I was just listening to Cowherd during my lunch drive (I know he isn't the most popular guy around here) and he was commenting on Mike Scioscia's push for 158-game season.
Cowherd brought up that August is pretty devoid of major sport excitement and that if MLB could get the playoffs started in mid-late August they could have ownership of that time frame and parlay that into more playoff excitement heading into September. His point was that currently in October, MLB is going against College Football and the NFL which are both in full swing. If the majority of your playoffs are in September that is before either are really into the thick of things.
I thought it was an interesting thought with respect to MLB economics.