Major League Soccer (MLS) is a professional men's soccer league that is sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation, which is the highest quality within the United States. The league is comprised of 28 teams – 25 from the U.S. and 3 in Canada. It plans to increase that number to 30 teams by the 2023 season. While not part in the “Big Four”, the MLS along alongside the Canadian Football League, is considered to be among the “Big Six” major professional sports leagues across Canada and the United States and Canada. The league's headquarters are at Midtown Manhattan.
Major League Soccer is the most recent in a series of the top professional men's national soccer leagues that were established within the United States and Canada. The first league that preceded MLS is the North American Soccer League (NASL) which was in existence between 1968 and 1984. The MLS was established in 1993 in conjunction with the United States' successful bid to host the 1994 FIFA World Cup. The inaugural season was held in 1996, with 10 teams. MLS had its share of operational and financial problems in its early years in which it lost millions of dollars before reorganizing 2 teams by 2002. Since then, changes such as the growth of soccer specific stadiums throughout the league, the implementation of the Designated Player Rule allowing teams to sign famous players like David Beckham, and national TV contracts have helped make MLS profitable. The average attendance is 20000 per game, MLS is the fourth highest annual average of all professional leagues within the U.S. and Canada after the National Football League (NFL) and Major League Baseball (MLB) as well as the Canadian Football League (CFL) and was the seventh most attended professional soccer league in the world by 2013.
The MLS regular season generally begins in the latter part of February or March and lasts until the middle of October in which each team plays 34 games. The team with the highest record is given the Supporters Shield. There are 14 teams competing during the playoffs MLS Cup Playoffs in late October and early November, which culminates in the league's title game, known as the MLS Cup.
Instead of being an independent association of teams, MLS is a single entity where each player is own by the league and independently managed by the league's investors. The league has a set membership, similar to the majority of sporting leagues across the United States and Canada, making one of few soccer leagues that do not have a promotion or demotion procedure.
Format of competition
The regular season of Major League Soccer starts in late February and continues through in the early months of March through October. The teams are divided geographically in two conferences, the Eastern as well as Western Conferences. Each team plays 34 games on an unbalanced schedule. There are 27 teams for 2021. Each team will play two games, at home as well as away against each team in their conference and one against five or six teams from the other conference. The season of 2020 was the first time that the league has had teams did not compete against each other team that was in league. When an ordinary season, the squad that has the highest points total receives the Shield of Supporters, as well as home-field advantage during the playoffs.
Teams gather to play in their annually held All-Star Game midway through the season. It is an exhibition game featuring the best players in the league. The game's format for this All-Star Game has changed several times since the league's creation and the year 2020 was the first time that players from the MLS All-Stars were scheduled to take on an all-star Mexican team, Liga MX, before the event was cancelled because of the COVID-19 epidemic.
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In contrast to the majority of major soccer leagues in the globe, and like others leagues of the Americas and Europe, it is the MLS normal season follows a knockout tournament in the postseason for the purpose of determining who is league champion. 14 teams are involved at the MLS Cup Playoffs in October and concludes with the MLS Cup championship game in the early months of December.
The spring-to-fall schedule of Major League Soccer causes conflicting schedules with the FIFA calendar as well as with international tournaments during the summer like the World Cup and the Gold Cup which causes some players to be absent from league games. Although MLS has been looking at the possibility of switching to a fall-to spring format however, there are currently no plans to change it. If the league were to alter it's schedule, a break during winter will be required to accommodate teams that are located in winter conditions that are harsh. Additionally, it would have contend with fame and media coverage associated with teams like National Football League (NFL), National Basketball Association (NBA) as well as the National Hockey League (NHL) which operate according to a fall-to-spring calendar.
Other Competition
MLS teams also participate in other domestic and international competitions. Each year, four to five MLS teams–four from the U.S. and one from Canada — compete within the CONCACAF Champions League against other teams from across the CONCACAF region. There are two U.S.-based MLS teams qualify based on their regular-season performance from the previous season which are the teams that have the most points from both conferences. One are known as the Supporter's Shield champion. Third U.S. team to qualify is the current MLS Cup champion. Fourth U.S.-based MLS team can qualify by winning the U.S. Open Cup. If a team has qualified via multiple berths, or one among the three MLS positions are used by a team located in Canada the berth will be transferred to the top-placed U.S.-based team on the overall table of previous seasons that is not otherwise qualified. Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver are competing against other Canadian teams at the Canadian Championship to compete for the single CONCACAF Champions League berth allocated to Canada.
Since 2018 the current MLS Cup champion plays in the Campeones Cup, a single match against the Campeon de Campeones from Liga MX that is played by the MLS team in September. The first edition saw Tigres UANL lose to Toronto FC 3-1 on September 19th, 2018, in BMO Field in Toronto. A second inter-league competition, which is akin to Liga MX, the Leagues Cup was introduced in the year 2019. The 2020 edition of the competition was initially planned to pit eight MLS clubs with eight Liga MX clubs in a single-elimination event that was held within the United States, reviving an inter-league rivalry which previously was held within the now-defunct North American Superliga, before it was cut off.
Teams
The Major League Soccer's 28 teams are divided into both the Eastern as well as the Western Conferences. Each team can have the maximum of 30 players to be on their initial roster. Each player is qualified to be selected for each 18-player game-day team during the regular season and during the playoffs.
MLS has been expanding regularly since the season of 2005. The league has plans to expand to 29 teams following the expansion to St. Louis City SC in 2023.
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The league has many cups of rivalry which are competed by teams of two or more typically, which are geographical rivals. The trophy is given to the team that has the most wins in games in the regular season between teams participating. It is similar to the trophies for rivalry played in the past by American team of college football.
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