MLS to mirror European football schedule

[Kirk Van Houten]

Right but half the season will be competing against football, which trumps all.

Regular season games on Apple TV I think they'll be fine with that it's not that they're getting masive numbers now.

"Under the proposal, MLS would begin early August and run until mid-December before a winter break. The season would resume in February and run until the spring, with the MLS Cup in late May."

So starting roughly when NFL preseason does, which despite everyone saying they hate, millions watch and it gets more attention than even the playoffs of some leagues, including MLS. Couple weeks later college football starts. Get to September and NFL regular season. October MLB playoffs and NHL & NBA seasons start, plus WNBA playoffs will continue to be pushed/marketed. During those proposed opening months of the MLS season there's also the PGA Tour with a major & the FedEx Cup playoffs. Plus those months cover the final stretch of the season for American motorsports, with NASCAR even going into the first weekend of November.

So that's a rough time to start a season.

Winter break, come back in February, presumably avoiding the Super Bowl which is not too many years from being pushed even further back in Feb. So beginning of 2nd half of season NFL is still taking up all the air. Get to March and you have March Madness and spring training/opening day/week of MLB.

MLS Cup playoffs in May, H2H with NBA & Stanley Cup Playoffs. Yikes. Good luck with that Revolution-Red Bulls playoff series going H2H with Knicks-Celtics or Bruins-Rangers, or both.

There's always competition. Tough to find space in the U.S. sports calender but if they do change, it looks tough.

So pretty the way their setting this up is to push big for the second half of the season and the Playoffs. That's a big gamble there.

 

[varsaku]

It's long overdue. Playing in the summer and overlapping the international tournaments isn’t something a serious league can do.

Mess in the transfer market, as well.

many leagues play in the summer too. Brazil's league plays similar to MLS.

 

[Jumptheshark]

If it ain't broke don't fix it.

I think their schedule is part of why they've been successful. Sure things get hard at playoff time with so much going on in the sports world but competing directly with the NHL and NBA regular seasons, + almost the entire NFL & college football seasons for a good chunk of the season? Tough one.

I am looking at the fact that they would more or less splitting the season in half. Avoiding "Winter" all together in some norther territories could be interesting. Places like Florida and California. Some of the norther teams play in cities where it does not warm up till late april

 

[PCSPounder]

I am looking at the fact that they would more or less splitting the season in half. Avoiding "Winter" all together in some norther territories could be interesting. Places like Florida and California. Some of the norther teams play in cities where it does not warm up till late april

It’s easier to dress up for cold than to dress down for the heat in Orlando, Houston, etc.

It’s WAY easier to play in same. Conditions are often downright dangerous for players in the south in an MLS schedule.

But I also note that a fair number of Swedish stadiums have domes or retractable roofs for a summer schedule.

I thought Bundesliga used to have a couple months of winter break… it’s 3 weeks. Certainly MLS can work with that.

 

[Voight]

I am looking at the fact that they would more or less splitting the season in half. Avoiding "Winter" all together in some norther territories could be interesting. Places like Florida and California. Some of the norther teams play in cities where it does not warm up till late april

They won't be avoiding winter, unless they ensure all of the most northern teams play away games in warmer climates.

 

[IU Hawks fan]

They currently start the season in late February. They'll resume the season at the same time, maybe a couple weeks earlier at most.

And they probably play Leagues Cup over the break in warm weather locales, starting in early January. So the actual break is probably 3 weeks, 4 at most.

 

[jetsmooseice]

This is ludicrously unworkable. It will never fly. No one is going to sit outside in Toronto, Montreal or Minnesota in January to watch soccer. Probably not in Chicago, Columbus, Denver, KC and NYC either. I mean, maybe you'd do it once for a rare special occasion but not for a routine who-cares regular season game.

And putting cold-weather teams on the road for months at a time isn't any more practical.

 

[Anisimovs AK]

"Under the proposal, MLS would begin early August and run until mid-December before a winter break. The season would resume in February and run until the spring, with the MLS Cup in late May."

