Since Thanksgiving, 17 inches of snow dropped on Chicago, while Minneapolis-St. Paul received roughly 14. Five inches fell on Kansas City, and even Columbus got four the first week of December.
Now, imagine it’s 2027 and MLS is halfway through its season.
I was curious what effects the MLS season calendar shift — which will pivot the league’s season to the late summer-to-spring calendar used by most of the rest of the professional soccer world — would have on stadium operations and business. The Polar Vortex that recently gripped the northern half of the U.S. for several weeks gave a frosty preview.
While more than 90% of the MLS season calendar will remain the same when the league makes the shift for the 2027-28 season, there will still be impacts, especially in markets with colder climates.
The snow would have been no issue for the playing surface in Columbus because ScottsMiracle-Gro Field has heating under the grass. The newer cold climate MLS stadiums, such as Allianz Field, all do, as will future stadiums, like the Chicago Fire’s.
It’s a bigger issue away from the field, says Columbus Crew VP/Operations Scot Obergefell, whether for fans in the stands — we’ll likely see more climate-controlled spaces and heated seats — or basic venue operations. This includes insulating water fountains and beer lines so they don’t freeze and winterizing walkways and staircases.
“From a stadium standpoint,” said Sports Illustrated Stadium VP/Operations Shaun Oliver, “our biggest priority will be guest experience.”
Older cold weather venues, like Sports Illustrated Stadium in northern New Jersey, have sub-air systems under the field to help pull rainwater out of the playing surface, and these have been common for more than a decade. But in some venues, those systems will likely have to be replaced with mechanisms that can handle the glycol needed to produce warm air.
Training will also be an issue for most MLS clubs, even further south.
Real Salt Lake’s 42-acre Zions Bank Training Center includes two full-sized indoor fields and is one of MLS’ few pure indoor training facilities. There are some shared ones in Minnesota (the National Sports Training Center) and Charlotte (the under-construction Panthers facility), and for some clubs, it may be sufficient to rent indoor training space from other sports organizations. We may also see clubs inflating indoor training bubbles or installing heating beneath training pitches in the coming years. Red Bulls’ under-construction training facility includes four heated outdoor fields.
Seasonal change
Open summer months will create a clear-cut concert opportunity for most MLS venues, especially those that don’t have NWSL co-tenants. A spate of concerts or festivals could be held in June, with the grass playing surface replaced just once, at the end of the concert season.
But growing and maintaining grass will be a bigger ongoing challenge, for two main reasons. First, the season will now kick off in August; any person with a nice yard knows that’s not grass-growing season.
Second, any venues that are home to another soccer team — i.e., an NWSL club — will essentially have their offseason playing surface recovery period erased. That’ll put more stress on natural grass surfaces throughout the league, especially at shared natural grass venues in colder parts of the country like Salt Lake City, D.C., and Harrison, N.J.
One certainty: The schedule shift presents a real opportunity for Columbus’ new stadium naming rights partner to truly earn its keep.
