By DAN KARELL
The 2013 MLS season isn’t even over yet but fans can already start preparing for the 2014 season.
On Monday afternoon, the league released the full-season 2014 MLS schedule, with the 19 teams beginning play on March 8 and finishing their seasons on the final weekend in October. Just as in this season, every team will play a 34-game league schedule, with every team taking a break between June 12 and June 24 for the group stage of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
The season begins just three days after the final international FIFA date before the World Cup. Like this season, the league won’t take breaks for the international dates in September (Sept. 1-9) and October (Oct. 6-14).
MLS announced that all 323 matches next season will be televised, either on national television or MLS Live and local telecasts. ESPN will televise 20 regular-season matches while NBC Sports will broadcast 41 games, including three on NBC and six games on Saturday afternoons following their English Premier League coverage. The team in the MLS Cup final with the best record will again host the match.
Some interesting early season matches include MLS Cup finalist Sporting Kansas City visiting the Seattle Sounders on the opening weekend, a rematch of the Houston Dynamo and Montreal Impact on March 15, and two matches between the Los Angeles Galaxy and Real Salt Lake in the first three weeks of the season.
What do you think of the schedule? What matches are you most looking forward to? Do you like your team’s schedule?
Share your thoughts below.
So, who else has a team which hardly ever gets to open their season at home?
think they’ll go to a balanced schedule at 20 teams?
If not, I think I’m finally done watching MLS.
Since they will have 21 teams in 2015 im pretty sure balanced is not possible. Sorry to see you go.
So you’re more of a fan of schedules than teams, I take it?
lol reality has declared that its time for you to go son.
Like a month too late to start the season.
There isn’t a new team coming in for this season correct? Hard to keep track of all the teams
No new team for the 2014 season. Both NYCFC and Orlando City are scheduled to begin MLS play in the 2015 season. Orlando City seems on track for that, except they haven’t broken ground on the new stadium. They only had funding approved a couple weeks ago. NYCFC on the other hand has nothing in place. No coaching staff, no players, no front office, no training grounds, no stadium, nothing. They do however have a nice tv commercial. Highly doubtful that they’ll be ready to go in 15 months.
well theyre going to have to be.
my prediction: RSL wins MLS cup, Kreis bolts for NYCFC, they field a team in the USL Pro next season, and use that to build staff/players/buy ball bags/all that good stuff
or maybe its a u23 team in the NPSL. something. theyre going to be at a serious competitive disadvantage.
not in 2014. same 19 teams.
2015 there will be +2 to bring it up to 21 total teams
after that we are likely to see 3 more sometime between 2017-?
This has to be the earliest they’ve ever released the schedule.
indeed. #MLSSheduleWasEarlyBecause
It’s like they hired someone that could do the job or something.
NBCSN has a Friday night game every Friday from end of June on !!!
I love the Friday night game.
Yep
Agreed. A regular Friday night time slot on national TV is a great thing! Also, Friday nights still should be solid from an attendance standpoint.
So ABC wont even get a national televised match, sad story 🙁
I wonder if the new TV deal will help bring in FOX,so they can televised on FOX nationally, just like Unimas and NBC do it.
CBS is for college sports, tennis and golf. But they can easily sneak in MLS
NBC is for extreme sports and non popular spotrs, olympics and for some golf and tennis. NFL is their toddler for now and soccer is gaining a lot of momentum for them.
FOX is nascar and football. College football and NFL, so they have room for a lot of soccer.
ABC is mainly college football for saturdays and NBA on sundays.
Univision has to much programing from mexico, since all they do is re run shows from mexico, besides ligamx.
Unimas is the stepchild of univision and basically unimas sucks.
As for the big sports, NFL is thursday and sunday.
MLB is every day but boring
NHL is every day but their only cold markets watch hockey, unless your from a cold city.
NBA is kinda weird, since they play everyday but their arenas dont get pack.
NBA Arenas are packed almost every game. You ‘re ridiculous
NBA teams play like 3 times a week at most… and most teams have sell out crowds. Try getting a ticket to MSG to watch the Knicks day of game… not happening.
another year for Chivas USA…
im okay with Colorado having 2 home games and an away game at the end of the year vs. Chivas Doormat USA.
The west is just loaded with good teams we need a pick me up game every once and a while..
When will players in the World Cup start camp? Won’t most of them miss a month before the group stage?
The mandatory release day is May 26.