The owners barely even tried to save opening day.
Maybe you already think that because Major League Baseball implemented a discretionary lockout mere minutes after the last collective bargaining agreement expired. Or because it infamously slow-played negotiations for months despite knowing years in advance that these talks would be particularly contentious. Or just because the naïveté sometimes necessary to be a sports fan has been strained beyond credulity by the constant reminders that baseball is a business run by billionaires who consider winning simply a secondary perk.
Some of that is reasonable enough as a strategy.