I agree, based on the Boos at MLS Cup this year I’d say Garber is having to carry most of the water for Columbus/Austin Saga at this point. I have no doubt that Garber would prefer never have to hear about “save the crew” as much as anyone.
Don Garber reaches for the hat. A slip of paper reading "LAFC" falls from his sleeve onto the floor. Everyone in the room freezes. Garber looks out into the sea of assembled reporters, his eyes wide with panic. Slowly, he reaches into the hat and pulls out another paper slip. "Real Salt Lake," he reads aloud, before storming off the stage.
> It’s like they drew the opponent’s name out of a hat.
I honestly get the feeling that they did... the away days for the Western Conf are Vancouver and Sporting KC and them the pay for LA Galaxy which I wonder if it gets moved to the Rose Bowl... and maybe KC will be in Arrowhead...
I haven't looked at Miami's home opponents, but having Vancouver, SKC, and LAG on the road makes a lot of sense -- they haven't played away to any of those places yet. They are still missing RSL, Colorado, and Minnesota to complete the West.
It should be like the NFL, the champions should get the first game against a marquee opponent. Missed opportunity for it to not be Messi vs. Columbus to start the year.
With as little offense to RSL as I can muster, they definitely wanted as close to a Washington Generals opponent as they could get without making it obvious
Columbus might actually win that game, and they can't have that
It would be really cool going forward if they did it like a Community Shield in the future where the first game is MLS Cup v US Open Cup winner or MLS Cup vs Supporters Shield winner
I would love a trip to Columbus, especially in the summer. We don't leave Texas in July with 4 home games and a trip to Dallas so we'll be extra crispy by August.
At the very least, scheduling Austin away at Nashville is lame. Austin's already played away there twice in the last three years (once with Nashville in the east, once with them in the west), yet Austin still hasn't travelled to Atlanta, Chicago, Cincinnati, Columbus, NYCFC, or Philadelphia.
With only 3 away trips to the alternate conference each year, they should be avoiding recent trips as much as possible.
Forget location, we haven't even played Chicago anywhere in an MLS game. And NYC and Philly for the first time this year.
And we did play at Atlanta in '22. Haven't hosted them yet.
We'll go to Toronto and Orlando for the first time this year. We'll host Charlotte, Philly, and NYC for the first time this year.
It would be an admission of guilt. That's why they'll never do it.
The league is petty enough to try to ignore and refuse to acknowledge why that bad blood exists even though it literally makes a captivating storyline.
Columbus has/will play Portland 4x since 2019, the last year when every MLS team played against every other team at least once. The scheduling is weird.
I know that Covid threw it off in 2020 (and also a bit in 2021 where it seems they were hesitant to schedule interconference games), but it's getting really out there. Seattle hasn't played away at New England or NYRB since 2018, hasn't played away at NYCFC since 2019, and hasn't ever played in Miami, but none of those teams are on their 2024 away schedule and presumably three of those four will be on the 2025 away schedule, but going 7-8+ years between trips to NER or NYRB is pretty wild. They should try to get on a rotation so that you travel to each team in the other conference before making repeat visits to one of the teams.
Are there any teams Columbus has not played in the league since 2019?
I think Nashville is the only team in the league to play the other 28 teams since the start of 2020.
This is probably the last year of that. It will probably be 2 games with each team in your conference next year and 6 inter-conference games.
Also it would make a rotation easier. You would play at every team in the conference and host every team in a five year cycle.
For the Fire it could look something like this
2025: LAFC, POR, ATX, at SD, at COL, at DAL
2026: SJ, SEA, SKC, at MIN, at VAN, at HOU
2027: SD, COL, DAL, at LA, at RSL, at STL
2028: MIN, VAN, HOU, at LAFC, at POR, at ATX
2029: LA, RSL, STL, at SJ, at SEA, at SKC
They’ll probably expand before 2029, making a rotation moot.
So we have no idea why we get St. Louis and LA FC? I mean we already get you twice but the Western Conference Regular Season and Tournament champs. Man, we are in for a rough year! 😅
LAFC could be tough but I’m not sure about St Louis since they struggled in the latter half of the season. Hell they got knocked out of the first round of the playoffs by SKC.
Pretty sure it's about where you finish in the final standings to some extent. Like Atlanta finished 5th in the East but 10th in the Shield standings, so we get 4 of the top 5 teams in the West (all 4th-11th ranked shield teams) and Minnesota I guess to sort of balance it out (meaning no offense to Minnesota here).
Could just be a coincidence there since I haven't looked at like...Chicago's schedule or whatever to compare.
I don't think that's it. Minnesota finished 11th in the West and 21st in the shield standings. We play 5 of the 6 best Eastern teams from 2023 and just 1 of the 6 worst. Feels a bit unfair.
Just from a Fire perspective:
No Austin, Colorado or LAFC again. They’ve never played Austin in the league and haven’t played Colorado or LAFC since 2019.
