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

Right now, that's true but I would think a D1 league at start up with six new expansion teams in the business plan would have a different wage scale. Teams in the current CCC have a league wide salary cap with less than two million playing right now in Canada. Besides I'm looking long term not in the near future.
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If USL D1 ever gets up and running, they will have that first year or two bump. How much revenue they can generate is debatable, but I wonder how much CBS sports is willing to invest in the new league? Does the current USL Championship matter in this scenario, I don't think so. I think USL Championship is just laying groundwork for the next phase of a 14 team D1 that will hope to survive for a decade before they can say they made it or be absorbed by MLS. That's usually what happens with most sports leagues in America if they last that long.

 

No. But also...

With how little interest MLS is showing in USOC I think USL winning USOC is bound to happen at one point.

 

They need to sort out and get past the USLPA demands first.

 

16 MLS and 17 USL Championship teams this season.

 

I was thinking it was based on where the league was based, but it's the point of work, thanks for the correction. I wonder how many players are not in the union.

 

Probably not that many but I'm sure there are some. For clarification, you don't have to belong to the union in either type of state, the state just prohibits the employer from passing on the fee the union charges to represent non-union workers to employees in right to work states.

Right to work people will say that an agency fee is sophistry for union dues, but union shop states will say that the employer is just reducing pay to cover the agency fees they aren't passing on to you anyway.

 

Well today would be a nice day to come back from the winter break, if home teams were in the southern half of the county. No guarantee it will be like this every year. No guarantee it will be like this tomorrow in Colorado.

 

The thing about Colorado is there's no guarantee it'll be like that in an hour.

 

can't wait for the home openah ☃️ pic.twitter.com/bcVbz1H9Rh

— Portland Hearts of Pine (@hearts_sc) February 23, 2026

 

Good Morning from Subaru Park. pic.twitter.com/dmzwFvY6wP

— philauniongrounds (@union_grounds) February 23, 2026

 

This is more about the confluence of the world cup (which is why the sodding) + the blizzard than the blizzard itself, I think.

Normally the field turf would avoid this issue, unless it was the same day or soon after snowfall.

 

Is it worth noting that these winter storms are affecting MLS under its current calendar? I mean, I assume that under the new calendar there will be pressure to start playing even a bit earlier after a winter break. We’ll see. We’ll also see if, under that calendar, the league does a better job of leveraging the existence of warmer-weather franchises to schedule games in, say, early February in those markets. Still, MLS playing in February isn’t some new thing that’ll suddenly appear with the calendar flip.

 

MLS does leverage warner weather franchises to schedule round 1 in February. Last week the only north/Northeast game was at DC (St Louis and Nashville can still be frigid).

Round 2 obviously not so much.

 

And historically, not so much. We’ve been talking about this for years. Now, with stadiums available in virtually every market and more warm (and warm-ish) markets than ever before, modest adjustments that partially buffer northern markets from the worst of winter should be easier to accomplish. Partially. I do wonder what’ll happen in Montreal until the new roof is on Olympic Stadium. Once again, they’re playing on the road until mid-April. Hopefully, cheapskate Saputo will be required to invest in a below ground heating system for his stadium.

 

They do it every season. Warm weather markets are still in the minority. Montreal has traditionally kicked off their season at the Olympic Stadium (2012-2018, 2020)

 

Right, but they woj't have access to Olympic again for a while yet. And they'll now be needing to play home games well into December, as well. On a pitch that's not heated. I'd read somewhere that the calendar flip came with strings attached for some owners who'd need to upgrade facilities to support the change. Saputo is the poster child example of this.

Obviously, you can't just schedule all cold weather games in warmer markets and then flip it the other way when the weather warms up. But having a franchsie so incapable of playing any home games for several months during the new calendar isn't tenable.

On the other hand, maybe the league will allow Montreal to just gut it out and allow them to play a wildly imbalanced schedule until the 2028-29 season, which is when Olympic Stadium should become available again. Even then, though, I asume the financial hit of rentnig Olympic Stadium week after week comes with it's own challenges.

 

Why?

The earliest date that Montreal has played outdoors is April 11th and the latest date is November 7th. So right there that's 6 months where they can play outdoors. They can probably put a hard stop on any games after the second week of November and before April 1st. That's approximately 20 weekends right there without even counting midweeks and the sprinkling of 2-3 Olympic Stadium games.

My guess is that Montreal won't be playing any outdoor home games in December, February or March which is exactly the way it is now.

 

Philly, DC and Colorado don't have heated pitches either and Colorado have played in sub 0 (Fahrenheit) temperatures.

A heated pitch is only good down to a certain level, it won't clear a foot of snow.

What's so bad about postponing a match a few weeks anyway? As long as you do it early enough that the other team doesn't have to travel.

 

My guess is that they won't play any home games in May and June starting in 2027.........

 

Well, the new regular season will run up until Christmas. Currently, it ends in late October or the first weekend in November. Montreal hasn't gone deep into the MLS playofs in a while, so they tend to shut down for the off season pretty early, before cold weather really sets in. That'll change next year. Maybe they can make this work once Olympic is available to them. But that's a freakishly long time to only play road matches.

 

You're predicting that Montreal will never make the playoffs ever again? Bold claim.

 

No, the calendar change announced by the league said "mid-December."

Like other major international leagues, MLS will observe a midwinter break from mid-December through early February, with no league matches scheduled in January.

 

Why are you picking on Montreal? The winter weather is no worse than MLS cities in the US and they'll have the opportunity to play indoors as of 2028.

Last time they went deep into the playoffs they played at the Olympic Stadium in front of 61,004.