Perhaps an overdue move for the league, Major League Soccer is moving its finale up a day.
The league announced on Monday that the 2026 MLS Cup will be played in primetime on Friday, December 18, moving off of its typical Saturday afternoon window in hopes of minimizing its competition with college football. In recent years, the MLS Cup has gone head-to-head with college football’s conference championship weekend, airing on Saturday afternoon against the SEC Championship Game. This year, however, the move to Friday might not avoid college football competition entirely.
As a result of MLS pausing its season this summer for the World Cup, the MLS Cup will be contested two weeks later than usual. That pushes the match back to the weekend that is typically set aside for the first round of the College Football Playoff. While the CFP committee has not yet released a schedule for 2026, it’s safe to assume that at least one game will be played on the same Friday that MLS Cup is now scheduled for. In the first two years of the 12-team CFP, one first-round game as been scheduled for Friday night, while three are played on Saturday.
As usual, MLS Cup will air across both Apple TV and Fox in the United States. Last year, Fox counter-programmed the first-round CFP game (Oklahoma-Alabama on ESPN/ABC) with a college basketball game between Villanova and Wisconsin that Friday night. Ever since relinquishing broadcast rights to WWE Smackdown, Fox has been keen on scheduling live sports into that Friday primetime window.
One would imagine placing MLS Cup in that slot rather than college basketball might bear more fruit for the network. There is likely more overlap in college football and college basketball fans than between college football and MLS fans, meaning Fox is targeting an audience that is more distinct from those who will likely be watching the CFP game that night.
For MLS, the league is making the best of an otherwise tough situation. Luckily, this season is the last in which the league will have to compete in the heart of the football calendar. Starting in 2027, MLS is moving to a summer-to-spring calendar that will see its playoffs contested in the spring, when the competition for live sports in the United States is much lighter.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.