Major League Soccer said there was overwhelming support from the league’s 30 clubs to switch its calendar to match Europe’s top leagues.
But that doesn’t mean the move won’t come with challenges, especially in some of the league’s northern markets, where there will now be regular-season matches in November, December, February and March.
Although MLS has expanded rapidly across the central and southern United States, several teams remain in cities that experience harsh winters, including three in Canada. The calendar switch, which means games through some of the harshest months of the year, could have a significant impact on attendance and other factors.
Those are problems many clubs are willing to adapt to, given the benefits of the new calendar for competing in American sports, transfer window opportunities, and international participation. At the same time, it will allow the MLS Cup playoffs to be played in warmer conditions rather than in the fall.
“We’re playing games in November now, and it could be really cold in those same markets,” MLS Commissioner Don Garber told reporters Thursday. “It could be really cold in December. It could be really cold in other months. We’re talking about a couple of games [being added], so I don’t know that it makes sense for a team, for a handful of games, to change their infrastructure dramatically.
“It’s not like this is as traumatic as I think most people think. When we were going through this process, 92% [of the footprint] is exactly the same window. MLS Cup was in Toronto in December, and it was really, really cold. It could have been in Toronto this year if they had a good season, right?”
But how have some of the colder-climate clubs reacted?
