NWSL Considers Changing Its Schedule: An Ongoing Debate
NWSL Commissioner Jessica Berman has alerted the league’s ecosystem regarding the possible modification of its calendar to begin in late summer and conclude in late spring.
MLS, which currently runs from the beginning of the year to December, recently announced that it will modify its season from 2027 to align with the rest of the world.
The NWSL board of governors has extensively debated this calendar change for years. Sources close to the league confirmed that the proposal was rejected in the fall of 2024.
“Certainly, opportunities can be created by not overlapping with Major League Soccer, which would mitigate calendar congestion in the summer,” Berman said. “On the other hand, this will create other challenges regarding stadium availability.”
Jessica Berman, NWSL commissionerThe MLS’s decision could force the NWSL to take action. Stadium availability is already a challenge for the NWSL, as many teams share facilities. The MLS’s change, in theory, could facilitate the scheduling of matches for the NWSL in the summer, but the opposite could occur.
MLS reserves dates for stadiums during its playoffs, which will now be moved to May, coinciding with the start of the NWSL season. This would make it difficult to schedule the first NWSL matches. In addition, MLS will not begin scheduling its matches for the next season, which will begin at the end of July, until closer to summer. This could leave the NWSL in a holding pattern throughout the year in several stadiums.
Twelve of the sixteen NWSL teams will play in a stadium shared with an MLS team next year.
The proponents of the calendar change believe that aligning with other global leagues will facilitate player transfers. They often mention the difficulty of signing European players who are in the middle of their season.Jessica Berman, NWSL commissioner, during the annual “State of the League” press conference.In an anonymous survey conducted last year, a general manager of the NWSL called the schedule “the biggest unknown facing the league.” However, general managers were divided on the best solution, reflecting the division on the league’s board of directors.
In this year’s survey, a general manager named the calendar change as the only rule they would change.
“If I only think about my job… I think if we change the calendar, most teams won’t be in warm climates, so it would be complicated,” said this general manager. “If we want to maintain the quality of the game… football is global.
“But it’s always complicated to be one of the few countries that work with this calendar. I don’t think that helps the league to be one of the best. We need to change the calendar to become one of the best. I don’t think it’s a priority, but I think that in the long run, if we want to be the best league in the world, it’s something we have to think about.”
Washington Spirit defender Esme Morgan, an English international, stated that the current NWSL schedule is appealing to her.
“It was something I saw as positive when coming here, to be honest,” said Morgan. “I feel that by going to international tournaments in the summer, you’re at your best in the middle of the season, and that’s something really positive. I also appreciated the idea of having good weather during the spring to autumn league. So, yes, it was something that, coming from Europe, I saw as something really positive. I think it’s interesting that MLS has changed.”
Esme Morgan, defender for Washington Spirit
Morgan was part of the England team that was runner-up in the 2023 World Cup and the team that won the 2025 European Championship this summer.
Morgan added that winters in many northern US markets are much harsher than in England.
“It’s not fun; it’s not enjoyable to play in the cold,” she said. “I think the cold is much more extreme here than at home. I think even for the audience, nobody likes to take their kids to catch hypothermia watching the game, right? I feel like it suits this league well, to be honest, as it is now, but we’ll see.”
Esme Morgan, defender for Washington Spirit
Many league sources in the debate over the schedule have described the issue as a “Catch-22” situation, because extreme heat is also a problem in the United States in summer. In August, an NWSL match in Kansas City was delayed more than three hours due to the extreme heat.
Another league general manager commented:
“A major challenge that would help with talent acquisition and attraction would be to align the calendar with the major leagues of the world. However, this is a very large country with major climatic challenges, so I’ll let MLS go first, see how they solve it, and if they solve it, maybe that’s a good thing for us to follow.
NWSL General Manager
“When those leagues are in the middle of their season and we are at the end, and vice versa, it doesn’t help to bring in certain talent. It’s a smaller barrier than the financial one, but sometimes it’s still a barrier.”
The MLS announcement gives that league only a year and a half to make the calendar change. Berman did not commit on Thursday to how long the NWSL would need to make a similar change.
“I think it will depend,” Berman said. “Certainly, our ecosystem is aware that this has been and will continue to be a conversation, so we will make sure we have the appropriate time to be able to transition effectively, and that will be very important. We will analyze it in the context of the overall decision.”