So starting roughly when NFL preseason does, which despite everyone saying they hate, millions watch and it gets more attention than even the playoffs of some leagues, including MLS. Couple weeks later college football starts. Get to September and NFL regular season. October MLB playoffs and NHL & NBA seasons start, plus WNBA playoffs will continue to be pushed/marketed. During those proposed opening months of the MLS season there's also the PGA Tour with a major & the FedEx Cup playoffs. Plus those months cover the final stretch of the season for American motorsports, with NASCAR even going into the first weekend of November.

So that's a rough time to start a season.

Winter break, come back in February, presumably avoiding the Super Bowl which is not too many years from being pushed even further back in Feb. So beginning of 2nd half of season NFL is still taking up all the air. Get to March and you have March Madness and spring training/opening day/week of MLB.

MLS Cup playoffs in May, H2H with NBA & Stanley Cup Playoffs. Yikes. Good luck with that Revolution-Red Bulls playoff series going H2H with Knicks-Celtics or Bruins-Rangers, or both.

There's always competition. Tough to find space in the U.S. sports calender but if they do change, it looks tough.

Dont forget the Daytona 500 is usually Presidents Day weekend. That usually gets north of 8 million viewers

 

[varsaku]

This is ludicrously unworkable. It will never fly. No one is going to sit outside in Toronto, Montreal or Minnesota in January to watch soccer. Probably not in Chicago, Columbus, Denver, KC and NYC either. I mean, maybe you'd do it once for a rare special occasion but not for a routine who-cares regular season game.

And putting cold-weather teams on the road for months at a time isn't any more practical.

I would imagine they would have a longer than normal winter break and schedule cold weather teams for more away games during that period. That would effectively run the season during the same time period of the year, however, offseason will be much shorter.

 

[LadyStanley]

MLS is exploring a calendar overhaul. The case for (and against) change is clear

Major League Soccer faces pressure to shift its season calendar to align with Europe's in order to maximize playoff exposure and synchronize with global transfer windows.

sports.yahoo.com

Discussion coming this month. Decision in April/May 2025 for 2026 season.

 

[PCSPounder]

MLS is exploring a calendar overhaul. The case for (and against) change is clear

Major League Soccer faces pressure to shift its season calendar to align with Europe's in order to maximize playoff exposure and synchronize with global transfer windows.

sports.yahoo.com

Discussion coming this month. Decision in April/May 2025 for 2026 season.

The best point the article makes is that MLS already spends more than a month with Leagues Cup, and this year the dwindling crowds were obvious.

They’re better off playing that in the south- and, very odd suggestion, maybe some games actually IN Mexico- during bowl season and through January. (I know, I know, the money is El Norte… but will that be the case for long?)

Still, the prime question… who pays for this? While the Apple contract is for 10 years, once Messi is gone, will Apple dump it? That’s where the concern and the opportunity lie.

 

[KevFu]

It's a huge step for MLS to be able to consider it. The question is: Is the amount of revenue lost to bad weather/fall sports competition worth the amount of revenue gained by being participants in the world transfer market at more lucrative times.

The idea being you can bring in better players to sell more tickets on the world calendar, and make more money exporting players on the world calendar.

With the International breaks in the fall for WCQ, I could see them being able to pull it off. I don't think it's as obvious, nor as drastic as the back and forth makes it sound.


The most crucial thing is to grasp what MLB refuses to: That you can systematically and intelligently schedule with weather in mind (drives me crazy when it's like CLE at MIN to open MLB season and the game is snowed out when they have 13 warm/dome stadiums)

MLS would need to build their schedule "Middle Out" from the winter. Schedule the rest of the league's trips to LAFC, LA, SD, DAL, HOU, AUSTIN, ORL, MIA, ATL, NASH, CHAR, SJ for December and January.

Everyone's gonna be like "then the warm weather teams are always opening/closing the season on the road!" And I say so what? All our leagues have been sacrificing fairness for money for DECADES now with unbalanced schedule. Why "fan comfort" can't be tied to that via the money is beyond me.

 

[GKJ]

I don’t know what I don’t know, but I feel this only works the way they want if they become one of the big leagues in the world.

 

[KevFu]

I don’t know what I don’t know, but I feel this only works the way they want if they become one of the big leagues in the world.

I think people are looking at the motivation as "Transfer in" but I think the real reason is "transfer out."

Like is MLS trying to go to the World Calendar to compete on the transfer market to bring in star players from Europe for more than a "retirement league"

And I think it's more that MLS teams now have an actual developmental system that is actually starting to produce real talent; talent "too good for MLS," so they sell it....

