JCG - different topic. The rules changes I'd advocate would be designed to liven up the game to create more action and address Go44Dad's observation which I agree with wholeheartedly.
This topic is more around the game finding itself as having to compete every single day of the season with something else potentially more popular.
Gambling is coming - all the people that own sports teams are not going to leave billions of dollars on the table. If you think they are then you haven't been paying attention. The question isn't if gambling will occur, but how much it will dominate telecasts. The proliferation of gambling shows on TV tells us where this is going; There will be subscription services for advice, web sites to make it easy and as the TV itself becomes more interactive you'll be doing it from your living room by talking to your TV....think Siri.
Younger people will view baseball differently as a gambling vehicle rather than for the game itself. The NFL's popularity is rooted on three things IMO, Explosive action, perfectly designed for commercial TV and its wonderful ability to gamble that completely blew up with the invention of Fantasy Football. Even the scoring system lends itself to gambling with easy to understand point spreads.
Either way if the NBA actually makes a bold move to alter its season to attack the wide open summer it won't be long before mid - June to mid - August is viewed as NBA playoff time as it becomes the sport of Summer and assumes the position of the calendar Ying to the NFL's Yang. Hell I can see a time where the NBA's final game is August 10th and the first of 2 or 3 NFL preseason games is a few days later. And that is in 2021 or 2022.