American sports leagues have no idea what they’re doing with these in-season tournaments.

During a recent appearance on WFAN-AM alongside Craig Carton and Chris McMonigle, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred once again showcased his … talent? … of tossing out bold ideas by revealing that the league has been exploring the introduction of an in-season tournament similar to the NBA Cup, in addition to the concept of a split-season schedule.

“We’ve talked about split seasons. We’ve talked about in-season tournaments,” said Manfred, per The Athletic’s Evan Drellich. “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.” (RELATED: AJ Brown Goes Complete Psycho On Nick Sirianni, Then Ruins Eagles’ Season With Pure Embarrassment)

Manfred acknowledged that the deeply traditional and almost untouchable status of baseball’s regular-season schedule would likely make any significant alterations difficult to implement.

“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,” said Manfred.

Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred said on WFAN that he has discussed major changes to the sport’s schedule: both a split season and an in-season tournament.

He also acknowledged they’d be difficult to implement.
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— Evan Drellich (@EvanDrellich) January 8, 2026

I get why leagues like the MLB and NBA want to do the whole in-season tournament thing, but the only reason why it works in Europe with soccer is because you have clubs facing off against other clubs from completely different leagues. It gives fans a chance to see teams play one another that they don’t normally get to see.

Plus, the branding over there is elite — Carabao Cup, FA Cup, Copa del Rey, etc. It’s not boring like the “NBA Cup.” So not only do these European in-season tournaments have sexy branding, but they actually have meaning with so many teams competing from different leagues. There’s no meaning to seeing the Thunder and Bucks play again after we already saw it twice earlier in the season.

When American leagues understand this, then maybe in-season tournaments will pop off in the United States, but right now, nah. And it’s not even close.

PS, considering how I make a ton of money from baseball during the season, I rather not change the way we do business.