MLS’s calendar flip is coming. Clubs are already planning how to exploit it | MLS

FNew constants have persisted from the beginnings of MLS in 1996 until today. It’s still a functioning football league, for one thing. There’s the name itself, although its initial logo was dropped in 2015 due to its current shield and crutch. Eight of the ten teams that started the league remain involved, although each has changed its name, crest, or both over time.

Another rare constant will soon fade into the rearview mirror: the league schedule. MLS has run from spring to fall/winter since its launch, more specifically from late February to early December in recent years. The preseason begins at the start of each new year, approximately three weeks after the previous season’s championship bout. It’s a pretty well-established routine, even if side competitions like the League Cup and the Club World Cup mix up the intermediate games every year.

Starting next year, MLS will operate from summer to spring. Just like the major leagues of England, Spain and Germany; but more like the big leagues of Norway and South Korea and, well, the rest of American soccer. This helps to establish the MLS as the competitive business it wishes to maintain and is expected to further strengthen its presence in the global transfer market.

As a result, the next 18 months might seem oddly compartmentalized for those who began following the league long before Lionel Messi took his talents to South Beach. This will not weigh on the players and coaches when the 2026 season begins on February 21, who will emphasize, as usual, that “the most important game is the next one”.

For league executives, who stand to benefit most directly from the schedule change, it’s just another part of the job. Their work often occurs in waves of multiple transfer windows, requiring them to project the impact of an immediate activity on their subsequent maneuvers. For Corey Wray, named athletic director by St. Louis City last November, the schedule change is just another consideration.

“It’s not a very important thing when it comes to how I build it,” Wray told the Guardian. “I would say be mindful of these things. We’re following the league’s guidance as it relates to our contracting process, and they can provide us with some clarity on how that might work for the rules. But outside of that, I’m looking to create ultimate roster flexibility for the next two windows.”

Throughout our conversations, Wray — as well as Mike Jacobs, in his ninth year with Nashville SC, and Khaled El-Ahmad, in his third with Minnesota United — referenced the impending “sprint season,” the widely adopted colloquial term for next spring’s bridge between the 2026 and 2027-28 seasons.

Some have presented the sprint season as a sort of spiritual successor to the MLS is Back Tournament, a standalone competition held during the Covid-19 summer of 2020. While players and coaches are expected to be released from the Florida bubble this time around, the sprint season – which will last from February to May 2027 and include 14 regular season games followed by playoffs – should be judged accordingly: very entertaining, but hardly representative of MLS. modus operandi.

Nevertheless, these will be championship games and the players need contracts. This winter’s free agency window saw very few one-year deals, with one-and-a-half-year deals being the norm and providing more stability than usual without forcing a club to commit long beyond its ideal timeline.

“From the player side, I think it’s pretty good,” Wray said. “Usually there are arguments: ‘Hey, we want to give you a year [deal]’, and then the players always want two years. So I think it’s pretty favorable for them because they’re split down the middle and get a year and a half in those situations.

Team-level signings, like the additions of Shak Mohammed and Isaiah LeFlore to Nashville, often treat the spring of 2027 as an option year to execute or cancel like the others. Their other free agent signing was arguably the largest of any player to have played in the MLS ranks, with the club twice signing MLS All-Star Cristian Espinoza after seven excellent seasons in San Jose. At 30, the Argentine winger joined a team that had a successful 2025, winning the club’s first major trophy (the US Open Cup) and setting the club record for wins in a year, but fell short against Inter Miami in the first round of the playoffs.

After the contract of longtime club captain Walker Zimmerman ended, Jacobs’ goal was to find a player who could quickly integrate into the team’s core and help the team compete for additional hardware. This is the type of signing that required a lot of foresight and planning, given the multitude of rules and mechanics of the MLS.

“When it comes to things like the contract length of the current players that you have, and the salary cap and how you use it and the GAM (general allocation money) for us, we want an option,” Jacobs said. “Let’s have the flexibility so that when the right person comes along, we can strike. The reality was that when someone like Cristian was available and we knew he was the right person, we went for a full-court press to try to acquire him.”

“GAM” (with a hard G) has been used by MLS for more than a decade to help teams add talent while complying with the rules. Each team receives $3.28 million in hardware from MLS each year, and can add more through trades and in-competition achievements (good and bad; it’s American sport, after all).

As of late January, no team had accumulated more GAM than Minnesota, with $7.26 million to use to buck a two-year trend of elimination in the playoff quarterfinals. This is not an act of stockpiling like your apocalyptic neighborhood. Part of wise planning is ensuring greater flexibility, both before and after the schedule flips.

“Having money in the bank is always better than not having any,” El-Ahmad said. “I think there are clubs that have done it. [squad planning] really good, like Seattle. Not only are they winning titles, but they are competing again and again. There are other teams that can win one year and then they give up. I want Minnesota to be a consistent, competitive team. It’s a strategic decision to always ensure we have flexibility.

GAM tallies could swell across the league as athletic directors prepare for the schedule flip. The most common uses of GAM are to either trade it within the league in lieu of a transfer fee (although these are now more prevalent after a rule change last winter), or to “buy out” a player’s salary budget to keep the cap in line.

It’s one of many considerations that go into every move, including team locations defined by experience, international locations, and those pesky discovery rights. For the Loons, having these funds is invaluable to remaining competitive both in the league and in the market.

“The only thing I want is to have the flexibility to improve every window,” El-Ahmad said. “Sometimes we will, sometimes we won’t because we didn’t think it was worth it [at the market’s rate]. But I want to at least have choice and control. We looked at several domestic players, but honestly, sometimes it seems easier to go overseas and make deals than in-house. [within MLS]because the price is more expensive because they know the championship, because they have the green card or national status.

Historically, Nashville has been among the most optimistic MLS teams when it comes to domestic talent. Every offseason, Jacobs’ staff would agree to part with four international spots to reclaim GAM and invest him into the team.

This trend varies from year to year, as does the commercial value of international slot machines. Still, it’s another way Nashville benefits from a commitment to a clear approach based on factors within its control and beyond. Despite the “MLS only” nature of GAM, it helped raise the competitive level of the league. Time and the all-powerful market will determine whether and to what extent the change in calendar will have the same effect.

“Every club is different in how they want to build their squad,” Jacobs said. “Like a free market, I think everyone should be able to choose their own model to build their team. For us, we want to have players who are in their prime, because athletically they can do certain things and also where they fit into the whole ecosystem of their potential market value, having someone who is in their prime rather than someone who is past their prime.

“We’ve been successful in signing players from big leagues and big countries in their prime. I think the U22 initiative has also helped incentivize clubs to acquire players in those age groups. I also think the success of some of these guys makes it easier for people to look at and say: well, this isn’t a retirement league. This isn’t a league for players 35 and over, on their final salary. This will be a league ambitious.”

For Nashville, their aspirations meant bringing in Espinoza as a designated player was worth the ripple effects both projectable and unexpected. That justified offering the 30-year-old a contract that could last through the 2029-30 season rather than following the league’s modern trend of identifying young players who can be developed and sold for profit.

Market gains are important, but trophies look better in a boardroom. Each move forces teams to weigh the potential returns on the ground and on the balance sheet before making a definitive commitment. This will not change when the league schedule changes.

“For us, we want to have players that can become stars, but become stars on our team,” Jacobs said. “We want to have players who are in their prime and reaching their potential with us. Depending on their aspirations, whether it’s to stay at our club and our league long term and help us succeed, or to go elsewhere and take opportunities elsewhere and earn more money, we want to help them. We want to be ambitious as a club.”