AUSTIN (TEXAS): Major League Soccer Commissioner Don Garber says the league continues to look at shifting to a fall-to-spring season, saying he’d “rather get it right and take our time than get it wrong and do it quick.”
Garber spoke before Wednesday night’s MLS All-Stars game in Austin, Texas, about the league’s Apple TV streaming deal and the sale of the Vancouver Whitecaps in his state of the league address before the game.
What months are the MLS season?
Currently, MLS plays a spring-to-late fall season. It starts in late February or early March and runs through mid-October.
What is the conventional season like around the world?
A conventional season runs between early August and late May around the world. It’s a timeline followed in major domestic leagues like the Premier League and La Liga.
What would be the impact of changing the MLS schedule?
A shift to align the league with its international counterparts would make MLS teams more competitive in the player transfer market, while also freeing up players for national team duty during the summer, when many major global tournaments take place.
What could be the challenges to the change in schedule?
“Making this change is seismic. It’s not something we should do lightly. We obviously have teams across multiple climate zones, multiple time zones, unlike any other league in the world, and if we do make the change, we’re not going to go back on that decision,” Garber said.
The MLS Board of Governors announced in April that it was giving further consideration to the shift, but gave no timeline. Garber suggested there would be an announcement by the end of the year.
What is the viewership of MLS like, and what are plans for it in the future?
As for the league’s streaming deal with Apple, Garber said MLS is working with the company to provide fans greater access. Distribution through cable and satellite services this season has helped.
Metrics for viewership have been hard to come by because there’s no system to determine exactly how people are “viewing and consuming” games via a subscription service, Garber said.
But he revealed that there have been 120,000 unique viewers per match and vowed greater transparency going forward.
Agencies