The NWSL plans to pause its 2026 season for most of June to accommodate expected stadium demands for the 2026 FIFA men’s World Cup in some of its markets. The league, which announced its 2026 schedule footprint on Wednesday, will also extend its regular season to 30 matches per team, up from 26 this year, to accommodate the addition of two new teams to the schedule.
The league will not play from June 1 through June 28 next year, which covers the lead-up to the men’s World Cup kickoff on June 11 and the entire group stage. Seven of the NWSL’s 16 markets will host matches as part of the men’s World Cup next summer: Boston, Houston, K.C., L.A., N.Y., the S.F. Bay Area and Seattle. Three of those (K.C., Houston and N.Y.), plus Orlando, Louisville and Herriman, Utah, are also on FIFA’s latest list of potential base camp locations for visiting national teams. Specific training facilities used by the K.C. Current, Racing Louisville, Houston Dash and Utah Royals could be utilized in that capacity.
Even with the break, the NWSL will play matches during the knockout stages of the men’s World Cup. The league also said its schedule has been formatted to avoid staging contests during FIFA windows and will include a league-wide pause in play for a CBA-mandated break.
The NWSL schedule is also expanding to 30 games per team as expansion franchises in Boston and Denver make their debuts. The addition of four games to each team’s schedule ensures a balanced schedule in which teams play each other twice: once at home and once on the road. It also offers teams two additional home games to generate revenue and additional inventory for the league’s national media partners and its own NWSL+ streaming service.
The 2026 Challenge Cup, which pits the reigning league champion against the regular-season NWSL Shield winners, will be held on Feb. 20 -- two weeks earlier than this year’s edition. The regular season, however, will start on March 13 -- the same weekend as the 2025 season. The regular season will conclude Nov. 1, with the playoffs beginning on Nov. 6. The NWSL Championship will be held Nov. 21, also the same weekend as this year’s title game.
The release of the schedule footprint for 2026 surprised longtime NWSL observers, as the league typically waits until the offseason to release that information for the upcoming season. The league said it “has taken proactive, early action to finalize its 2026 schedule footprint” to allow stakeholders to plan ahead for “what promises to be a landmark year in global soccer.”
