MLS on March 2 will begin its new-look schedule for the ’19 season, which features a condensed slate as the league introduces a new fixed-bracket, single-elimination playoff format that pushes the final up nearly a month. Each of the league’s 24 teams will play 34 matches before the regular season ends on Oct. 6. The playoffs will run from Oct. 19-Nov. 10 after the ’18 MLS Cup was played on Dec. 8. The league lost about three weeks as the result of those schedule shifts due to the playoff change, which now avoids a FIFA game window where the league was forced to take a break, as well as with an aim to make the format more exciting. MLS VP/Club Services & Scheduling Brad Pursel, who oversees the schedule creation, said that more games have been shifted to midweek due to the schedule crunch, with many of them now taking place on Wednesdays. MLS clubs also have the option of playing games during FIFA windows over the weekends in the regular season, and Pursel said more teams elected to do so than in the past. The All-Star Game will be played in Orlando on July 31. MLS’ annual rivalry week will take place Aug. 21-25 with eight national network broadcasts, the most in its history. The last four weeks of the season will see all of the league’s Sunday games being part of a flex broadcast schedule for ESPN and FS1. All 24 teams will play at 4:00pm ET on the final day of the regular season.
PLENTY OF ISSUES TO WORK AROUND: There were several elements that made this year’s schedule trickier -- the condensed season, delays in the home openers of the Timbers (stadium construction) and Impact and Minnesota United (weather concerns) and a one-week break because of the CONCACAF Gold Cup in June. However, Pursel said that the fact that the league is now at an even number of teams provided a bit of relief. “The schedule is balanced this time for the first time in a long time,” Pursel said, noting that every team plays its conference opponent twice, and each team in the opposing conference once. Pursel said a group of three MLS staffers worked on the schedule for about 10-12 months while also conferring with the league’s competition, media and research groups, as well as its broadcast partners. “We’re thinking hard about how we construct our regular season and want to be very strategic as we want to make the regular season and playoffs stand out even more,” he said. “As we look at our expansion horizon, it’s a very exciting time and allows us to continue to be innovative.”
