The league has allowed just two and a half months to pass between the end of its 2024 season and the start of the 2025 season, which will be the longest in history.
Nine months and 15 days. That’s how long the 2024 MLS season, the longest in American professional sport, lasted. In 2025, history will repeat itself: the season will start on February 22 and will run until the first weekend of December, when the 30th edition of the MLS Cup will be played.
At 290 days, Major League Soccer offers the longest season of the five major ‘American’ leagues. By far. The analysis counts from Opening Day to the date on which a new champion was crowned in 2024. The competition that comes closest is the National Hockey League (NHL), whose previous championship lasted 258 days (October 10 – June 24, the day of Game 7 of the Stanley Cup between the Edmonton Oilers and Florida Panthers). The NBA, which runs almost parallel to the NHL, had 19 fewer matchdays in 2023-24 (237).
The shortest season, however, is, unsurprisingly, the NFL. From September 5, the day of the historic opening in Sao Paulo, to February 9, when the Philadelphia Eagles beat the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX, only 157 days passed.
The count can be extrapolated to 2025, since there will be a variation of two or three days; it is not yet possible to define when the next NBA and NHL finals will end, nor the World Series, but they will occur around the same time frame. In any case, neither will surpass the MLS, which will allow 287 days to pass between the start of the 2025 season until the MLS Cup, whose tentative date will be December 6.
For this reason, MLS is also the one with the shortest hiatus. The Galaxy were crowned champions for the sixth time in 2024 and only 77 days passed before they began defending their title. In the NFL, for example, there is already a gap of 207 days until September 4, when the Eagles will be in charge of opening the new campaign, at Lincoln Financial Field, against an opponent to be named. The NBA also has a very extended inter-season period: from June 17, 2024, when the Celtics confirmed their 4-1 win over the Dallas Mavericks, until October 22, when the regular season is underway, 127 days have passed.
Of course, in between, the teams from the five competitions have multiple tournaments and preseason commitments. The NFL and NBA begin preparing from July-August; the MLB sets up its spring camps at the end of February; the MLS is already scheduling preparation matches, now, from January.
CREDITS:
Director: Alejandro Bernal
Text: Max Hackenbroich
