I love baseball. I don't like soccer.
Yet I will totally agree that generally speaking baseball is not a good TV product much of the time, and soccer is pretty good on TV. I have rarely watched soccer, usually it's like background when NBC happens to be on. Even though I don't like the sport or care about it, I can see how people can find it compelling on TV, and the length is a massive advantage.
Personally baseball has always fallen into a few categories for me.
- Key game for playoff position or playoff game for my favorite team. This is GREAT TV. The tension of every pitch is great. It's some of the best sports TV you can watch, but unfortunately this accounts for very few games.
- Random regular season game - usually pretty boring and not good TV. Because of my TV and MLBs idiotic sport-crushing blackouts I rarely get to see my team (Twins) on TV. So when I do it's enjoyable. But I have no interest in watching even a third of the regular season games. Watching 10 regular season games or so is plenty.
- Fun as an event to go watch in person. Most places the aesthetics are great, and there's a lot of other stuff going on around the game. Would never get season tickets, but hitting a couple games a year in person is fun.
- I have always enjoyed listening to games while working on stuff in the house, garage or yard.