Name: Major League Soccer announces plan to shift season to July through May
Uploaded: 2025-11-14T19:58:28.665Z
Duration: 2 min 17 s
Description: The league announced Thursday its plan to transition from a February through October schedule to July through May, starting with the 2027-28 regular season. The change matches the schedules of international leagues like the Premier League, La Liga and Ligue 1.

The league announced Thursday its plan to transition from a February through October schedule to July through May, starting with the 2027-28 regular season. The change matches the schedules of international leagues like the Premier League, La Liga and Ligue 1.

Major League Soccer (MLS) has announced a major adjustment to its season schedule, with the league set to begin its season in July and conclude with the MLS Cup in May starting in 2027. This decision, approved by all 30 MLS clubs, is intended to better align the league with the schedules of top European soccer leagues and reduce the disruption caused by mid-season player transfers.

The new schedule will also include a two-month winter break from mid-December to February to address concerns about cold weather games. The change is expected to provide greater stability for teams and players, as well as enhance MLS's standing on the global soccer stage.

Major League Soccer announces plan to shift season to July through May

Here's the problem Major League Soccer is faced for many years. This is about the time the top leagues in the world in Europe finish up their season and get ready to dish out a whole bunch of money to bring new players in. Well, the current Major League Soccer schedule starts in February, runs through the summer, and up until about the time we're at right now with MLS Cup being in December. So the last thing Major League Soccer teams want to do is in the middle of a summer playoff push, send some of their best players to Europe. That could soon be changing, though. Major League Soccer voted on and approved a massive change to the league calendar on Thursday. Starting in 2027, the start of the season will no longer happen in February. It'll happen in July with MLS Cup happening the following May. Each of the 30 MLS clubs voted on it, and FC Cincinnati was one of the many clubs to vote in favor of the change. In your mind, does this make Major League Soccer and even bigger player on the world soccer stage? Yeah, I think it's where we need to get to. It's another step in the right direction to get to compete with these big five leagues. What would you say to the crowd that's concerned about a slight increase in cold weather games? They're going to be surprised that there's not going to be as many of those as they think. I think it's something that's been discussed within the league of how we, you know, in those months that can be challenging here and and further North, where maybe we're not playing home games and those games are being played further South. Conversely, when you have to play games in Miami in July and August, those aren't very fun either. Alright, that is part of a 20 minute interview. You can watch the whole thing right now on our website, wcpo.com. Now to address the cold weather issue, the league does plan to take about a two month break from mid December up until February. Now the player movement aspect that I mentioned earlier. Think about it like this. NFL free agency is in March, about a month after the Super Bowl, six months or so before the Super Bowl or so before any real football is played. No football happening at that time. Imagine though if free agency was like. Now, 10 weeks into the season and hundreds of players were trying to move to different teams. It would be chaotic. That's kind of like what Major League Soccer has been dealing with for some time now, but that will not be near as much of an issue a couple of years from now.

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