Major League Soccer released its 2019 schedule this week and, as usual, it doesn't follow the same calendar as most of the other soccer leagues around the world. American soccer has always been different that way. But as the league increasingly becomes part of the global soccer landscape, it should consider changing its schedule to match.
The two things that put the most pressure on the MLS schedule-makers are the harsh winter in Canada and the northern United States, and the league's unrelenting desire to have playoffs at the end of the year. There's no fixing the weather, of course, and there's no way to convince the league to drop its marquee postseason matchups. Not when they're the most-viewed games of the year.
Given this, MLS is trying to squeeze a 34-game schedule into a 31-week period, between the beginning of March and the beginning of the playoffs in mid-October. The schedule is further constrained by big international tournaments in the summer.
For example, this year both the Gold Cup and the Copa América run from mid-June through early July, meaning that some of the league's biggest stars will be away for nearly a month, playing for their countries instead of their clubs. MLS doesn't break for the span of the tournaments, nor for the FIFA-mandated international breaks in March and September, because doing so would eliminate another six weeks from the already-compressed timeline.
Perhaps the easiest way to avoid this problem would be to move to the same type of schedule that prevails in Mexico. Liga MX plays two half-seasons, one in the fall and one in the spring, with playoffs after each half. This would satisfy TV networks — twice as many playoffs! — while allowing for more natural summer and winter breaks between seasons.
Given that MLS and Liga MX are increasingly aligning themselves, not only with the CONCACAF Champions League but in other ways as well, it might make sense for MLS to get itself on Mexican time. The biggest problem might come from working out the timing of the breaks; the worst of winter in the USA doesn't fade until March, at least, which would leave only three months before the June tournaments.
Another potential change would see MLS move to a fall-to-spring yearly schedule, with a winter break in the middle. Such pauses are fairly common in European soccer, with breaks anywhere from three weeks (Germany) to nearly three months (Russia, Ukraine). This would better align the league with big European leagues, and allow a break for tournaments in the summer.
When MLS plays on during showpiece summer tournaments and other international breaks, the league feels small-time, like some other country's second division. Better to expand the schedule, and even move to a half-and-half solution like Mexico. And push more games to southern cities in spring and fall, and more to northern cities in the summer, in the hopes of moderating the effects of extreme temperatures in either half of the country.
