MLS, Liga MX Should Model Leagues Cup After Baseball Spring Training

Lionel Messi, left, of Inter Miami and Sergio Hernandez of Atlas speak on the field in the first half during the Leagues Cup match between Inter Miami CF and Atlas FC on Tuesday night.

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Two things have become clear as July gets ready to turn to August amid another overstuffed soccer summer in the United States.

1. It’s becoming a matter of when, not if, Major League Soccer eventually flips its schedule to a fall-to-spring model similar to most big European Leagues.
2. The novelty of the Leagues Cup is wearing off, and if the tournament is going to survive, it desperately needs new ideas and maybe a new place on the calendar.

The answer to serve both purposes is to turn the Leagues Cup into a winter event, an idea that has been written about here before and openly mentioned as a possibility previously by MLS Commissioner Don Garber.

But it’s time to go further and turn the tournament into a winter concept that could resemble Major League Baseball’s popular spring training games in the Grapefruit and Cactus Leagues, except with actual competitive stakes.

The MLS Winter is Already Short

For all the hand-wringing in northern MLS markets decrying the coming schedule flip, the truth is that it’s already possible for most MLS teams to play through a lengthy stretch of cold weather every season.

This year’s opening weekend was played on Feb. 22-23. The MLS Cup final will be played on Dec. 6, and it has been played even later. For teams that reach the championship fixture, there’s only a gap of about 11 weeks between the end of one season and the start of the next, and even less if they also end up playing in the Concacaf Champions League.

Reports concerning discussions of an MLS schedule flip also suggest a winter break is likely, similar to the six weeks German clubs take off in late December through the end of January. So really, there’s only about 5-6 additional weeks of the schedule to fill with a flipped schedule, a length of time that could be mostly filled by Leagues Cup.

Tournament Fatigue

Meanwhile, the signs that fans are growing a little underwhelmed three years into MLS’ and Liga MX’s experimental tournament.

While there remains genuine appeal to the concept particularly among TV viewers in both league markets, that’s generally not the case at the box office unless the biggest and most famous Liga MX teams are involved.

Through the first two days of the tournament, there were packed stadiums at matches involving Club America and Tigres UANL, but also attendances under 12,000 at Portland, Columbus and LAFC, clubs that consistently draw well in MLS.

And the timing of a late summer event might not be the boon organizers first believed.

Each year, the Leagues Cup has been played in the direct aftermath of at least two major international tournaments popular with American fans. In 2023, it was the Concacaf Gold Cup and FIFA Women’s World Cup. The next year was the 2024 Euros and 2024 Copa America. Then this summer, it followed the Gold Cup, the newly expanded FIFA Club World Cup and the Women’s Euro 2025.

There’s only so many tournaments one can invest in during a short window of time, and the Leagues Cup currently faces the challenge of having to engage already fatigued soccer viewers.

Make It A Destination

The way to change that is to put the tournament in a different part of the year that would naturally stoke anticipation. And further, by making it not only something to look forward to on TV, but an exciting excursion to plan for.

This is where the Spring Training model comes in.

Even though Spring Training games are meaningless competitively, they’re enormously popular in part because they represent a chance for fans in colder markets around the country to escape for a warm-weather, sports-centered vacation.

Fans know where their favorite team plays its home spring training games each season. And further, they also know they can make short drives across Florida or Arizona to see additional games in the Spring Training ballparks of other teams.

This is a model MLS and Liga MX should replicate by creating splitting their teams into regional hubs for the early stage of the Leagues Cup, with the same 12-24 clubs playing in the same region every year.

This would allow for MLS and Liga MX fans to plan winter excursions to see several matches in one trip similar to their baseball brethren.

Better Than Spring Training?

The difference, of course, is that Leagues Cup games would still have very real stakes, and conclude in time to place the final three teams into the Concacaf Champions Cup that begins in mid-February. The exact timing matters less, so long as it is consistent. But it might work best with the current Liga MX calendar if it began immediately following the Apertura playoffs, maybe right around or just before New Years Day.

For MLS teams, that might mean playing league games up until the second or third weekend of December, a short break both before and after Leagues Cup, then a return to MLS play in early/mid February.

Another possibility – although it appears remote – is that MLS actually adopta a split-season schedule very similar to the Liga MX Apertura and Clausura seasons, with the Leagues Cup acting as a competition to bridge the two competitions. That wouldn’t change the timing of a winter Leagues Cup much if at all. But it might help the event stand alone rather than feeling like a mid-season interruption.