For the couple of years, Major League Soccer owners have been discussing the idea of moving its calendar to match the majority of the soccer world. This week, a new report from The Athletic states that the owners are finally going to put that move to a vote.
Barring last-minute snags and final discussions and agreements with the MLS Players Association, the board of governors is prepared to make official a change to a fall-spring calendar that syncs up with many top European leagues, according to multiple sources briefed on the agenda. In addition, the league will likely vote on changes to the competition format. The proposal would see MLS move to a single-table system – one that also incorporates five divisions, more on that below – rather than two conferences.
The board is expected to meet on Thursday in Florida according to the report from Tom Bogert and Paul Tenorio.
The potential calendar flip would not take place until the 2027 season. The plan is for the MLS regular season to go from mid-to-late July or August to April, with playoffs staged in May. The league would take a winter break in December and January. Games would likely pause from around the second week in December through the first or third week in February. Between seasons, there would be a break in June and part of July.
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This would allow MLS to avoid playing playoff games during the busy NFL and college football seasons, as well as avoid playing regular season games around the NFL’s Super Bowl.
It would also open up the league’s playoff schedule to not conflict with FIFA dates in November, like we’ve seen the last several years. Right now, there are teams like Vancouver, LAFC, and Philadelphia who sweep their opening round playoff series and will be off for nearly three weeks.
The other piece of this news, the schedule adjustments and conference alignments, are really intriguing.
The plan is to move the league to a single-table format, but that also includes five divisions, sources said. MLS currently plays with two conference tables. The divisions would be organized geographically, and teams would play home and away against divisional rivals. The divisions would essentially operate almost as a secondary competition and objective for teams, with no substantive impact on playoff seeding other than that division winners would be guaranteed a playoff spot. (Though it would be unlikely a team that wins the division wouldn’t already be qualified for the playoffs via the single table.)
Teams would then play the other 24 teams in the league once, either home or away, for 34 total games.
Honestly, the idea of five divisions instead of two conferences with divisions within them, does make my head hurt a good bit. FC Dallas would likely be placed in a six-team division that includes in-state rivals Austin FC and the Houston Dynamo, along with potentially Sporting Kansas City, St. Louis CITY SC, and the Colorado Rapids or Minnesota United.
All of this does make it sound like MLS is going to begin to place more emphasis on its regular season with a schedule like what is being discussed. The potential playoff changes, however, do seem like they need to be ironed out a good bit.
What do you all make of these potential changes? Let’s discuss it all below.