But you don't get top dollar selling to Europe in the January transfer window; and it negatively affects your fan base/ticket sales/TV ratings and locker room when you sell guys mid-season on the European timetable.

Maximizing transfer out is going to be more of a gain than transfer in, but transfer in can also help offset the ticket/exposure loss by switching.


Generally speaking, the whole reason they're summer is because in the 1990s, they'd never grow/become anything going against NFL/NCAA Football and they were always capped by "being a worse product that other global leagues."

But times have changed where cable is dwindling and EVERYTHING is niche, so the fight for viewers really isn't going to be that much different -- might even gain from people just BEING INSIDE to watch more in fall (the whole reason network TV has always shown re-runs all summer: people are out and about). The fans they have aren't going away, the casuals will still be casual but they might make some inroads by signing some players people have heard of.

Making this change for the purpose of saying "We're gonna be the best league in the world" is pretty laughable. Making the change because "there's really no where else to go to create more revenue" is far more likely.

 

[GKJ]

I think people are looking at the motivation as "Transfer in" but I think the real reason is "transfer out."

Like is MLS trying to go to the World Calendar to compete on the transfer market to bring in star players from Europe for more than a "retirement league"

And I think it's more that MLS teams now have an actual developmental system that is actually starting to produce real talent; talent "too good for MLS," so they sell it....

But you don't get top dollar selling to Europe in the January transfer window; and it negatively affects your fan base/ticket sales/TV ratings and locker room when you sell guys mid-season on the European timetable.

Maximizing transfer out is going to be more of a gain than transfer in, but transfer in can also help offset the ticket/exposure loss by switching.


Generally speaking, the whole reason they're summer is because in the 1990s, they'd never grow/become anything going against NFL/NCAA Football and they were always capped by "being a worse product that other global leagues."

But times have changed where cable is dwindling and EVERYTHING is niche, so the fight for viewers really isn't going to be that much different -- might even gain from people just BEING INSIDE to watch more in fall (the whole reason network TV has always shown re-runs all summer: people are out and about). The fans they have aren't going away, the casuals will still be casual but they might make some inroads by signing some players people have heard of.

Making this change for the purpose of saying "We're gonna be the best league in the world" is pretty laughable. Making the change because "there's really no where else to go to create more revenue" is far more likely.

I think we’re on a similar page here. Can they become a TV league internationally? They don’t have much more space to go in expanding their footprint domestically, so it’s a logical step. Taking lessons from the other sports here. The difference is that the worldwide market has very obviously far more competition. It’s not about filling a stadium during cold months.

 

[KevFu]

I think we’re on a similar page here. Can they become a TV league internationally? They don’t have much more space to go in expanding their footprint domestically, so it’s a logical step. Taking lessons from the other sports here. The difference is that the worldwide market has very obviously far more competition. It’s not about filling a stadium during cold months.

I don't think becoming "a TV League internationally" works for MLS, period, simply because of time zones. Europe isn't going to watch any MLS night games no matter if it's June or December, simply because they kick off at 2 to 5 am in Europe. South America could watch because they line up time zone wise, but that's not lucrative.

Our "North American sports brains" think TV first because that's where the money is, but there's another source of income in soccer that the other North American Leagues simply don't have: Playing the world transfer market for profit.


THAT'S where there's massive room for MLS to grow. MLS has the ability to make more on the transfer market because we're getting better at player development with our academies starting to bear fruit, but our crops are out of season.

Think of the NHL trade deadline: you have buyers and sellers. Generally speaking, by being opposite the world calendar:

WINTER: MLS teams are both buyers/sellers in their off-season, budgeting and shaping their rosters; but only World Sellers have players available. World Buyers are loading up for the second half of the year to win. There's half as many teams to buy from, half as many teams to sell to.

SUMMER: MLS teams are buyers OR sellers based on their standings. The world is buyers and sellers in their offseason, but our buyers don't want to sell, and our sellers don't want to buy.

We're only tapping in to half the transfer market revenue potential by being out of sync.


MLS can play the world transfer market like the stock market, and generate significant income from that, which would allow them to first offset the losses of the switch and second, re-invest those profits in increasing the quality of the league.

