MLS Will Play Three-Month ‘Sprint Season’ in 2027 Before European Calendar Switch

Get ready for the MLS 2027 “Sprint Season.” Major League Soccer will play a condensed three-month season before re-aligning its calendar to mirror European circuits such as England’s Premier League, Spain’s LaLiga, and Italy’s Serie A. The coming move to summer-to-spring schedule, which was approved last year, will require MLS — which has played winter to fall schedules since its inception in 1996 — to bridge the gap between the end of the current 2026 campaign and 2027-28, the first one under the new format. The league announced on Thursday that beginning next February, each of its 30 franchises will play an abbreviated, intra-conference 14-game regular season slate that runs into April. The top eight teams from the Eastern Conference and their counterparts in the West will advance to a shortened, single-elimination version of the MLS Cup Playoffs, with the winners meeting in the championship match in late May. The 10-month-long 2027-28 MLS season will kick off around eight weeks later, toward the end of July. The full 2027 Sprint Season schedule will be announced in the months to come. MLS added that five Concacaf Champions Cup spots would be determined by regular season results, and that the top nine finishers in each conference would qualify for the 2028 Leagues Cup, the annual competition that pits the top MLS squads against all 18 teams in Mexico’s Liga MX. MLS announced earlier this week that the 2026 MLS Cup final – the last to be held in the autumn – will be played on Friday, Dec. 18, later than any previous decider. Lionel Messi-led Inter Miami is the defending MLS Cup champion, having defeated the Vancouver Whitecaps at Chase Stadium in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on Dec. 6, 2025.