MLS to adopt summer-to-spring league calendar beginning in 2027

Major changes are coming to Major League Soccer after the World Cup.

MLS announced that the league will adopt a summer-to-spring calendar, a dramatic shift away from its traditional schedule that is meant to align with that of major European leagues. The schedule change, which will take effect in 2027, was approved by the league’s board of governors in Florida on Thursday.

“Aligning our schedule with the world’s top leagues will strengthen our clubs’ global competitiveness, create better opportunities in the transfer market, and ensure our Audi MLS Cup Playoffs take center stage without interruption,” MLS commissioner Don Garber said in a statement. “It marks the start of a new era for our league and for soccer in North America.”

The new calendar means that the MLS season will start in mid-to-late July and end with the playoffs in May. To account for colder climates, the league will pause in December and resume in February.

“It allows us to be aligned with the international transfer windows, which we think is incredibly important,” Garber said in a media briefing on Thursday afternoon. “It gives us a wide variety of opportunities that will expand our ability to be on this path to be one of the top and leading leagues in the world.”

“We expect to have our activity, both in the transfer of player services out, and then incoming transfer services of players in, to be much more active,” EVP of sporting and competition Nelson Rodriguez added. “This will make us a more vibrant league and improve our player quality overall.”

With Garber noting that MLS hauled in over $200 million in funds for outgoing players, there’s excitement over what’s possible with the league’s window aligned with that of Europe.

“You could imagine our enthusiasm of what that could look like in years ahead,” he added.

To bridge the gap between the old and new calendar structure, MLS announced that a 14-match “transition season” will be staged between February and May 2027, which will include a playoff and an MLS Cup. As far as what the playoffs would look like under the new calendar, the league stated that it was “review(ing) potential adjustments.”

In regards to how the league will use the winter break, its options are open, Rodriguez said.

“We will consider anything,” he said. “We will look at whether it’s Leagues Cup, some other competition, or some centralized training for all our teams as we’ve done in the past during preseason.”

There were also reports that the board of governors would vote on a single-table competition format that would group the league’s 30 clubs into six geographically based divisions. While Garber declined to elaborate, he hinted at future changes in competition structure.

“Somebody had asked, ‘Are you going to try to get all this done by 2027?’ The answer to that is that’s our intention. And included within that would be a new competition format,” he said.

The biggest question, though, was the thinking of owners in Northern markets, considering how some matches there will be staged in wintry conditions.

Garber didn’t state specifics of how the vote ended up, but acknowledged potential impact while adding that there was “overwhelming support” of the move.

“Our Southern teams were very impacted by playing games in Texas, in Florida, and parts of the United States that were super hot during the summer window,” he said. “Overall, 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.”

Atlanta United released a statement shortly after the announcement:

“We fully support Major League Soccer’s decision to transition the competition calendar to the summer-to-spring model, further aligning with the top leagues globally and the FIFA International Match Calendar. This is a transformational shift providing unlimited growth potential for both our league and for the sport of soccer in the United States. Not only will this decision align our calendar with the rest of the world to ensure full participation in the global transfer market, but it also provides premier placement on the American sports calendar for our league’s biggest matches, MLS Cup Playoffs, to occur in May. We thank Commissioner Garber for his leadership and foresight to push through this historic evolution for MLS.”