Baseball is looking towards ways to spice up its regular season.
MLB commissioner Rob Manfred discussed some of those possibilities during an interview with WFAN’s Craig Carton and Chris McMonigle on Thursday. One such possibility, Manfred suggested, is an in-season tournament similar to what the NBA has introduced with the NBA Cup. Another possibility is introducing a split-season format.
“We’ve talked about split seasons. We’ve talked about in-season tournaments,” Manfred told the WFAN hosts. “We do understand that 162 (games) is a long pull. I think the difficulty to accomplish those sort of in-season events, you almost inevitably start talking about fewer regular-season games.”
That might be a non-starter for owners and television networks, both of whom rely on the long season to drive revenue. Fewer games means fewer tickets to sell and fewer commercials to air, making it difficult to match the revenue that has come to be expected from a 162-game season.
Another hurdle, Manfred mentioned, is baseball’s record culture. Large portions of the fanbase care deeply about season-long records, predicated on a 162-game season, many of which date back over a century.
“It is a much more complicated thing in our sport than it is in other sports. Because of all of our season-long records, you’re playing around with something that people care a lot about.”
There are certainly formats that MLB could explore to preserve the 162-game season and still implement some form of in-season competition. The NBA found a way to maintain the 82-game schedule while still playing the NBA Cup, with every game counting towards the regular season except the NBA Cup Final.
The reality is, MLB would like to do something to try and drum up interest during its long regular season. An in-season tournament or split seasons are two options. But the league has also found success with mid-season events like the Field of Dreams game or the Little League Classic, both of which have been implemented without necessitating major change.
Manfred’s contract expires in 2029, at which point he insists he’ll retire. Perhaps once the league gets past its impending labor negotiation, and then a major round of media rights negotiations in 2028, one of Manfred’s final acts will be an in-season tournament. But for now, it’s just chatter.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.