For some folks, a dream may soon become a reality in Major League Soccer.
"Major League Soccer is considering overhauling its calendar, flipping to a fall-spring season with breaks in the summer and winter, multiple sources briefed on the league’s discussions tell The Athletic."
Paul Tenorio broke that story on Wednesday afternoon, sending the MLS world into a blaze.
Why would this work? There are several reasons why this is big.
MLS teams could now sell and buy players in transfer windows that are aligned with the big leagues of Europe and South America. For instance, when Boca Juniors came calling for Alan Velasco this summer, FC Dallas had to weigh whether or not they wanted to cash in on a player before the key stretch run of the regular season, with no available replacement coming into the club.
Secondly, MLS typically plays through most of the annual FIFA windows, which causes some friction between the national teams and the clubs. Several teams this season saw half or more of their regular starters miss a game or two due to international duty. Shifting schedules would likely mean that if FIFA has a spot on the calendar, MLS will break for it.
And finally, the move would allow MLS to maximize its visibility in the American sports landscape. The league is currently in the early stages of its playoffs, which are going in direct competition with MLB's World Series, the NFL's regular season, college football's regular season and the start of both the NBA and NHL regular seasons.
The schedule shift would see the MLS Playoffs and MLS Cup move to a more open timeslot in the American sports calendar. The game would also be played in warmer weather each time.
But it isn't all good.
A shift in a calendar means that starting the regular season in late summer, into the fall months and then breaking for a few weeks at the holidays will still mean that there will be plenty of games in very cold weather when the schedule resumes in late January or February.
Most casual fans likely won't find February road trips to Chicago, Minnesota, New England, or Philadelphia appealing.
The league would also be off from June to mid-July or early August.
Lastly, the league will have to figure out how to handle the League Cup, US Open Cup and Canadian Championship in this new calendar. Fitting those games into a fall-to-spring calendar isn't completely undoable, but it will be complicated for the first couple of years, to say the least.
How would this impact FC Dallas?
When I met with FC Dallas technical director Andre Zanotta in August, I asked him whether the current calendar would benefit MLS in 2024. He was hopeful that some changes down the road could make things more aligned with the rest of the world.
"If you can have spread out throughout the year and not be condensing one moment," said Zanotta when discussing improving the MLS schedule. "If you could, in a perfect world, have MLS on the same transfer windows with other places in the world."
Zanotta went on to say that if the league aligned with South America or Europe, the club would have had a tougher decision to make with Velasco and Boca Juniors. The current calendar meant they could not accept Boca's final offer because there was no replacement due to the MLS window being closed a few days prior.
As for the weather, I understand the hesitancy to play more games in colder weather. I imagine that MLS will use this chance to return to more afternoon games during those colder months. That would be a welcome sight for many of us after a couple of seasons with 7:30 p.m. kickoffs each weekend.
Lastly, as Toyota Stadium undergoes renovation for the next few seasons, this change could help with construction. Imagine crews not having to stop work for a couple of weeks during summer games. That may help push the renovation along quickly.
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