Major League Soccer is aligning with Majority of the European Soccer Leagues by switching from a spring-to-fall calendar to a summer-to-spring calendar. Beginning in 2027, MLS will officially shift to a summer-to-spring calendar that will start in late July and will end in the regular season in April with the playoffs and Major League Soccer Cup Championship in May. While there’s no word about the post season adjustments though insiders expect changes to the format and potential regional alignment among the 30 teams in the league.

” Aligning our schedule with the world’s top leagues will strengthen our clubs’ global competitiveness, create better opportunities in the transfer market, and ensure our Audi MLS Cup Playoffs take center stage without interruption,” said Major League Soccer Don Garber. “Our owners are very committed to being one of the top leagues in the world, and being one of the few that isn’t aligned with the international calendar has us almost have an American exceptionalism, saying that we’re going to play the game the way we want to play it, as opposed to the way the rest of the world plays it,”

There will be challenges for Northern teams especially the two teams in Canada, Toronto and CF Montreal have outdoor stadium, and the temperature are below freezing during that time period. There will be a six-week winter break but will overlap with the entirety of the NFL season and almost all of the NBA, NHL and The United Football League campaigns, plus college football and basketball. The biggest question that will linger is will the Major League Soccer follow the footsteps of some of the top European League’s by implementing Promotion and Relegation? While the thought of having Promotion and Relegation would be exciting to have, American Soccer is somewhat in a flux with the rival United Soccer League which they plan to launch a Division One men’s professional league and defined by the sanctioning standards of the U.S. Soccer Federation. The United Soccer League is also planning to implement Promotion and Relegation system that will start in 2027- 2028 and creating a three-tiered professional soccer system in the United States. Under this format clubs will be promoted to a higher division or be relegated to a lower one based on their season performance, a model that is standard in many international leagues. 

For now, Major League Soccer and the United Soccer League have no plans to merge at this moment and as the first chairman of Major League Soccer, Alan Rothenberg recently said, “is further down the road because right now you don’t have really a strong second division level of soccer in this country, adding that gap between Major League Soccer and the United Soccer League is too large.” While is exciting to have Promotion and Relegation investors don’t quite have the stomach at this moment. So, for now the league will continue to be a closed single-entity league and while moving to Summer to Spring Chalender is historic and lining up with the English Premier League and other European Leagues it doesn’t appear that Promotion and Relegation will happen unless the owners of their soccer club agrees that it should be implemented or if the United Soccer League merges with Major League Soccer.