In European football (I refuse to call it soccer) they just give the title to the team with the best record in the regular season. None of this playoffs nonsense.
Wouldn’t be a bad thing, except for all of the money that would be left on the table. There is no way the MLB (or NBA or NFL or NCAA) would ever walk away from that.
I remember the ‘purists’ kvetching about how the World Series could possibly pit an AL and NL teams with the second best record in their respective leagues. It was anathema. Imagine a second place team in the league playing for the championship! If memory serves, that was in the late ‘60s, when MLB split each league into 2 divisions. Today there are 3 divisions and 3 wild card teams in each league.
This year the is the possibility of the 5th place AL team facing the 6 place NL team in the World Series.
There are billions of dollars at stake.