Major League Soccer owners could determine the next step in the league’s evolution on Thursday, as they are reportedly expected to vote on shifting the season calendar to a fall-to-spring schedule.
MLS owners could also vote to shift its competition format to a single-table system with five geographically organized divisions, instead of the current Western and Eastern Conferences, according to .
While there were initial hopes to vote on the schedule change at a May meeting in Chicago, owners and the MLS Players Association opted to delay the vote. They could do the same at the upcoming meetings as well.
However, the runway to implement changes for the 2027 MLS season is quickly slipping away, and any further delay could push them farther from the expected bump in soccer popularity following the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
Should MLS adopt the schedule change, it would align with Europe’s major competitions, beginning the regular season in July or August and ending in April, before the MLS Cup playoffs in May.
The move would allow MLS to align with international and transfer windows. MLS would also likely take a winter break in December and January, similar to the Bundesliga, followed by the offseason in June and July.
According to the report, matches would likely pause in the second week of December and resume in February, with hopes of avoiding kickoff on the NFL’s Super Bowl weekend, traditionally held on the second Sunday of February.
