Any MLS Calendar is Going to Make Someone Miserable | OneFootball

Though MLS is strongly considering switching to a fall-to-spring schedule to mimic European leagues, the grass isn’t always greener on the other side of the Atlantic.

As a preface, I present for your consideration, two recent soccer-going experiences I had.

The first: June 29, 2024 at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami (sort of), Florida. There weren’t any Colombian fans crawling through the HVAC at this one; it was merely the group stage matchup between Argentina and Peru. Upwards of 60,000 diehards were on site to watch Lionel Messi do his pre-match stretching routine…and then proceed directly to the bench. It was Argentina’s final group stage match, and they had already qualified for the knockouts.

Despite the fact that I was sat in the upper level, there wasn’t so much as the suggestion of a breeze, and the sweltering temperatures of the daytime hung around well past the setting of the tropical sun. I missed the first Lautaro Martinez goal because I was in the bathroom with my 5-year-old. So bad was my perspiration that the Islas Malvinas on my commemorative CA Alvarado shirt grew some extra atolls.

My wife, normally as passionate an Argentina fan as they come, sat in a sweaty catatonic state for at least the first 45 minutes. As the Argentina fans danced and shouted in spite of the oppressive weather, their songs made me consider if I might be inglés after all? (For the uninitiated.)

Matchday experience No. 2: March 29, 2025 at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Massachusetts. The parking lots are free, but if you hit the Christmas Tree Shops, you’ve gone too far. My brother and I joined up with the traveling New York Red Bulls supporters’ group Viking Army to watch our boys in the relatively tranquil belly of the beast.

The temperature hovered at a balmy 40 degrees, with icy rain pelting us at angles I’d imagined to be geometrically-impossible. I couldn’t feel my feet after about 25 minutes, and we resorted to hanging around a Teddy Bruschi-themed stadium bar at halftime just to get some circulation back in our hands. The Revs claimed to have drawn 20,000 fans on that blustery day, but it being one of the very few daytime games the Revs will play all year certainly skewed that data to a certain extent. The Red Bulls lost and we travellng away fans had to make do with singing songs about Robert Kraft’s sexual misadventures as we trudged sullenly back to the bus.

While these two anecdotes are milquetoast at worst, they highlight a fundamental problem facing North American soccer in the age of globalization: somewhere on this continent, no matter what time of year, the climate is going to be miserable. It is especially important that we grapple with this notion at such a time as this, when MLS Commissioner Don Garber is musing publicly about switching to the fall-to-spring calendar currently used by most major European soccer leagues.

Photo by Stacy Revere/Getty Images

This would align MLS with the great powers of Europe. It is Garber’s mission in life, we must remember, to make MLS a “top league” and a first-choice destination for the most talented players in the world. The switch to a fall-spring calendar would streamline MLS participation in the global transfer market, run parallel to the very popular English Premier League, and provide a break from some of the horrendously steamy conditions that plague warm-weather teams year in and year out that was on display during this summer’s Club World Cup.

But are the benefits to this switch being overstated? Is it really necessary to copy every facet of European soccer with the attitude that mere imitation will elevate MLS to the same heights? And perhaps the most important question of all: how on earth could you play a full schedule of games during the unforgiving North American winter?

With MLS broadcasting rights changing hands to Apple TV two seasons ago, the league has basically done away with many of the midday fixtures that used to be more common. That said, plenty of summer games kick off in 7:30 p.m. sunshine as the mercury frequently hovers about 80 degrees (Fahrenheit, of course).

MLS has shown itself to be a leader when it comes to player safety with the introduction of innovations such as concussion protocols. They’ve even got extreme heat policies in place that provided flexibility for delaying or even cancelling matches should the conditions call for it. However, these tools are seldom used, and delays for other severe weather events like thunderstorms or tornadoes are much more common.

Playing soccer in extreme temperatures can be dangerous for player health and safety. But it’s one of those quirks of North America that hot, humid temperatures exist from Toronto all the way to Houston throughout the summer months. Hydration breaks can only offer so much respite from the oppressive temperatures, and the quality of play in this modern pressing era of soccer drops off precipitously when the players are exhausted.

That said, the heat is certainly something that players can get used to, along with the arduous travel and physicality associated with MLS. Professional athletes, the logic would indicate, are uniquely suited to dealing with oppressive weather conditions. That’s not to mention that we also live in the era of five substitutes, meaning that a full half of the outfield players can nope out after, say, an hour.

But in the great quest to make MLS one of the world’s best leagues, there remains an arguably greater concern than the comfort and safety of the players: the comfort and safety of the fans.

MLS, as is the case with many of the most successful worldwide soccer leagues, relies heavily on matchday revenue. This term encompasses everything from ticket sales to hospitality suites to concessions, all the way to non-soccer events like concerts or monster truck rallies that clubs allow their stadiums to host. In short, MLS teams (and the league in general) ought to be doing everything in their power to make games as easy and convenient to attend as possible.