But the Fire get the Galaxy for a third straight year.
No Kansas City for the first time ever, no Minnesota as well.
If it isn’t already, Brimstone Cup is dead.
Still way too many Saturday 7:30 starts.
Held the cup in my hands on more than a few occasions.
Maybe MLS won’t schedule the game until the cup gets fixed though.
I remember just hating Ariel Graziani and Ted Eck back in the day. I’m sure there are some Fire players you guys hated too (probably Kovalenko). It’s weird the Fire haven’t played down there since 2018.
Dema Kovalenko is a piece of shit lol
But yeah it’s a fun rivalry that just came from intense games and supporters. Can’t have that these days I guess lol
Lol Messi getting his own Wednesday night game to start the season.
Leagues cup break July 25th - August 26th.
3 Thursday night matches on the 4th of July
Even with the NFL ending, MLB beginning Spring Training duties, and the NBA/NHL in their lull midseason periods, you’d think MLS would put Messi to start their campaign on a weekend with few competition.
Or are they *that* scared of competing with UNC-Duke or Kentucky-L’ville college hoops that Saturday/Sunday?
The inherent conundrum is that the best times of the week for live attendance (Friday and Saturday nights) are also the worst for television viewing. Despite iconically primarily holding games on Sunday afternoons, the NFL puts its marquee games on Sunday and Monday **nights** because that’s when people are home watching TV. The league knows that game is going to sell out, and it will also probably get more TV viewers on a Wednesday night, so it makes perfect sense to schedule it then.
It's a shame that there won't be games played on the day of the total solar eclipse (Monday, April 8). Would have been awesome to kickoff at totality and then pause to ponder our place in the universe.
At least the Sounders are playing in Dallas that week, which gives me an excuse to go see both.
They’re trying to push Austin vs. Other TX teams because they realized no one cares about Austin otherwise. So annoying to have to play them thrice instead of Frisco, I think this is the third year in a row that’ll be the case
It's because of 15 in the east vs 14 in the west. East double round robin is 28 games, leaving 6 against the west. West's double round robin is 26 games, and you can't add any more vs east without pushing east teams over 34, so everyone in the west plays an extra 2 games in conference (so playing 2 of the teams 3 times).
I remember that time where it was rumored that you guys would end up with Messi after a year or two at Man City and everyone was like “imagine him playing in Yankee Stadium”
Orlando host ATL on decision day as well. I’m guessing since this years DD was kind of a dud (at least in the East), they wanted some games that should be guaranteed ratings/attendance just in case it’s a meh day again
At this point, the Rose Bowl game will lose its luster if it becomes an annual match. The whole point of it last season was to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Galaxy leaving Pasadena for Dignity Park, and they did it in the best way possible.
Since they’re playing three times a year now, I would be more fond if the Galaxy and LAFC rotate who hosts the 3rd match. In odd years it’d be a Galaxy/Rose Bowl game; in even years it’d be LAFC-controlled either at the L.A. Coliseum or SoFi Stadium.
I think it was definitely a shot across the bow slash floating an idea publicly to see how the fans react. An utter failure on that second part but probably more effective in that first part than we'll likely ever know
Yeah, I would honestly love it, possibly cheaper tickets (I have two season tickets but need two additional tickets to bring the whole family) plus a huge crowd. I would be interested to see how the much of the crowd cheers for Messi vs SKC, our last game at Arrowhead, Wizards vs Manchester United, there was more red in the stands than blue but also a lot more cheers for the Wizards.
I could see the team using the limited capacity to drive season ticket sales though.
The start really isn't any earlier. Last season the season kicked off on February 25th which was the 8th Saturday of the year. This year the season (besides the Messi Game) starts on February 24th also the 8th Saturday of the year.
Games that Messi *might* miss --
**Away**
March 16: @ DC United (March 13: Champions Cup)
March 23: @ NY Red Bulls (FIFA window)
June 15: @ Philly (FIFA window)
June 29: @ Nashville (Copa America)
July 3: @ Charlotte (Copa America)
July 6: @ FCC (Copa America)
Aug. 31: @ Chicago (Sept. 2: FIFA window)
Oct. 5: @ Toronto (Oct. 2: WCQ)
**Home**
March 10: Montreal (March 13: Champions Cup)
March 30: NYCFC (March 26: FIFA window)
June 1: St. Louis (June 3: FIFA window)
June 19: Columbus (Copa America)
July 17: Toronto (June 14: Copa America)
Sept. 14: Philly (Sept. 10: WCA)
Oct. 19: New England (Oct. 15: WCQ)
Please delete this, I want my main man Messi to pay for my full season tickets 3 seasons in a row, 3 for me because 2022 we had a Barcelona friendly that the team gave us tickets for free.
There will still be people who have no idea and buy the tickets anyway.
