NWSL Tables Vote to Flip Calendar After Player Opposition

The NWSL has dropped its push to flip the league’s calendar—for now. 

The board of governors is no longer expected to hold a controversial vote about flipping the calendar at its meetings this week.

The news was first reported by CBS Sports.

The NWSL season runs from the spring to the fall, while many international leagues, especially those in Europe, run from the fall through the spring. 

ESPN reported earlier this month that the NWSL planned to vote on the topic at meetings in Portland this week. The National Women’s Soccer League Players Association had said that a majority of players don’t support a calendar flip, and that clubs across the league are not all equipped to handle winter play at their facilities and venues.

“The NWSL has been actively evaluating its competition calendar, including the potential to align more closely with the international soccer landscape,” an NWSL spokesperson said in a statement. “No decision has been made at this time. Any change of this magnitude will be thoughtfully considered and we are taking input from all key stakeholders.”

The summer schedule makes it more challenging for players to move between the United States and the prestigious European leagues. For example, U.S. Women’s National Team captain Lindsey Heaps will not join her home state Denver Summit FC until June, after the season ends for her French club OL Lyonnes, and she will play about a full consecutive year of soccer before getting a true offseason.

After weighing a similar move for years, MLS voted late last year to flip to a fall-to-spring season starting in 2027. “If we want to be a major player on the global stage, we’ve got to play the same game the rest of the world’s playing, even if it’s a little harder for us,” MLS commissioner Don Garber said last month.

Gotham FC player Midge Purce told Front Office Sports on an upcoming episode of Portfolio Players that she’s “very against” a calendar flip, and that NWSL does not have facilities that support playing in cold weather like MLS does.

“We don’t have our own fields,” Purce said. “We’re borrowing time on MLS fields. We’re not prioritized on our fields. We don’t have the same groundskeeping. We don’t have the same budgets and support for it. So it’s a completely different world.” (Purce spoke to FOS before the league dropped its push to flip the calendar.)

Purce said she’s “not soft” about playing in the cold, but to her, it’s a question of the infrastructure to support a calendar flip, and she finds it “really frustrating that the players aren’t being considered” more in these discussions.

“I’m trying really hard to hold my tongue about specific stories where we haven’t been supported really well and how it becomes an actual detriment for player health and safety,” Purce said.

While the NWSL is holding off for now, the calendar discussion has been ongoing for years. ESPN reported that in late 2024 the board “narrowly voted against” changing the calendar.