News: MLS owners approve fall-spring calendar and season format changes: Sources

The only way MLS is implementing promotion and relegation is if USL actually implements it (doubt) and it succeeds beyond everyone's wildest expectations, putting that league roughly on par with MLS.

That is to say, it won't happen. Garber says shit like this every year.

 

I have a basic question.

Do the agreements between each ownership group and the league allow it?

The only way we get p/r is if a) it’s legal and b) the owners vote for it

So the other question is, under what scenario would the owners vote for it? It would have to be a scenario where the weaker franchises are taken care of, or, where the weaker franchises were such a problem that the other clubs don’t mind risking relegation for themselves because the weak franchises are holding them back.

 

Being a weak franchise doesn't guarantee poor enough results to sort bad owners out of the league. Sometimes teams spend a lot and invest a lot and don't win titles, and sometimes teams are awful for decades but always manage to avoid the drop.

 

I agree, which is why the scenario I could foresee is MLS A with the current teams and an MLS B underneath it. The financial incentive being -- 20 new expansion fees and another separate TV contract.

I have a good bews/bad news theory:

1) Apple never wanted the separate subscription, from what I've read, the league did. Makes sense, it was a confusion consumer product, and I'd bet a lot of people never figured out whether you needed AppleTV to get Season Pass, or that there were some games on for free.
2) For the league, it was always a more-revenue-for-less-reach tradeoff.
3) If MLS really wants to aim for some cultural relevance, that tradeoff makes less sense than a league that's content with slow growth.
4) With the new F1 deal, Apple doubled down on not wanting the subscription, offered the league some incentives (that's how I would describe ending the deal sooner but still moving forward the balloon payments) and MLS took the offer. You have to write off that hope of ever getting a juicy cut of an expensive subscription, but on the bright side more people are going to watch your playoffs, which is your anchor product.

My theory on how it ought to work is that if it can work, you keep the current I/Os at their current share of the league, even if they are relegated. You sell diluted shares to the new entrants (at a lower price point per team, but it adds up) and they stay diluted even if those teams go up.

 

I believe if it was ever to happen this would be the path but the problem is why join as a second division team if you could use 125 million to build your club in third division and get promoted?
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You would be better off just charging everyone 125 million and telling them they would need to have a stadium that could satisfy D1 standards, training center and an up and running academy. The money for the fee would only be used for parachute payments for the next decade for the original MLS teams and then any team after the ten year run ends

 

Maybe he means because they are no longer just a separate entity on the Apple TV platform as MLS season pass subscription is no longer independent of Apple TV. There would be no way in the future if someone subscribed to Apple TV for the shows, MLS, F1 or all of the above. I wouldn't say they were never going to reach that goal as Apple compensated them to change the deal. MLS might have also thought what they give up now and by joining the platform will payoff bigger by the end of the deal.

 

This is what I thought too after posting it but starting in 2nd division is faster to promote to 1st than starting off in 3rd. But either way, there has to be way more complications than that. I think the biggest issue is the TV revenue. And that doesn't improve without increase in interest which MLS, the top league, doesn't have much outside its own cities.

 

How's Chicago looking currently?

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Saturday’s high is 8 degrees on the back of 3 days of predicted snowfall.

 

Well, it looks like crap. There's icy sludge everywhere.

I would imagine they won't give us any December home games, so that negates a portion of the problem. The weather in November was pretty wild, though. It was mostly quite warm up until the last week of the month, except for the couple days when it randomly snowed. Then it turned to this. Typically, it's more mildly unpleasant.

 

We need a version of the "This is fine" gif, but instead of flames, it's ice cubes.

 

Cool Eric Dolphy avatar!

 

So next year MLS will get a simulation of what's to come because of the world cup in a small way. The league will shut down for seven weeks from May 25th to July 18th. The season will end in November 8th with the playoffs being uninterrupted because of no intentional window.
https://www.aol.com/articles/2026-mls-schedule-features-7-024950396.html

 

Speaking of the switch in schedule for our MLS and the Winter Break. There is word around the campfire that the NCAA is thinking of doing a switch to a Fall to Spring season with opening and closing campaigns. Going long on regional play in one campaign and closing with playoffs in May.
This season's playoffs that began in November have witnessed great action in all sorts of weather conditions across the nation. Moderate, cool and cold. If our soccer culture's U-23 players can play into mid December, our Tier 1 professionals in our soccer culture can as well.



This year's Final Four for the men starts on Friday December the 12th.
The NCAA soccer season ended on Monday the 8th for the women btw. Florida St. beat Stanford.

 

There is an alternative to Pro/Rel that the MLS already has in place, to some degree: balance. In the 30 years of the MLS Cup, there have only been three repeat winners, none since 2012. In just the last three seasons, we watched the LA Galaxy go from 26th in the table in 2023 to 4th and an MLS Cup in 2024 to 26th again in 2025, and it's hard to believe they won't be quite a bit higher in the table next year. It isn't routine to go from first-to-last-to-first. That's more the wildness of the Canadian Football League. I'm not sure any MLS fans would want that amount of turmoil as a constant. But it is possible for teams to move up and down the MLS table.

Just from my vantage point, the possibility that next season could be the one even if this season is awful is much more fun than being fans of the majority of teams in European leagues, where seemingly the only mobility is downward and then spending years clawing the way back to futility.

 

European leagues would have more variety in their champions if they had playoffs. The German Cup has had 6 different winners in the last decade, with Bayern winning 3, compared to 2 different winners in the Bundesliga, with Bayern winning 9.

 

That's a fair point.

 

This is one reason why MLS "wanted" to get the transition for next season and not 2027/2028. The original plan was for a "MLS is Back" style half season Feb-June, take the WC break, then start a 2026/2027 season as soon as the WC ended.

MLS obviously did not give themselves enough time to get that done, but they at least thought about it

 

I think you're right but with a few years left on the CBA and pissing off part of the fanbase, it might be better that they waited. It might be a little difficult to sign players before the World Cup than after. Players report by May 25th for World Cup duty and they won't be done till who knows when with an extended WC? I would also think come 2027, MLS and MLSPA might have started the next CBA negotiations, so let's see who wins the go big or stay with the same strategy amongst the owners.

 

I also asked Don Garber how #MLS measures becoming “one of the top leagues in the world” — as he often says in interviews — and he listed three benchmarks:

“Relevance”
“Quality of Play”
“Value of our Teams”

Notice he didn’t say results in international tournaments.

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College soccer isn't a professional activity dependent on gate receipts for its existence.

 

I mean, his first two metrics have something to do with tournament results.

That aside, he would be right to reject international tournaments as a measuring stick. Our (right and proper) focus on parity means that we're not likely to do well in those venues against dynastic clubs from the shabby and shambolic world of elite soccer. Our victory will be watching that shit crumble.

 

USSF made a proposal for this and a bunch of other reforms a few months back. They even made it sound like the Fed was willing to subsidize a switch in order to placate the cost-conscious admins. I never really heard how the proposal was received.

Also if UCL didn't exist. It's a source of outside money that only goes to the teams that are already good. Imagine if, in a US sport, there was a separate TV deal for the playoffs that only paid the playoff teams. The same teams would be going to the playoffs every year.

With the additional part that people have to watch and give a crap about those tournaments, which has always been a struggle with CONCACAF.

 

Correct, but look at the Gals going 26th to 4th to 26th and I’ll bet they’ll be back in the top 10 if Puig fully recovers. (Man I missed watching him this year!). That kind of thing doesn’t happen in foreign leagues.

Or look at the recent struggles of Atlanta United. Aside from what’s been happening at ManU, rich Euro clubs don’t go through periods like that.