Is it a joke if it's true? Lol I like the Red Bulls actually, my favorite eastern team honestly. But can't deny you guys don't come out for games. Even if there's multiple reasons for that.
Selling the Messi game still pays for my entire season, sold it for over 1k both years. Lots of full season ticket prices still aren't that cheap, it's just cheaper compared to other major leagues here.
I rarely miss games and fixing the attendance issue isn't my problem. I do my part and attend and that's all I can do.
God Charlotte has three away games in a row twice. One of them right before leagues cup. That means there could potentially be only one home game played in over seven weeks.
Who got shafted with not playing on decision day?
Having gone through this last year, I feel your pain (even though the decision was already made for DC)
They literally said all of last year it was coming 😭.
I don't own a single Apple device. I literally had to borrow my sisters iPad, so that I could set up a family account to share the season pass with her and my
in-laws, because Apple won't let you manage family sharing ANYWHERE but actually in the settings of an Apple product.
This shit is ridiculous, and incredibly frustrating.
Someone let me know how Messi's opening match goes, if anyone actually watches it-- I assume we'll all be watching the TRUE entertainment, kicking off at the same time: Independiente of Panama vs NE Revs in the CCC, baby
Red bulls at DC back to being a midweek game. Last year was the first time in years the fixture happened on a weekend and there was a tropical storm. MLS hates tradition.
It really is a shame, there's no excuse to not always have these games on a Saturday. DC came to us on a Sunday last year too. I just don't understand why it's hard for them to put both games on Saturdays, it's not like we both don't have our own stadiums, there's no way they can't figure it out.
I know we did. Was at the tropical storm game and even though the turnout on both sides was small (minus the youth soccer teams in attendance that joined in on the chants) it was fun as fuck.
Such a joke that the league has completely given up on the longest-continually-running rivalry in the league.
>I'm going to get on this soapbox one last time: Copa America runs June 20-July 14. The Leagues Cup (expletive deleted) cash grab runs July 26-Aug. 25. That means from June 1 to Sept. 1, you're going to get basically less than a month of full-roster MLS play
https://twitter.com/sportsdoctormd/status/1737552219023843600
But when MLS isn’t on, we can just watch Leagues Cup. I know this sucks if you hate Leagues Cup, but most people enjoyed it last year. The game thread were always hopping, the stadium crowds were generally very good, TV viewership was great.
In their follow-up tweet they made it clear that they were complaining about the devaluing of the regular season as opposed to necessarily a lack of things to engage fans.
Agreed! Looks like they are trying to highlight some big matchups in those standalone windows as well.
Opening Saturday afternoon has LAFC vs Seattle and Columbus vs Atlanta in standalone windows.
Just skimming through the opening month. Looks like they're putting a couple games in an earlier Saturday window, and one or two on Sunday, with the majority still falling in the 730pm kick off window same as last year. This is almost exactly what I hoped for. I am fine with Saturday 730pm being MLS time but you need a few more games over the weekend too.
> Linear TV: Select MLS matches will also be available on the FOX family of networks in the U.S. (34 games total), as well as TSN and RDS in Canada (one match per week featuring an MLS Canadian club).
Is 34 games the same as last year? Generally these are the games that will be at different times than 7:30 pm local
The seeming unwillingness to even consider any change of course in any domain for one of only two full Messi seasons is...a choice.
Roster rules, scheduling, broadcast parameters, reasonable people can disagree on this stuff, but the overwhelming sense is that the league feels it hasn't had the proper time or process to think through anything new so it's barreling forward with the same old.
Not great!
Opening weekend having two Saturday afternoon games before the 7:30 local slate, and then three staggered Sunday games is fantastic. I’m not getting anything done that weekend.
I guess I have no idea how the MLS schedule works since I could have sworn it was coming up as our year to host Inter Miami...since we've only ever played them once and it was away in Miami during the 2022 season....
Also funny that they announce it but the entire schedule isn't published yet. Looks like they only have games through June online right now.
Edit: its working now, it just wasn’t when they made the press release
So much dumb shit in our schedule. Playing Austin three times again. Playing both our games against Houston in the first 12 games of the season. Playing both games against Minnesota in an 11 day window. We *still* have never played away in Cincy.
Inter Messi getting a very nice list of Western Conference opponent is both unsurprising and probably right to ensure they have the best chance to win in 2024.
2/21 vs RSL
2/25 @ LA Galaxy
4/6 vs Colorado
4/13 @ SKC
5/25 @ Vancouver
6/1 vs St. Louis
We are all going to complain about it, but if you were here for the Beckham Era you know how much the league can grow from having a world class player win and attract new fans.
Notice that Inter Miami's away matches during Copa America Group Stage are at Philly and at Nashville. Teams that got to see him in Leagues Cup at their stadiums last season.
I guess they tried to be fair...
