MLB Rivalry Weekend 2026 felt like the league was “lighting a fire where there was no spark.” The weekend featured some nail-biting matches like the New York Mets vs New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers vs Los Angeles Angels.  Still, not every rivalry feels like a real one.

MLB officially started “Rivalry Weekend” in 2025, and it soon turned into a major marketing event. The league got fans to watch the game through MLB.TV or the ESPN app. They even partnered with companies like Booking.com to help advertise the event. The goal was simple.

The big leagues wanted to grab more viewers and generate revenue. And that happened last year when the Mets vs. Yankees matchup on ESPN averaged 2.54 million views and became the most-watched Sunday Night Baseball game since 2018, before the Yankees vs Los Angeles Dodgers game surpassed that in June 2025, averaging 2.73 million viewers.

But now that excitement is slowly fading, as the league forces some rivalry games on fans.

Padres(2) vs. Mariners(0)

At first, the San Diego Padres and Seattle Mariners are not true rivals. The two teams were mainly paired because they shared the same spring training complex and often traded players with each other. Fans understood the matchup, but it never really carried emotions like the Yankees vs. Red Sox rivalry.

Then things slowly changed because of Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder.

Vedder lived in San Diego after moving from Illinois in the 1970s, but later moved to Seattle in the early 1990s when he joined Pearl Jam. Because he had strong connections to both cities, fans started joking about the Padres and Mariners “fighting” over Eddie Vedder.

That joke turned into “Vedder Cup,” which was obviously not real. But in 2025, the joke officially became reality.

MLB approved the Vedder Cup and turned it into a rivalry trophy. Eddie Vedder even helped design the trophy himself. It gained fans’ interest, but let’s not forget it doesn’t hold any real value, plus Vedder is a diehard Chicago Cubs fan.

One Reddit fan took a sarcastic jab at the game, too.

“There’s no more storied rivalry than the Vedder Cup between the Mariners and the Padres.”

But there’s still irony.

Even with dissatisfaction, fans are not stopping themselves from watching the game anytime soon. Mariners vs Padres stayed almost the same, going from 43,320 in 2025 to 43,349 in 2026.

Giants(2) vs. Athletics(5)

The San Francisco Giants and Athletics are playing another “Battle of the Bay” rivalry series. The OG Bay Bridge Series began in the 1905 World Series, when the then-Philadelphia Athletics and New York Giants faced off. However, the cross-Bay rivalry was born on October 17, 1989, when the Oakland Athletics and San Francisco Giants played in the famous “Earthquake Series.” But it now feels very different.

The Athletics are no longer playing near the San Francisco Bay full-time because the team moved from Oakland to Sacramento in 2025. The team is temporarily playing home games in Sacramento while waiting for its new stadium to be built in Las Vegas.

Because of Athletics’ shift to Las Vegas in 2028, many believe this rivalry is losing its value. Future generations, too, might wonder why the Giants and Athletics are still called “Bay rivals” when one team no longer plays in the Bay Area. And even they will slowly lose their importance, just like the Red Sox and Braves.

This is why MLB should stick to old and historic rivalries rather than making a buzz around the ones that are losing their value.

Rivalries like Dodgers vs. Giants clearly have a history of bad blood, and it goes all the way back to New York, when the Dodgers were the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Giants were the New York Giants before both teams moved west to California. That rivalry is present to date, with several fan incidents coming to the spotlight.

In 2011, longtime SF Giants fan Bryan Stow was beaten up so bad by two men wearing Dodgers gear at the Dodger Stadium parking lot that he is still suffering from brain damage. In 2013, LA fan Jonathan Denver was fatally stabbed to death in a late-night altercation a few blocks from the Giants’ AT&T Park following a game. Just two days ago, there was another fan brawl at LA, when a woman in Dodger blue was seen flashing gang signs.

That’s how intense baseball rivalries have been. The dissatisfaction with SF and A’s rivalry was visible.

The attendance dropped sharply from 41,112 in 2025 to 12,348 in 2026.

It’s even more evident on Reddit, as one fan wrote, “It’s geographic rivals, not ‘real’ rivals.”

Arizona Diamondbacks(9) vs. Colorado Rockies(1)

One big reason this rivalry feels forced is that MLB mostly ‘manufactured’ it through scheduling. During MLB Rivalry Weekend, the league tries to give every team a “rival,” even if the teams do not really dislike each other. So, the Diamondbacks and Rockies were matched together mainly because they are in the same region and division.

These two teams do not have much history together.

Real sports rivalries usually grow from playoff battles, championship races, or many important games over the years. But the Diamondbacks and Rockies have rarely fought each other in huge moments. Most of the time, both clubs are trying to catch stronger NL West teams like the Dodgers or Giants instead.

The main thing connecting the Diamondbacks and Rockies is simply geography and timing.

Both teams joined the big leagues in the 1990s as newer expansion teams, and both play in the NL West division. Because of that, MLB treats them like rivals. But many are against this idea, as back in 2023, one expressed their dissatisfaction on Reddit.

“I don’t think we have any true rivalries where both teams and both fanbases REALLY care about it. I’d say the Rockies are the closest to that just because we’re both 90s expansion teams.”

Yet, not all fans are limiting themselves. The Diamondbacks vs Rockies saw the maximum growth among the three we discussed, rising from 23,045 in 2025 to 27,557 in 2026.

So the big question becomes: if fans are still attending most of these games, then are rivalry games actually losing their value?

No matter what the numbers say, fans aren’t satisfied. But it is also true that they cannot miss games because it is America’s Favorite Pastime.

But there’s a bigger reason at play for the games to be ‘manufactured’ like this.

One big reason for this problem is MLB’s new “balanced schedule,” which started in 2023. Before this change, teams played more games against their division rivals. Now, every team must play all 29 other MLB teams during the season. Because of that, MLB has fewer division games and less space in the schedule.

This also makes scheduling harder for the league. MLB now tries to place all rivalry matchups on the same “Rivalry Weekend.” To make that happen, the league sometimes has to move or shorten normal series against division rivals. Let’s take the Boston Red Sox, for example.

They will reportedly play only two division opponents during all of September in 2026 – a four-game road series against the Baltimore Orioles and a three-game road series against the Tampa Bay Rays.

Another problem is that teams that are in the regular season are not always in the playoffs, so this lowers the excitement even more. But then there are games like Rangers vs. Astros or Phillies vs. Pirates, which can change division standings, too.

It all comes to one point that the rivalry weekend should hold some value rather than just playing it for views, revenue, or fan engagement.