If the MLB was popular enough it would be everywhere. The NFL understood TV better than any other sport in the early days, that’s why they dumped the local contracts and went national (though note, only the primetime and playoff games are broadcast truly nationally, the Sunday afternoon games are regional). It’s really a matter of knowing the market. It also helps football that it has the exact same structure as dramatic TV. Drama writing for a long time was ruled by “the rule of 3”: tell them what you’re going to show them, show them, tell them what they just saw. Which exactly matches the TV announcers predicting the play, then the play, then they explain the play.
Of course some of it is a matter of what you know about the game. You complain that football is about 5 second bursts, but that’s really only if you don’t understand the game, people who follow the game know that a “play” really starts with who gets put on the field, personal selections, presnap reads, adjustments by both sides to what they think the other side is doing, those are things that actually decide who is going to win the “burst”. For those who really understand the game often times the “burst” is kind of anti-climactic, it’s the least interesting part of the whole play.
And those who don’t understand baseball can lodge the same criticism of baseball. For the uninitiated baseball is the pitcher shaking his head a lot and then the “burst” of the pitch, which usually doesn’t get hit, and even if it does it’s all over in 10 seconds tops. Those who understand the game see it differently, but those who don’t see baseball the same way you see football.
The problem is there is a baseball game almost every day, missing one game doesn’t mean a heck of a lot, in the big scheme of things. But every football game is crucial, since there are so few of them.