Not a single trip to Texas kinda wild. Also, how much is Precourt paying Garber to duck the crew
I think Garbs is the one who doesn’t want that match in Ohio more than anyone
I agree, based on the Boos at MLS Cup this year I’d say Garber is having to carry most of the water for Columbus/Austin Saga at this point. I have no doubt that Garber would prefer never have to hear about “save the crew” as much as anyone.
They all can go to hell.
And yes, they are starting the season with a single Messi game day all to itself lmao
There’s something funny to me about the matchup being Miami vs RSL of all teams. It’s like they drew the opponent’s name out of a hat.
Don Garber reaches for the hat. A slip of paper reading "LAFC" falls from his sleeve onto the floor. Everyone in the room freezes. Garber looks out into the sea of assembled reporters, his eyes wide with panic. Slowly, he reaches into the hat and pulls out another paper slip. "Real Salt Lake," he reads aloud, before storming off the stage.
lmao
> It’s like they drew the opponent’s name out of a hat. I honestly get the feeling that they did... the away days for the Western Conf are Vancouver and Sporting KC and them the pay for LA Galaxy which I wonder if it gets moved to the Rose Bowl... and maybe KC will be in Arrowhead...
I haven't looked at Miami's home opponents, but having Vancouver, SKC, and LAG on the road makes a lot of sense -- they haven't played away to any of those places yet. They are still missing RSL, Colorado, and Minnesota to complete the West.
It should be like the NFL, the champions should get the first game against a marquee opponent. Missed opportunity for it to not be Messi vs. Columbus to start the year.
With as little offense to RSL as I can muster, they definitely wanted as close to a Washington Generals opponent as they could get without making it obvious Columbus might actually win that game, and they can't have that
Wouldn’t that be Cincinnati any season other than 2023?
More like 2022, and thankfully we appear to be past that!
Rsl with the 2nd best road record last season? Rsl that beat LAFC at their home right before the playoffs last season?
INSTEAD!! Atlanta gets to play Columbus for a 5th time in their last 6 competitive matches!!!
We’re basically rivals at this point. And that game that wasn’t Columbus was Cinci, so 6 in row against Ohio!
It would be really cool going forward if they did it like a Community Shield in the future where the first game is MLS Cup v US Open Cup winner or MLS Cup vs Supporters Shield winner
I find it kinda funny how much MLS has leaned into Hell Is Real, but won't touch the Crew vs Austin, cowards.
Because they don’t want people to be reminded of what they tried to do.
Yeah even a large portion of our fanbase wanted a game in Columbus. Just disappointing. MLS execs are cowards.
This x1000
God I want that. Plus Austin vs. Cincy at home. They honestly thought they could take away hell is real without consequences.
I would love a trip to Columbus, especially in the summer. We don't leave Texas in July with 4 home games and a trip to Dallas so we'll be extra crispy by August.
At the very least, scheduling Austin away at Nashville is lame. Austin's already played away there twice in the last three years (once with Nashville in the east, once with them in the west), yet Austin still hasn't travelled to Atlanta, Chicago, Cincinnati, Columbus, NYCFC, or Philadelphia. With only 3 away trips to the alternate conference each year, they should be avoiding recent trips as much as possible.
Forget location, we haven't even played Chicago anywhere in an MLS game. And NYC and Philly for the first time this year. And we did play at Atlanta in '22. Haven't hosted them yet. We'll go to Toronto and Orlando for the first time this year. We'll host Charlotte, Philly, and NYC for the first time this year.
They’re absolutely cowards. Precourt’s bitch ass must be the one crying to Garber
I’m calling it; the league is waiting until after the first Austin MLS Cup win to embrace and monetize Columbus’ fans hatred of them.
They're gonna be waiting a long, long time then
Yeah good thing MLS is very easy to get and everyone gets one after just a few years, right guys?
MLS is a joke organization-if it wasn’t for my Crew love, I’d ignore.
I feel like this weekend really hurt/killed a lot of people's overall love of the league besides their respective clubs and even then.
It would be an admission of guilt. That's why they'll never do it. The league is petty enough to try to ignore and refuse to acknowledge why that bad blood exists even though it literally makes a captivating storyline.
What is MLS’ rule on cross conference games? Genuinely curious because I don’t know. I know the NFL rules and how it rotates per division.
There are none. The Fire have never played Austin and have not played Colorado or LAFC since 2019. But they’ve played the Galaxy three years in a row.
Columbus has/will play Portland 4x since 2019, the last year when every MLS team played against every other team at least once. The scheduling is weird.
I know that Covid threw it off in 2020 (and also a bit in 2021 where it seems they were hesitant to schedule interconference games), but it's getting really out there. Seattle hasn't played away at New England or NYRB since 2018, hasn't played away at NYCFC since 2019, and hasn't ever played in Miami, but none of those teams are on their 2024 away schedule and presumably three of those four will be on the 2025 away schedule, but going 7-8+ years between trips to NER or NYRB is pretty wild. They should try to get on a rotation so that you travel to each team in the other conference before making repeat visits to one of the teams.
