NWSL faces scheduling challenges due to alignment with European calendar
MLS switch to winter season creates complications for NWSL
Proposal for women's football to adopt summer season globally
Summer schedule would provide better broadcast opportunities and avoid conflicts
📖 Full Retelling
Journalist Suzanne Wrack has reignited the debate about potentially switching the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) to a summer season in the United States in 2025, arguing this would free women's football from the constraints of the men's game calendar. This discussion follows Major League Soccer's (MLS) recent decision to switch from a summer to winter season, which has created scheduling complications for the NWSL. The scheduling challenges for women's football are multifaceted. Currently, the NWSL aligns with the European football calendar, causing complications with transfer windows and international competitions. During major tournaments like the 2023 Women's World Cup and 2024 Olympics, the league had to pause for weeks, losing access to their international players. Additionally, with 12 of the 16 NWSL teams sharing stadiums with MLS sides, the scheduling conflict becomes even more pronounced as MLS playoffs now overlap with the early NWSL season. Wrack suggests a radical but potentially beneficial solution: a global shift of women's football to a summer calendar. This would free the women's game from the scheduling nightmare in countries with dominant men's leagues, creating more broadcast opportunities in an oversaturated market. Historically, England's Women's Super League operated successfully during summer seasons from 2011-2017, with fans enjoying the experience of watching football in better weather. Other countries like Sweden, Norway, and Iceland have also adopted summer schedules to navigate around winter challenges.
🏷️ Themes
Women's football scheduling, Gender equality in sports, Broadcast rights and commercial opportunities
Suzanne Wrack is a British journalist and writer at The Guardian. She is the author of A Woman's Game: The Rise, Fall, and Rise Again of Women's Football and wrote You have the Power with England women's national football team captain, Leah Williamson. She features on The Guardian's Women's Football...
Professional soccer league in the United States and Canada
Major League Soccer (MLS) is a professional soccer league in North America and the highest level of the United States soccer league system. It comprises 30 teams, with 27 in the United States and 3 in Canada, and is sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation. MLS is one of the major professio...
The National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) is a women's professional soccer league and the highest level of the United States soccer league system (alongside the USL Super League). The league comprises 16 teams. It is owned by the teams and sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation.
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Original Source
A summer season would free women’s football from constraints of men’s game Suzanne Wrack Breaking from European traditions would bring a TV boost and help build a schedule that works both for players and fans The announcement that Major League Soccer is to switch from a summer season to a winter one has reignited the debate about the National Women’s Soccer League’s schedule. This is not a new conversation: the pros and cons of alignment with the European calendar have been considered for many years by the NWSL . Aligning transfer windows would be hugely beneficial and improve competitiveness. Teams would no longer having to persuade European-based players and clubs to part ways mid-season, which can be complicated and daunting in major tournament years. Meanwhile, Fifa’s calendar is more orientated with a winter calendar, so there are issues around international windows and how they fit around the NWSL season. Then, there are the clashes between the domestic season in the United States and major tournaments. During the 2023 Women’s World Cup, the NWSL paused for two weeks with clubs losing their internationals. The league again paused for a month during the 2024 Olympics and, for the first time, for major tournaments outside Concacaf in the summer of 2025: the Copa América Femenina, the Women’s Euros and Women’s Africa Cup of Nations. This meant the NWSL was not competing with or undermining broadcast and commercial deals around those tournaments. The move to a winter season by MLS poses additional problems for the NWSL. This year, 12 of the 16 NWSL teams are ground-sharing with MLS sides and while a schedule split would seemingly eliminate fixture clashes, the MLS playoffs will pose problems in May, since they fall early in the NWSL season. So there will be no shared off-season when pitches can be relaid. In this context, the NWSL season looks like an outlier. The MLS’s switch is likely to force the NWSL to follow suit despite years of resistance. Except, what if ...
