The Key Aspects of MLS's 2022 Schedule

MLS has revealed its roadmap for a World Cup year, which includes the addition of another team, a new soccer-specific stadium and an earlier MLS Cup.

Charlotte FC’s debut and the earliest start in league history headline MLS's 2022 schedule, which is designed to fit into an abnormally busy year culminating with the World Cup in Qatar.

Unveiled Wednesday afternoon, the schedule is anchored by a regular season slate running from Feb. 26 through Decision Day on Oct. 9, when each of the league’s 28 clubs will play its 34th game against a conference rival in one of two, back-to-back broadcast blocks. 

The regular season will remain a largely intra-conference affair. Each team will play the other 13 clubs in its conference home and away (26 games total). The remaining eight matches will be against teams from the opposite conference. Nashville SC will play in the Western Conference in 2022 to balance the membership.

The 14-team MLS Cup playoffs will kick off the weekend following Decision Day, eliminating the lengthy break typically imposed by an international window. The 27th MLS Cup final will take place on Nov. 5, the earliest date for the championship game since 2002. The World Cup then starts Nov. 21.

MLS clubs also will have to negotiate Concacaf Champions League, U.S. Open Cup, Leagues Cup and Campeones Cup play. Those events will be scheduled around World Cup qualifying windows in late January/early February, late March and mid-June (the intercontinental playoffs, which will include Concacaf’s fourth-place team). There’s also a FIFA break in late September.

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Here are some notable 2022 schedule features:

—Charlotte FC plays its inaugural match on Feb. 26 at D.C. United, the league’s inaugural champion. The newcomers then make their home debut at Bank of America Stadium on the evening of March 5 against the LA Galaxy, MLS’s only five-time champion. MLS is targeting a single-game record crowd of 74,000 at the NFL venue.

—Nashville SC will open its new building, a 30,000-seat venue that will become the largest soccer-specific stadium in the U.S., on May 1. The opponent will be the Philadelphia Union, which knocked NSC out of the 2021 playoffs. Nashville will play its first eight games on the road. The new arena is located at The Fairgrounds Nashville, some three miles south of Nissan Stadium.

—New York City FC, New England Revolution, Colorado Rapids, Seattle Sounders and CF Montreal will be the league’s entrants in the 2022 CCL, the draw for which is Wednesday night. The competition begins with the first leg of the round of 16 on Feb. 15-17 and runs through the beginning of May.

—MLS has not announced its participants in Leagues Cup, its joint venture with Liga MX that has one more year of exhibition status before becoming an all-encompassing, official competition in 2023. This past season, MLS sent the top two, non-CCL finishers in each conference. Under those criteria, the 2022 Leagues Cup entrants would be Philadelphia Union, Nashville SC, Sporting Kansas City and Portland Timbers. 

The Campeones Cup, which pits the reigning MLS Cup champion against Liga MX’s Campeón de Campeones winner, will be hosted by NYCFC. No dates were announced for either event.

—The U.S. Open Cup is finally back after a two-year hiatus. U.S. Soccer announced over the summer that the tournament will kick off March 22-23. MLS teams will be split between the third round, which will be played April 19-21, and the round of 32, which takes place May 10-11. The semifinals are targeted for late July and the final will be played in early September. The champion will qualify for the 2023 CCL.

U.S. Soccer hopes to announce the specific tournament format and field by early January.

—Next season also will be the first for MLS Next Pro, the new third-division circuit that will include 20 MLS2 teams plus the rebranded Rochester Rhinos, now called Rochester NY FC. The inaugural campaign will see each side play 24 regular season games starting in late March, with a champion crowned prior to the start of the MLS Cup playoffs.

—The final year of MLS’s current broadcast rights package will include a record 48 games aired on network TV (ABC, Fox, Univision and UniMás). That includes nine matches on ABC and seven on Fox. Opening weekend broadcasts include New England at Portland (Feb. 26 on Fox), Colorado at Los Angeles FC (Feb. 26 on Univision) and NYCFC at LA Galaxy (Feb. 27 on ESPN).

—The All-Star game will be played Aug. 10 at Minnesota United’s Allianz Field. No format has been announced.