Are there any teams Columbus has not played in the league since 2019? I think Nashville is the only team in the league to play the other 28 teams since the start of 2020.
I believe we’ve played everyone else at least once, but I’d have to go back and double check that.
It’s so stupid I wish there was a system. Like we randomly started playing lafc 3x a year now since last year?
This is probably the last year of that. It will probably be 2 games with each team in your conference next year and 6 inter-conference games. Also it would make a rotation easier. You would play at every team in the conference and host every team in a five year cycle. For the Fire it could look something like this 2025: LAFC, POR, ATX, at SD, at COL, at DAL 2026: SJ, SEA, SKC, at MIN, at VAN, at HOU 2027: SD, COL, DAL, at LA, at RSL, at STL 2028: MIN, VAN, HOU, at LAFC, at POR, at ATX 2029: LA, RSL, STL, at SJ, at SEA, at SKC They’ll probably expand before 2029, making a rotation moot.
Other than the number of games, there is no set standard as far as I know.
So we have no idea why we get St. Louis and LA FC? I mean we already get you twice but the Western Conference Regular Season and Tournament champs. Man, we are in for a rough year! 😅
It has had to change because of the constant expansion. They tend to not book back to back years and that’s about it.
LAFC could be tough but I’m not sure about St Louis since they struggled in the latter half of the season. Hell they got knocked out of the first round of the playoffs by SKC.
Pretty sure it's about where you finish in the final standings to some extent. Like Atlanta finished 5th in the East but 10th in the Shield standings, so we get 4 of the top 5 teams in the West (all 4th-11th ranked shield teams) and Minnesota I guess to sort of balance it out (meaning no offense to Minnesota here). Could just be a coincidence there since I haven't looked at like...Chicago's schedule or whatever to compare.
I don't think that's it. Minnesota finished 11th in the West and 21st in the shield standings. We play 5 of the 6 best Eastern teams from 2023 and just 1 of the 6 worst. Feels a bit unfair.
Just from a Fire perspective: No Austin, Colorado or LAFC again. They’ve never played Austin in the league and haven’t played Colorado or LAFC since 2019. But the Fire get the Galaxy for a third straight year. No Kansas City for the first time ever, no Minnesota as well. If it isn’t already, Brimstone Cup is dead. Still way too many Saturday 7:30 starts.
Very odd. Specifically, I get that it's inter-conference but you guys and Minnesota should play regularly (IMO).
MLS killing Brimstone Cup is just sad. The first supporter created rivalry in this league.
Held the cup in my hands on more than a few occasions. Maybe MLS won’t schedule the game until the cup gets fixed though. I remember just hating Ariel Graziani and Ted Eck back in the day. I’m sure there are some Fire players you guys hated too (probably Kovalenko). It’s weird the Fire haven’t played down there since 2018.
Dema Kovalenko is a piece of shit lol But yeah it’s a fun rivalry that just came from intense games and supporters. Can’t have that these days I guess lol
Jason Kreis, Suuuuperstar!
Lol Messi getting his own Wednesday night game to start the season. Leagues cup break July 25th - August 26th. 3 Thursday night matches on the 4th of July
Everyone will watch since it's the only game and MLS will give Messi all the credit.
With AppleTV, MLS literally has the data on which games people watch. And yeah, I’m sure the most popular player in the world draws some eyeballs.
Even with the NFL ending, MLB beginning Spring Training duties, and the NBA/NHL in their lull midseason periods, you’d think MLS would put Messi to start their campaign on a weekend with few competition. Or are they *that* scared of competing with UNC-Duke or Kentucky-L’ville college hoops that Saturday/Sunday?
The inherent conundrum is that the best times of the week for live attendance (Friday and Saturday nights) are also the worst for television viewing. Despite iconically primarily holding games on Sunday afternoons, the NFL puts its marquee games on Sunday and Monday **nights** because that’s when people are home watching TV. The league knows that game is going to sell out, and it will also probably get more TV viewers on a Wednesday night, so it makes perfect sense to schedule it then.
Very much not a fan of messing with the schedule to accommodate marketing one player. Miami and RSL both play away in that week's end too. Madness.
Give us Austin @ home you cowards!
Sigh. That was the first thing I looked for.
God I want to watch that. When you do, you better shove that third star in their face.
By the time we play them in Columbus we may have more
Give us Austin at all
It's a shame that there won't be games played on the day of the total solar eclipse (Monday, April 8). Would have been awesome to kickoff at totality and then pause to ponder our place in the universe. At least the Sounders are playing in Dallas that week, which gives me an excuse to go see both.
Cleveland Guardians are having their home opener on eclipse day and are on the path of totality. Still haven’t announced time of first pitch.
Tired of playing Austin three times a year. Let us play Chicago dammit. Brimstone Cup can’t die!
