For its entire 30-year existence, Major League Soccer has faced an identity crisis. How do you resonate in the most crowded sports marketplace on Earth, composed of fans conditioned to consume only the very top level of competition, while offering a clearly second-rate product within your own sport?
The league’s answer to that question has mostly been, if the quality of the product doesn’t stand out, perhaps the packaging can. MLS, with its determination to blend old-school fútbol tradition with good ol’ American gimmickiness, has separated itself from the rest of world soccer in ways both clever and downright cringe.
However, as the on-field product has improved markedly over the past several years, it was high time for the odd duck to undergo a bit of a makeover. Thankfully, that’s exactly what we’re getting.
Over the weekend, MLS announced a wholesale change to its season calendar, aligning with the fall-to-spring structure employed by the majority of top soccer leagues around the world. Beginning in 2027, the league will shift from kicking off in February and concluding in early December to beginning in late July and crowning an MLS Cup champion in late May.
For so many reasons, the move is a no-brainer, and overdue. MLS’s current calendar, which has clubs in action through the summer, including during FIFA-designated international windows, has long been a ball-and-chain stunting the league’s growth. It interferes with transferring players to and from other leagues, who are in midseason when MLS offseason moves are made. It renders clubs without the services of top players for important stretches of games, when those players have national team commitments. And most inexplicable of all, it positions the league’s most important offering – the MLS Cup Playoffs – in direct competition with college and NFL football during the fall. The announced calendar shift will immediately free the league from those avoidable anchors.
“In the case of Austin, I think sentiment has been extremely positive,” Austin FC President Andy Loughnane said of the change. “I think this is something that a lot of soccer fans in the United States and around North America have been curious and hopeful for.”
In order to bridge the gap once the calendar shift takes effect, the league announced it will contest an abbreviated “sprint season” – including a full playoffs – from February to May in 2027.
Annoyingly for those of us south of the Mason-Dixon Line, the league seems to have caved to the concerns of Northern-based clubs by building in a two-month winter break into the new calendar from mid-December to mid-February, which is sure to stall any momentum the league creates in the first half of the season to a screeching halt. Winter breaks are fairly common across the sport, but two months is simply too much, as the league will likely realize after a year or two.
In addition to the calendar change, the MLS owners also voted to eliminate the league’s eastern/western conference bifurcation and instead adopt a single-table competition, further moving MLS in sync with the sport’s norms. Part of the new format will include six-team “divisions” to minimize travel, though details beyond that were not released.
Finally, the league and rights holder Apple TV announced the elimination of the MLS Season Pass subscription service, effective ahead of the 2026 season. The failed attempt to get fans to pay $14.99 per month exclusively to stream MLS matches is dead, as Apple will now include MLS matches for no additional cost as part of its core Apple TV $12.99 (for now) subscription.
In a sports media landscape hellbent on screwing fans for cash wherever possible, we’ll take the rare win.
For more Austin FC news and analysis, visit The Austin Chronicle’s Austin FC hub. Follow The Verde Report columnist Eric Goodman on X: @goodman.
This article appears in November 21 • 2025.
