Why does MLS play through Copa America? | OneFootball

The likes of Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Thiago Almada will depart their respective clubs to join up with their international squads and thus miss several weeks of MLS action when Copa America 2024 kicks off in late June in the United States.

MLS bosses, however, might feel hard-done as many of their top players will be unavailable for selection for roughly one month due to the ongoing Copa America and European Championships as MLS games will not pause during the summer.

Lionel Messi leads Argentina into Copa America / Daniel Jayo/GettyImages

It might seem quite reasonable for MLS to have a three-to-four week pause during the summer while their most important player, Messi, is banging in the goals for Argentina in hopes of securing a second straight Copa America title. That would be an ideal scenario, except that MLS is already running on a tight schedule in which the regular season begins in late February and concludes in early December.

Should MLS want to avoid this situation again the future, which seems rather unlikely, they might have to consider adopting the European-style calendar in which the season begins in August and ends in May. It would probably be welcome from Liga MX sides as they already operate on a similar calendar with the Apertura (opening) and Clausura (closing) seasons, but this also means MLS would be competing with the NFL, MLB and American college football for television ratings and fan attention.

"We can’t afford [to shut the league down for Copa America]. If we have to shut the league down [and] lose games, it impacts our players, it impacts our partners, it impacts our fans, it impacts everything that MLS has to deliver for all of our stakeholders," MLS commissioner Don Garber said ahead of last year's MLS Cup. "That being said, we've got to manage through that process and be clever and creative and figure out, how do we reconfigure the schedule with all these different events so that we could make it work.

"The league has been able to evolve through all of the changes that come to us - like the Club World Cup and an expanded format, like Copa America taking place here next summer - and we will adapt and figure out the right way to change. There's no easy answer to it, but you should know we spend as much time as you and our fans on social media spend and our coaches thinking about it."