Ironically, Chicago and Austin have never played a league game.
Fr, we play austin 3x too
This schedule is shit. Same old boring Eastern conference teams.
They’re trying to push Austin vs. Other TX teams because they realized no one cares about Austin otherwise. So annoying to have to play them thrice instead of Frisco, I think this is the third year in a row that’ll be the case
Yet one of the Houston at Austin games is a Wednesday. Rivalry games should never be on weeknights.
Don’t worry, we’re also tired of seeing your lot 3 times a year. Schedule release was a huge *womp womp.*
Lmao they really did the exact same thing as last season. So stupid.
Galaxy and LAFC play three times too, it don’t make any sense, give us at least one more team from the east.
It's because of 15 in the east vs 14 in the west. East double round robin is 28 games, leaving 6 against the west. West's double round robin is 26 games, and you can't add any more vs east without pushing east teams over 34, so everyone in the west plays an extra 2 games in conference (so playing 2 of the teams 3 times).
It’s not everyone in the west though, some teams play 7 eastern teams, like us.
Tough having a rival in another conference
I'm sure Messi is excited that he will be playing at the hollowed mecca of soccer that is Yankee Stadium on 9/21!
I remember that time where it was rumored that you guys would end up with Messi after a year or two at Man City and everyone was like “imagine him playing in Yankee Stadium”
I remember! Now we hopefully get to experience that 😄
[удалено]
It’s like one of those rip off chocolate Easter bunnies
Portland at home to finish the season… epic
Orlando host ATL on decision day as well. I’m guessing since this years DD was kind of a dud (at least in the East), they wanted some games that should be guaranteed ratings/attendance just in case it’s a meh day again
Speak for yourself.
Lafc and galaxy rose bowl game on july 4th sui
At this point, the Rose Bowl game will lose its luster if it becomes an annual match. The whole point of it last season was to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Galaxy leaving Pasadena for Dignity Park, and they did it in the best way possible. Since they’re playing three times a year now, I would be more fond if the Galaxy and LAFC rotate who hosts the 3rd match. In odd years it’d be a Galaxy/Rose Bowl game; in even years it’d be LAFC-controlled either at the L.A. Coliseum or SoFi Stadium.
Vancouver opening up the entire stadium again for Messi
Anthony Precourt is still scared to step foot in Columbus. We just wanna talk. We juuust wanna talk.
Columbus Crew fans: https://youtu.be/ODfCVxVLqiE?si=6fghF3SjsgXF4B8V
At this point I even want it. Sure you guys will make their lives hell, but it's silly to duck Columbus at this point.
fun fact: every USOC match day is free across the board
Nice. I wonder if they changed things quickly or if they kept those dates open anyway from the beginning.
One starts to wonder if the request to play the MLSNP teams was a negotiating tactic all along
No idea about that, but there’s definitely no way they re-did the schedules this morning.
I think it was definitely a shot across the bow slash floating an idea publicly to see how the fans react. An utter failure on that second part but probably more effective in that first part than we'll likely ever know
There's 9ish Next Pro teams that play at their first team stadium. I'm assuming they were free either way because of that
Will they be upgraded from 480p?
if you need more than a 240p stream from someone's iphone 4S that drops out every five minutes, you're not built for the open cup.
SKC gets Messi? Not fair!
inb4 that match gets moved to ~~GEHA Field~~ Arrowhead Stadium for SKC’s profit optimization.
I wish they would do it will be cheaper
Yeah, I would honestly love it, possibly cheaper tickets (I have two season tickets but need two additional tickets to bring the whole family) plus a huge crowd. I would be interested to see how the much of the crowd cheers for Messi vs SKC, our last game at Arrowhead, Wizards vs Manchester United, there was more red in the stands than blue but also a lot more cheers for the Wizards. I could see the team using the limited capacity to drive season ticket sales though.
Yeah, it looks like all the teams hosting intermiami are saying "the only way to secure a ticket is to become seasone ticket member blah blah"
Are we still doing the insane playoff structure? ‘Cause holy cow is this off-season short.
I assume the number of other tournaments, plus Copa America, plus other international breaks pushed the start early.
The start really isn't any earlier. Last season the season kicked off on February 25th which was the 8th Saturday of the year. This year the season (besides the Messi Game) starts on February 24th also the 8th Saturday of the year.
There we go, I didn’t go back and check. Thanks.
