Major changes are ahead for the Vancouver Whitecaps and other teams in Major League Soccer.
MLS owners have officially voted to change the timing of the league’s annual schedule, aligning it with most other soccer leagues around the world.
Currently, the MLS regular season runs from late February to mid-October, with the playoffs stretching from late October to early December.
But that will change in 2027.
That’s when the competition calendar will be altered.
The new regular season schedule will begin in mid-to-late July and end in April, with the playoffs set for May.
Season starts in July and ends in May, beginning in 2027 (MLS)
Some have worried about how this will affect teams in cold-weather cities, who could see games played in frigid temperatures and snow on the ground. But there is a lengthy winter break built into the new schedule, stretching from mid-December to early February, which should help alleviate that.
“The impact on the cold weather teams is minimal, because we’re already playing games in December and we’re already starting in February, and I think that’s lost in some of the narrative,” MLS commissioner Don Garber said last week during his visit to Vancouver.
Cold temperatures aren’t a concern for the Whitecaps as long as they’re playing at BC Place, though the club is attempting to get an outdoor soccer-specific stadium built.
The move benefits MLS by being aligned with the rest of the soccer world. The English Premier League, for instance, begins in mid-August and wraps up by May.
“If our goal is to be one of the top leagues in the world, we can’t be the only league that doesn’t have the same calendar for transfer purposes, for prioritizing our most important games,” said Garber.
Most international transfers, like we saw recently with Thomas Müller, currently take place in the middle of the MLS season during the summer. There are also awkwardly timed FIFA international breaks, like the one on right now, that interrupt the MLS Cup Playoffs.
“There are some hurdles in terms of playing and training in the winter. At the same time, it’s time for this league to evolve to more of the European calendar,” Whitecaps striker Brian White told Daily Hive about this subject in September. “It’s important that the league continues to grow and develop and I think that’s the next phase getting more aligned with the European schedule.”
How this affects the Vancouver sporting calendar
The Whitecaps will now overlap the Vancouver Canucks, whose schedule stretches from Oct. 9 to April 16 this season.
In terms of regular-season play, the Whitecaps will overlap with the Canucks season for 4-5 months under the new format. Currently, that overlap is closer to just 3-4 months.
The BC Lions should get more of the spotlight at the beginning of their season, as their schedule stretched from June 7 to Oct. 25 in 2025.
There is now the possibility of the Whitecaps and Canucks having playoff runs coinciding with each other, though clearly that would be a nice problem to have for win-starved Vancouver sports fans.
“Transition season” coming in 2027
An abbreviated “transition season” is coming to MLS in 2027, to make way for the new format.
The regular season will run from February to May, with each team playing just 14 games before the MLS Cup Playoffs begin.
“The calendar shift is one of the most important decisions in our history,” Garber said in a media release on Thursday. “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 centre stage without interruption. It marks the start of a new era for our league and for soccer in North America.”