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The announcement that Major League Soccer (MLS) is to switch from a summer season to a winter one has reignited the debate about the National Women’s Soccer League’s (NWSL) 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 instead of the NWSL falling in line with Europe, we took a step back from tradition and the legacy of the men’s game and reconsidered how women’s football fits in the football ecosystem as a whole?
Broadcast slots and commercial deals in an oversaturated marketplace and the intransigence of the cut-throat and lucrative men’s game to make space for women’s football are common topics around its growth and development.
Perhaps the answer is bold but simple: switch women’s football globally to a summer season.
When Women’s Professional Leagues Ltd (WPLL) took charge of the running of the top two divisions in England, taking over from the Football Association, there was a big push for the provision of a clear and quality broadcast slot for women’s football. There was a feeling that men’s football had a duty of care to promote the growth of a game that has had to prove its worth despite decades of ingrained misogyny, suffering through a 50-year ban and chronic underfunding.
Despite murmurings of broad support for the growth of the women’s game, time and time again WPLL has come up against a brick wall. The unwillingness to give women’s football a prime broadcast slot, or free it from the Saturday 3pm blackout, has meant coverage has been forced into the slots the men’s game doesn’t want. That hampers the WPLL’s drive for better broadcast deals, commercial growth, audiences and attendances.
And while the men’s game will always be prioritised, regardless of “one club” mottoes, maybe it is time to look elsewhere.
The benefits of switching to a summer calendar would be huge but it would require changes to the scheduling of major tournaments and transfer windows.
Primarily, it would free the women’s game from the scheduling nightmare in countries with dominant men’s leagues. For much of the season there would be far more broadcast slots available. The women’s game could work out what is best for its audience. Commercial partners would enjoy increased visibility via better broadcasting options in a less saturated calendar. There would be fewer scheduling clashes for clubs that ground-share with men’s teams. The chaos caused by frozen and waterlogged pitches in already congested calendars would be far less of an issue.
This would not be a new move for women’s football in England. The WSL operated across the summer for six seasons from its inaugural year in 2011. The summer schedule was hugely popular for the simplest of reasons: watching football in the sun is a more pleasurable experience.
There would, of course, still be complications. High temperatures between March and November would present challenges, in the same way the low temperatures some countries hit over the winter does. The NWSL is not the only league playing across the summer in part for this reason, with Sweden’s Damallsvenskan, Norway’s Toppserien, and Iceland’s Besta deild kvenna all having adopted summer schedules to navigate around winter. However, earlier or later kick-off times and a two-week summer break could help alleviate extreme weather conditions. There would be stadium access issues, with time to re-lay pitches essential. Many clubs hold off-season concerts and other events.
To achieve such a dramatic change, the calendar would need to be ripped up and redrawn. Without European calendar traditions adopted from the men’s game, there would be the opportunity to experiment and come together to build a unique and holistic calendar that benefits players, fans and the growth of the game. Achieving something like this would need to involve huge buy-in around the world, with Fifa, continental confederations, leagues and clubs all needing to be aligned.
Ambitious, yes, but radical change has always driven women’s football forward.
