MLS knows its players are playing too many games, and thinks it has a 'sensible solution'

NEW YORK — The complaint has grown louder in recent years, whether from players, coaches, or fans: Major League Soccer teams play too many games for their own good.

Sure, it’s a lot of entertainment, and that’s a big part of what pro sports are supposed to be for the public. But in a league with a serious salary cap and roster size cap, there comes a point when it’s just too much to deal with.

The league acknowledged that with Tuesday’s announcement that this year and next year, each of its teams will play in at most two cup tournaments alongside the regular season.

“I think we have a responsibility to look at player load, at schedule management,” Nelson Rodriguez, MLS’s executive vice president of sporting product and competition, said in an interview with The Philadelphia Inquirer. (Yes, his title is a mouthful, but you get the idea that he’s in charge of this sort of thing.)

“We’ve learned from our own history of teams that have competed on multiple fronts and what the results have been, and what the sentiment has been from players, and coaches, and trainers, and doctors and the like,” Rodriguez said. “I think, but time will tell, we have come across a sensible solution that allows all 30 clubs a cup competition. … yet do it in a way that helps with that player load management."

There are three such events: the Concacaf Champions Cup in the spring, the Leagues Cup in late summer, and the U.S. Open Cup throughout the year. The first of those is the most prominent, and which of the other two comes next depends on whom you talk to.

Some people will say it’s the Leagues Cup, the summer faceoff concocted by MLS and Mexico’s Liga MX. Those people might be more likely to work on the corporate side of the sport or be among the players who get a piece of the tournament’s big cash prizes.

Other people will say the U.S. Open Cup, with its century-plus-old history, evokes grand domestic cups around the world. Teams from every level of the sport participate, and the upsets along the way create a special drama.

What fans said they wanted

MLS headquarters hasn’t always looked as fondly upon the Open Cup as its core fan base has — especially last year when the league pulled most of its first teams out and sent reserve squads instead. But there have been peace talks with U.S. Soccer since then, and this time 16 of the league’s 27 U.S. teams will have their first teams involved.

And what is the Leagues Cup, in what will now be its fifth edition in various forms?

“Profitable” would be the first word on many fans’ lips, since seats are often filled by Mexican expats who’ve made Liga MX this country’s most-watched soccer league for many years. Union fans have seen that firsthand.

There is some competitive merit to the event, and perception also matters when MLS teams beat Mexican ones head-to-head.

“The Leagues Cup is an important marker for us, and that’s driven by what our fan research has been saying since around 2015, 2016 — even through our most recent fan research a year ago,” Rodriguez said. “Our quality is still viewed referentially. So if we do well in Concacaf Champions [Cup], if we do well in Leagues Cup, especially head-to-head against Mexico, our player quality, our overall game quality, is seen more positively.”

But there are some big caveats. While the Concacaf Champions Cup is the cream of the crop, for the Leagues Cup, some Mexican teams don’t send their top squads — and some MLS teams don’t, either. Also, because all Leagues Cup games have been played in the United States so far, that’s an advantage for MLS teams even when the stands are full of Mexican teams’ fans.

It would definitely up the Leagues Cup ante if Mexican teams get to play some home games in it. Will that happen this year? Rodriguez didn’t give a straight answer.

“As Leagues Cup announces its evolution for 2025, we think it’s going to be really positively received by the fans,” he said. “We’ve obviously shared it with our clubs, and they see it as an improvement and something that will yield better football and a better event.”

An MLS spokesperson deferred to organizers of the Leagues Cup, who are technically separate from the two leagues involved.

What’s coming this year

Some details of the changes are already known. Instead of having every team from MLS and Liga MX participate, just the top 18 teams from each league — in MLS’s case, the top nine from each conference — will. (That means the Union won’t this year, because they finished 12th in the East last year.)

Also, instead of all the games being in one block of the year, games will be scheduled in midweek spread across July and August.

These moves seem like partial answers to a bigger question: What does the future of the Leagues Cup look like? Plenty of people would propose making it into North America’s version of the Europa League, effectively the second-tier continental tournament for teams not in the Champions Cup. That would balance out every team’s travel and workload, and potentially open a pathway to return every American MLS team to the Open Cup.

But it would devalue the Leagues Cup commercially to not have the top teams involved. Broadcasters and sponsors wouldn’t like that, especially its biggest backer, Apple.

Rodriguez acknowledged that there will be more to consider in the future.

“What are we trying to achieve?” he said. “Part of it is being conscious of player load. And you know, this doesn’t get said often, but at least I believe there’s also fan fatigue.”

There, finally, was an admission. Rodriguez and MLS have heard the public’s complaints, and seen them reflected in the stands.

“I think that we’ve structured something that makes sense,” he said. “It makes sense for the fans, makes sense for the players, makes sense for partners, and will yield more enjoyment and overall better football.”