When Major League Soccer voted in November to align its calendar with European seasons, it left a noticeable gap between the end of one era and the start of the next.
The solution was a mini-season, or, as the league labeled it, a “sprint season,” nestled between the 2026 MLS Cup in December and the launch of the newly structured schedule in July 2027.
On Thursday, MLS unveiled format details:
Each team will play 14 matches between February and April 2027. (A full season features 34 games.)
Teams will play every opponent within their conference once, with seven home games and seven away. There are no interconference matches. (In a full season, each team plays 28 intraconference and six interconference.) The sprint schedule is several months from being finalized.
Eight teams from each conference will qualify for the playoffs, which will use single-game knockouts and culminate in May. (In a full season, nine of the 15 conference teams qualify and the conference quarterfinals are best of three.)
Per usual, the finalist with the most regular season points will host MLS Cup on a May date approximately the same as when the league shifts to the summer-to-spring format.
The sprint season will also determine who qualifies for the 2028 Concacaf Champions Cup and Leagues Cup, the annual MLS-Liga MX tournament.
The 2026 regular season, which began Feb. 21, will conclude Nov. 7. The playoffs will run from Nov. 18 to Dec. 18 — the latest MLS Cup date in history.
Teams will then enter the winter break before resuming workouts in the weeks before the sprint season begins. After MLS Cup in May 2027, teams will start preparations for the new calendar and opening day sometime in July.
MLS has pledged to do a better job observing FIFA international windows by stopping the practice of scheduling matches when players are away on national team duty.
Because weather conditions will prevent many teams from hosting matches in the winter, MLS will pause from mid-December until early February. Just before and after the break, the league is expected to schedule games just in warmer-weather cities and indoor stadiums.