Projected operating losses of $232 million for the 2001 season. A pending decision on a grievance filed by the Players Association. A two-team contraction still in the works for the 2002 season despite a temporary injunction forcing the Twins to play next year in Minnesota.

None of these things qualifies as baseball's biggest problem facing its future, at least according to a poll commissioned by Major League Baseball and obtained by ESPN.com on Tuesday.

"This poll comes now because the core issue -- the lack of competitive balance -- has been obscured by the public debate of contraction, the publicity surrounding the Commissioner's (Bud Selig) appearance in Congress and the disclosure of the financial data," said Sandy Alderson, executive vice president of baseball operations for Major League Baseball. "The poll underscores that the average fan doesn't care about owners making or losing money, he or she cares about the ability of his or her team to be able to compete year in and year out."

Conducted a week and a half ago by Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, a New York-based survey company, the poll reveals that 75 percent of the 1,000 fans surveyed believe there is a lack of competitive balance in the game and that 89 percent believe that competitive balance is at least somewhat important to the league's future popularity.

But what is competitive balance?

Alderson sides with the definition put forth by the Blue Ribbon Panel report issued in July, 2000. "Proper competitive balance will not exist until every well-run club has a regularly recurring reasonable hope of reaching postseason play," the report states.

The specific origin of competitive imbalance, according to Alderson, dates back to the 1992 or 1993 season when "payroll between teams went from being within close range of each other to a well-defined disparity."

For the low revenue A's, Alderson says, a period of two straight playoff years in nine seasons doesn't constitute that the team is competitively balanced. In the last seven years, only five playoff teams were in the bottom half of league payroll, he said.

The report did not contain questions about how contraction would help solve competitive imbalance, or ask if eliminating teams like the New York Yankees and the New York Mets would do as much to alleviate the competitive balance problems as eliminating two low revenue-generating teams such as the Montreal Expos and Minnesota Twins.

Alderson didn't know if that question was included in the polling, but did say that the Yankees aren't going anywhere. "You never want to eliminate the lead horse," Alderson said. "The horse race involves a lot of horses of differing ability and what we have to work towards is to give every horse an incentive to finish the race."

The poll also stated that 77 percent of fans want more increased revenue sharing and 84 percent want baseball to place a salary cap on team payrolls. Not only will 75 percent of the owners have to approve measures to improve competitive balance, but the Players Association will have to sign off on them as well.

Alderson said that the Players Association -- in what the league felt was an unacceptable and low offer -- only agreed to increase the current revenue sharing pot from $165 million (20 percent sharing) to $185 million (22.5 percent sharing) this past summer. The Blue Ribbon Panel report suggested up to 50 percent revenue sharing in the future, but officials with the union have, in the past, doubted whether the owners would be able to approve greater revenue sharing amongst themselves. An official with the Players Association was unavailable for comment.

"The commissioner firmly believes that owners can approve greater revenue sharing to the parameters defined by the Blue Ribbon report," Alderson said.

Darren Rovell, who covers sports business at ESPN.com, can be reached at darren.rovell@espn.com.