucrative RSN deals. This may all come to a head if/when Sinclair sports networks go bankrupt. It seems there would be some appeal to espn+/Peacock/HBOMax/Paramount/Amazon to try to make a splash with in market local games to draw subscribers, but I don't seen them paying nearly what the RSN model pays at the moment.
I think you hit on the big problem for these leagues. Cord cutters and cord nevers are not going to have any exposure to these games, and that includes a whole lot of younger people. Even if streaming doesn't make much financial sense at the moment, they need young fans to have a future.