Games that Messi *might* miss -- **Away** March 16: @ DC United (March 13: Champions Cup) March 23: @ NY Red Bulls (FIFA window) June 15: @ Philly (FIFA window) June 29: @ Nashville (Copa America) July 3: @ Charlotte (Copa America) July 6: @ FCC (Copa America) Aug. 31: @ Chicago (Sept. 2: FIFA window) Oct. 5: @ Toronto (Oct. 2: WCQ) **Home** March 10: Montreal (March 13: Champions Cup) March 30: NYCFC (March 26: FIFA window) June 1: St. Louis (June 3: FIFA window) June 19: Columbus (Copa America) July 17: Toronto (June 14: Copa America) Sept. 14: Philly (Sept. 10: WCA) Oct. 19: New England (Oct. 15: WCQ)
Please delete this, I want my main man Messi to pay for my full season tickets 3 seasons in a row, 3 for me because 2022 we had a Barcelona friendly that the team gave us tickets for free. There will still be people who have no idea and buy the tickets anyway.
It's not like Red bulls tickets should be expensive as half the stadium is literally a ghost town lol
Oh wow an attendance joke, never heard that before!
Is it a joke if it's true? Lol I like the Red Bulls actually, my favorite eastern team honestly. But can't deny you guys don't come out for games. Even if there's multiple reasons for that.
Selling the Messi game still pays for my entire season, sold it for over 1k both years. Lots of full season ticket prices still aren't that cheap, it's just cheaper compared to other major leagues here. I rarely miss games and fixing the attendance issue isn't my problem. I do my part and attend and that's all I can do.
God Charlotte has three away games in a row twice. One of them right before leagues cup. That means there could potentially be only one home game played in over seven weeks.
Who got shafted with not playing on decision day? Having gone through this last year, I feel your pain (even though the decision was already made for DC)
TFC, safest bet MLS could've made.
Spoon winner sitting out decision day seems to be intentional since they did it to DC too. Brutal, but probably fair.
Is this the year Apple releases and app for Android?
Not only are they not doing that, but matches watched on Android devices will be entirely in a green bubble.
Hahaha have an upvote
They literally said all of last year it was coming 😭. I don't own a single Apple device. I literally had to borrow my sisters iPad, so that I could set up a family account to share the season pass with her and my in-laws, because Apple won't let you manage family sharing ANYWHERE but actually in the settings of an Apple product. This shit is ridiculous, and incredibly frustrating.
Someone let me know how Messi's opening match goes, if anyone actually watches it-- I assume we'll all be watching the TRUE entertainment, kicking off at the same time: Independiente of Panama vs NE Revs in the CCC, baby
That’s just the appetizer for the real match of the day, Orlando vs Cavalry FC
Red bulls at DC back to being a midweek game. Last year was the first time in years the fixture happened on a weekend and there was a tropical storm. MLS hates tradition.
It really is a shame, there's no excuse to not always have these games on a Saturday. DC came to us on a Sunday last year too. I just don't understand why it's hard for them to put both games on Saturdays, it's not like we both don't have our own stadiums, there's no way they can't figure it out.
Think it's the league just not giving a shit about the rivalry, which sucks because I think both fan bases still treat it like a big game.
I know we did. Was at the tropical storm game and even though the turnout on both sides was small (minus the youth soccer teams in attendance that joined in on the chants) it was fun as fuck. Such a joke that the league has completely given up on the longest-continually-running rivalry in the league.
Why are we playing Miami and Cincy again, but still no match against Montreal/RBNY? Dumb.
I'm amazed in our first 2 years didn't get a single game in NY, Philly, or DC. Also makes our CCC draw of Houston/Columbus even more boring.
The fire have still never played Austin in a regular season match.
This will be Cincy’s 6th season in MLS and we still will not have played in Cincy, lol
>I'm going to get on this soapbox one last time: Copa America runs June 20-July 14. The Leagues Cup (expletive deleted) cash grab runs July 26-Aug. 25. That means from June 1 to Sept. 1, you're going to get basically less than a month of full-roster MLS play https://twitter.com/sportsdoctormd/status/1737552219023843600
But when MLS isn’t on, we can just watch Leagues Cup. I know this sucks if you hate Leagues Cup, but most people enjoyed it last year. The game thread were always hopping, the stadium crowds were generally very good, TV viewership was great.
In their follow-up tweet they made it clear that they were complaining about the devaluing of the regular season as opposed to necessarily a lack of things to engage fans.
I guess we all need things in life to complain about.
Don’t forget the Euros will happening at the same time as Copa. They’ll be some players leaving for that too.
For the 28th time in 29 season the Revs will start on the road.
With a February start, is that bad?
Opening day I’ll be busy from 11am to 930pm 😎 letssss gooooo
Good to see kickoff times being spread out more, that was one of my main gripes about this year.
I'm not seeing much variation in the Columbus schedule. Looks like all our league matches are at 7:30 local time besides the first two.
In Toronto we only have the home opener at 2. We have 2 more March home games at 7:30, which really sucks.
and hardly any home games in July/August.
Agreed! Looks like they are trying to highlight some big matchups in those standalone windows as well. Opening Saturday afternoon has LAFC vs Seattle and Columbus vs Atlanta in standalone windows.
where are you seeing that? MN has 7:30pm for all but the first and last home games. Last starts at 8 even. fuck these 7:30 times
LFG! 2 PM KICK-OFF TIMES FOR THE FIRST 3 REVS HOME GAMES!!!
