For once, Major League Soccer got it right.
A league that barricades itself behind a TV paywall … constantly overhauls its playoff format … relies too heavily on past-their-prime foreign stars … thumbs its nose at FIFA’s international windows … dismisses the thought of a promotion-relegation system … all but bailed on the century-old national cup tournament … values contrived events over the regular season … and financially handcuffs its teams into perpetual continental failure …
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Well, that very same league made a smart move Thursday by changing its competition schedule.
For decades, MLS rowed against the current, starting the season early in the calendar year, playing through soccer-busy summers and ending as Christmas lights went up.
Starting in 2027, however, the 30-team circuit will align itself with most European leagues by conducting the season from mid-to-late July until late May.
It’s a seismic move, one that MLS executives and team owners weighed for years before finally finding consensus Thursday at the Board of Governors meeting in South Florida. The last time they took such pronounced action was 2007 by instituting the Designated Player rule, a mechanism for teams to get around the salary cap and sign global superstars, such as David Beckham and Lionel Messi.
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For a league with big ambitions but a history of puzzling decisions, the schedule change needed to happen. Ideally, it would have been enacted before the World Cup in North America casts an enormous shadow over the league next summer. But it will finally happen. Good for MLS.
“Our owners are very committed to being one of the top leagues in the world, and being one of the few that isn’t aligned with the international calendar has us almost have an American exceptionalism, saying that we’re going to play the game the way we want to play it, as opposed to the way the rest of the world plays it,” commissioner Don Garber said.
It should be noted that not everyone follows the calendar MLS will adapt; it’s mainly a way for MLS to align with the top European leagues. But Garber’s point is still valid: To take the next step in its carefully planned evolution, MLS must meet the top leagues where they are.
MLS will begin playing a summer-to-spring schedule in 2027, a significant shift meant to align the league with top international competitions.
(USA TODAY Sports via Reuters Connect / Reuters)
On the surface, though, it does seem counterproductive. MLS will throw the regular season deeper into direct competition with other sports leagues. Aside from a six-week winter break (for the regular season, but not necessarily for all competitions), MLS will overlap with the entirety of the NFL season and almost all of the NBA and NHL campaigns, plus college football and basketball.
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At the moment, a large portion of MLS’ schedule falls in the lighter summer, competing with MLB, the WNBA and the NWSL.
Then there are weather considerations. With more games in winter months, teams from cold-weather cities will need to play on the road immediately before and well after the winter break. (This year, the season kicked off Feb. 22, but Montreal didn’t play its home opener until April 12.) Only about a dozen teams would be largely unaffected by cold conditions at home.
More games in the winter, though, means fewer in the summer, when brutal heat this year prompted regular water breaks and intense thunderstorms forced numerous delays or postponements. Because of climate change, summers aren’t getting cooler and calmer. With the threat of discomfort and disruptions during the World Cup next year — like in the Club World Cup last summer — FIFA will need to select kickoff times carefully in many cities.
The schedule change actually isn’t that drastic: MLS is exchanging gamedays from about June 1 to July 15 for dates in early December and early February.
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The new calendar will also provide a far better platform for the playoffs, which, by definition, should be the pinnacle of public interest. Instead, MLS’ autumn postseason falls off the radar amid NFL and college football and the start of the NBA and NHL seasons. Additionally, MLS loses momentum by pausing the playoffs for two weeks in November to accommodate a FIFA international window.
And because championship hosting rights are not preselected, MLS has run the risk of playing its premier match in extreme conditions. (Kansas City and Toronto, in particular, have hosted frigid finals.) In the spring, the weather is better, there are no football distractions and no international windows to dodge.
This decision, though, was also driven by MLS’ need to join the greater soccer community. To begin, playing through the summer means scheduling conflicts almost annually with international tournaments, such as the World Cup, European Championship, Copa América and CONCACAF events.
MLS pauses its schedule for only a portion of the World Cup and the CONCACAF Gold Cup, for instance, leaving clubs without top players for weeks at a time and forcing viewers to choose between league and international matches.
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With an adjusted calendar, MLS will also hopefully stop scheduling regular-season matches not only during portions of the busy summer but during international windows in the spring and early fall.
From the player acquisition standpoint, the MLS season will now line up with international transfer windows in August and January. Offseason is prime time to acquire players, but MLS’s offseason has fallen during the January window, when there are fewer players on the market. By the time the summer window opens, most MLS teams have less roster and salary flexibility.
Summer is also the height of interest overseas in MLS players, when European clubs are adding talent. With MLS no longer in midseason, teams will be more willing to entertain offers and, in turn, grow revenue from transfer fees — a vital element to running a successful club.
MLS is not the first to adjust its calendar. Japan’s J League, which is three years older than MLS, is also making the switch in 2027 with a winter break.
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More than a decade ago, Russia, which knows a thing or two about harsh winters, also switched its calendar to conform with most of Europe.
MLS’ decision is not a cure-all. The U.S. league remains an adolescent on the global soccer landscape — sometimes acting like an adult but still flashing childish impulses. Hefty challenges stand in the way of becoming as popular as other U.S. sports leagues and getting on par with the best soccer circuits in the world.
Changing the calendar is a step in the right direction, but to reach its goals, MLS must continue to evolve. The board meeting Thursday also involved discussions about changing roster rules, ditching the conferences and adjusting the playoff format.
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Garber says it’s a movement toward “MLS 3.0.”
He explained, “now that we have established this great foundation, what do we need to do for the next 30 years to capture this great opportunity, to bottle all the excitement and energy around our league and the growth of soccer in this continent and do it in ways that evolve and use innovation and take some risks as we think about the future?”
The calendar change was the league’s big splash after years of treading water. The next moves, though, will determine whether it sinks or swims.