 

[PCSPounder]

In a post-Bosman world, relying on player sales has its limits. That’s not going to offset fan losses in the north.

The truth is that we just saw how to fill up Miami. The truth is that Dallas isn’t really a bad soccer market (those players they develop aren’t coming from everywhere else), they’re just a bad SUMMER soccer market. Southern California may not get oppressively hot in the summer, but winter really makes more sense there.

The other truth… Portland is more likely to sell seats in December than July. Providence Park turns 100 in 2 years and it’s become a hot box. Seattle isn’t much different climate-wise. Neither of us can drive in the snow because snow here is RARE… and that’s the point.

Minnesota is gonna need a dome. But you’re unlocking as many markets with a schedule shift as you inconvenience, perhaps even more than you inconvenience. This league has been busy expanding to Miami, Atlanta, Orlando, Nashville, Charlotte, Austin, San Diego, and giving LA another 2nd team; there’s a message being sent right there.

 

[varsaku]

In a post-Bosman world, relying on player sales has its limits. That’s not going to offset fan losses in the north.

The truth is that we just saw how to fill up Miami. The truth is that Dallas isn’t really a bad soccer market (those players they develop aren’t coming from everywhere else), they’re just a bad SUMMER soccer market. Southern California may not get oppressively hot in the summer, but winter really makes more sense there.

The other truth… Portland is more likely to sell seats in December than July. Providence Park turns 100 in 2 years and it’s become a hot box. Seattle isn’t much different climate-wise. Neither of us can drive in the snow because snow here is RARE… and that’s the point.

Minnesota is gonna need a dome. But you’re unlocking as many markets with a schedule shift as you inconvenience, perhaps even more than you inconvenience. This league has been busy expanding to Miami, Atlanta, Orlando, Nashville, Charlotte, Austin, San Diego, and giving LA another 2nd team; there’s a message being sent right there.

I would imagine a simple dome would do the job to shield fans from the winter while not running up the cost to get a fancy set up. Also that would unlock opportunities to host events in the winter and summer that would otherwise not consider an outdoor venue.

 

[KevFu]

In a post-Bosman world, relying on player sales has its limits. That’s not going to offset fan losses in the north.

The truth is that we just saw how to fill up Miami. The truth is that Dallas isn’t really a bad soccer market (those players they develop aren’t coming from everywhere else), they’re just a bad SUMMER soccer market. Southern California may not get oppressively hot in the summer, but winter really makes more sense there.

The other truth… Portland is more likely to sell seats in December than July. Providence Park turns 100 in 2 years and it’s become a hot box. Seattle isn’t much different climate-wise. Neither of us can drive in the snow because snow here is RARE… and that’s the point.

Minnesota is gonna need a dome. But you’re unlocking as many markets with a schedule shift as you inconvenience, perhaps even more than you inconvenience. This league has been busy expanding to Miami, Atlanta, Orlando, Nashville, Charlotte, Austin, San Diego, and giving LA another 2nd team; there’s a message being sent right there.

I think the player sales CAN offset the losses of ticket sales. The average total revenue per team is only like $70 million; Minus TV, merch, and gate receipts are like $30m on average.

You suffer a 25% reduction in attendance during the third of the season that's cold; that's like losing $3 million.

MLS can't increase transfer out by $3 million in transfer fees when their academy systems are just now bearing fruit?


They can also mitigate a lot of it with simple strategic scheduling. Schedule from the middle-out...
All games where this group: Minnesota, Salt Lake, Colorado, Kansas City, St. Louis, Montreal, Toronto, New England, NYRB, NYCFC, Philly, DC, CBJ, Chicago, Cincinnati

Plays this group: Nashville, Charlotte, Atlanta, Orlando, Miami, San Jose, LAG, LAFC, SD, Houston, Dallas, Austin, Portland, Seattle, Vancouver

Will be scheduled AT GROUP TWO during the middle months, and work out from there.

You know what I've always wondered about sport scheduling? Why does it matter that the schedule is "different" every year? Is that any kind of competitive advantage/disadvantage to that? I don't think so simply because teams perform differently one year to the next.

College football has it where fans and TV LIKE having the rivalry game set the same weekend every year. There's no harm in having New York at Miami every January 12th-ish.