While there is a small-but-dedicated population of what we might term “MLS Ultras,” a very large proportion of MLS game attendees are families with kids. And what do kids like to do at soccer stadiums? I can only speak from personal experience, but my son insists on hundreds of dollars of concessions every time we go to a game. That’s not to mention his ever-increasing collection of novelty foam fingers. MLS remains a somewhat affordable family outing for young families, and making the switch to a fall-spring calendar would jeopardize the ease of attending games for this vital subset of the fanbase.

Photo by Abelimages/Getty Images

Photo by Hannah Foslien/Getty Images

MLS currently has 18 teams in what can be considered cold-weather climates, which basically means that from about early November until late March the possibility exists for uncomfortable cold-snaps. Of those teams, only Vancouver plays indoors. But BC Place isn’t even heated, which makes for an environment which shields from the elements but doesn’t exactly keep one toasty warm. CF Montreal benefits from having the dying husk of the Stade Olympique as an emergency option, but the venue has been unavailable for the entire 2025 campaign due to renovations.

But what does a fall-to-spring calendar actually look like, in terms of actual dates? Let’s examine the Grand Poobah of global soccer, the English Premier League. This year’s competition kicks off on August 15 and then slogs all the way until May 24. There are four international breaks wedged in there, with three coming in the fall months and one more in March. MLS in the past has been content to play through the international breaks, effectively shrugging its shoulders at the fact that a huge contingent of the league’s best players simply won’t be available for those matches.

The latest international window featured 140 MLS players called up for national team duty, with Atlanta United, the Philadelphia Union, and the Vancouver Whitecaps having a whopping nine players each called in at various age levels. The EPL wouldn’t be able to field enough players if it tried to play through the break.

Using England’s dates as a starting point and discounting international breaks, it’s feasible that MLS could have upwards of 11 matchdays between mid-August and mid-November that could be conceived as comfortable in terms of fan attendance in cold-weather cities. After that, the bitter cold and snow set in, and we need to fast-forward to March to get the mercury back to reasonable temperatures.

This leaves 13 more matchweeks (discounting the March international break) until the end of May. MLS would need to schedule 10 midweek matches during this span to get to the current slate of 34 games needed for the regular season. None of this takes into account the evermore bloated and unwieldy MLS Cup Playoffs, the Leagues Cup, the U.S. Open Cup, or rearranged fixtures for teams participating in the CONCACAF Champions Cup. There just isn’t enough time in this version of the schedule for all the pies that MLS has got its fingers in.

There’s also the small matter of competition with other sports to consider. An August-to-May calendar would put Major League Soccer up against the very biggest of bigwigs in the American sports landscape, the National Football League. Add in the NBA, college sports, and hockey, and the pool of potential attendees for your matches shrinks precipitously.

Who knows if owners would tolerate dwindling gate receipts and concessions just so the league could be on the same schedule as some Belgians or whatever. TV revenue is then called into question, as MLS would now be fighting for eyeballs with some of the most prestigious soccer leagues in the world in the English Premier League, La Liga, and Serie A.

While those games are usually on early in the day in the United States because of those pesky timezones, I speak from personal experience when I say that it is, in fact, possible to get burned out on soccer. There is nothing to suggest that a rising tide would lift all boats. The current sports landscape of the United States is far too crowded, with viewers’ precious eyeball time battled over like it’s the MacGuffin in an awful JJ Abrams movie.

Major League Soccer isn’t an old league by any measure, but it has developed its own culture and heritage. Scores of online commenters, when faced the prospect of the schedule change, lament in no uncertain terms the potential loss of warm summer evenings at the local soccer stadium. Maybe their clubs have never been particularly successful, haven’t achieved status within the global soccer zeitgeist, but dedicated fans have harbored strong, generational ties to their local teams.

Supporters’ groups tailgates with music blasting, busses full of youth teams arriving to play small-sided games during halftime festivities, and little kids’ eyes widening in awe the first time they see and honest-to-God soccer stadium in person for the first time. Does this make your average MLS team’s home atmosphere feel a little like a minor league baseball game? Maybe. But isn’t the whole point of this to have fun?

With kids returning to school, the days getting shorter, and life in general getting more chaotic, it might just be that much more difficult to get out to the stadium to support your local when the crisp fall air hits. If we really want to grow the game and make MLS a powerhouse league, we would do well to start making matches the stuff of family memories and traditions. Maybe MLS won’t have bands of ultras, heads shaved and clad in leather, bashing each other’s brains out on the concourse, but we’ll certainly have halcyon summer nights whittled away with friends, family, our favorite Designated Players, and overpriced concessions to put smiles on everyone’s faces.