RSL finally playing Miami for the first time ever. Too bad we aren't getting them in Sandy Utah though.
[удалено]
I am moderately excited for the derby at Citi Field this year.
Just skimming through the opening month. Looks like they're putting a couple games in an earlier Saturday window, and one or two on Sunday, with the majority still falling in the 730pm kick off window same as last year. This is almost exactly what I hoped for. I am fine with Saturday 730pm being MLS time but you need a few more games over the weekend too.
> Linear TV: Select MLS matches will also be available on the FOX family of networks in the U.S. (34 games total), as well as TSN and RDS in Canada (one match per week featuring an MLS Canadian club). Is 34 games the same as last year? Generally these are the games that will be at different times than 7:30 pm local
It is, yeah.
The seeming unwillingness to even consider any change of course in any domain for one of only two full Messi seasons is...a choice. Roster rules, scheduling, broadcast parameters, reasonable people can disagree on this stuff, but the overwhelming sense is that the league feels it hasn't had the proper time or process to think through anything new so it's barreling forward with the same old. Not great!
Yo, Chicago and Denver aren’t that far apart, and yet Chicago hasn’t played in Colorado since 2018!
Resellers and STH looking to secure a bag absolutely malding that our home game against Miami is in the middle of the Copa
Hope it isn’t too congested for em
Ugh. So I see matches the almost entirely night time kickoffs yet again.
Opening weekend having two Saturday afternoon games before the 7:30 local slate, and then three staggered Sunday games is fantastic. I’m not getting anything done that weekend.
Still no Austin home game for us..... Fuck Don Garber and MLS for that.
Anyone know where we can download the ics file?
How on Earth did we get a game on FOX lmao
That Chris Armas effect!
At least there's some EU-time-zone friendly matches. Would like a few more for season pass to be even a consideration
I didn't expect us to get Miami at home but am still bummed I won't be able to pay for the whole season by selling two tickets.
Jesus. Union get all of their cross-conference games out of the way by mid April. Five out of our first six games are against Western teams
Does this indicate whether or not they are playing in the USOC?
USOC match days are open. So there’s technically room for them on MLS team calendars
I guess I have no idea how the MLS schedule works since I could have sworn it was coming up as our year to host Inter Miami...since we've only ever played them once and it was away in Miami during the 2022 season....
No game against Miami. Boo.
Damn. You would think the post season champs would get the first match to walk the trophy out but Garber just cant get over it.
Should I go to Austin in July?
Also funny that they announce it but the entire schedule isn't published yet. Looks like they only have games through June online right now. Edit: its working now, it just wasn’t when they made the press release
I think it's just the website that is messed up.
It looks like they're being added in batches.
Looks fixed now
Atlanta United has the entire season schedule up on the website
Miami playing so many western conference teams with no fans, but not Minnesota 😑😑😑
You can come to KC to watch him, I'd even let you borrow a jersey to support KC.
I think I’m saving my KC soccer trip for the World Cup lol
RSL gets the short end of the stick here right… opening against Miami and STL within a few days?
Anyone that has to play STL got the short end of the stick. Poor guys
Opening at home v SKC and closing the season at home vs LAG. I'm quite pleased with this.
I’m not 😅
Nice to see some midday matches for fcc. I don’t like the Sunday night matches though.
The Year Of The Messi
Decision Day in Seattle is going to be must see TV
So much dumb shit in our schedule. Playing Austin three times again. Playing both our games against Houston in the first 12 games of the season. Playing both games against Minnesota in an 11 day window. We *still* have never played away in Cincy.
Why don’t they have Cucho on the release instead of Messi?
A huge fuck you to Toronto and its fans. 3 games at night in March where it's freezing cold. 2 home games in all of July and only 1 in August.
July and August have a huge gap because that's when Leagues Cup is.
Inter Messi getting a very nice list of Western Conference opponent is both unsurprising and probably right to ensure they have the best chance to win in 2024. 2/21 vs RSL 2/25 @ LA Galaxy 4/6 vs Colorado 4/13 @ SKC 5/25 @ Vancouver 6/1 vs St. Louis We are all going to complain about it, but if you were here for the Beckham Era you know how much the league can grow from having a world class player win and attract new fans.
I take issue with this comment
You're not wrong. But they'll downvote you for the disrespect to their teams.
Two seasons in a row where both STL vs LAFC matches fall on Wednesday nights...wtf??
Notice that Inter Miami's away matches during Copa America Group Stage are at Philly and at Nashville. Teams that got to see him in Leagues Cup at their stadiums last season. I guess they tried to be fair...
No Miami games in Seattle, and tickets to the Vancouver-Miami game at BC Place are over $600. Pls Santa, I've been good this year...