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The National Women’s Soccer League is expected to start its 2027 season in February, nearly a month earlier than previous years, sources within the league who have reviewed a tentative calendar told The Athletic. In the draft schedule footprint, preseason begins in early January, with playoffs running through the weekend before Thanksgiving.The shift comes as the league works around one of women’s soccer’s most congested international calendars in recent years.
The 2027 Women’s World Cup is scheduled to take place in Brazil from June 24 to July 25, while multiple FIFA international windows for World Cup qualifying are set between November this year and April.
Based on the draft outline, the next NWSL regular season will begin on Feb. 11, the earliest start in league history, and conclude at the end of October, multiple sources familiar with the matter told The Athletic on the condition of anonymity to protect relationships.
The NWSL declined to comment.
The Challenge Cup, which has recently been a one-off game between the previous year’s NWSL champion and regular-season Shield winner, is expected to return to a preseason format after the 2026 version was held midseason, though one source said the exact timing of the match was still being finalized.
The 2026 NWSL calendar was announced on July 2, 2025. At the time, the Challenge Cup was set to be played on Feb. 21, which would have made it the earliest start of competition for the NWSL in a calendar year. However, the date was later moved to June 26 and used by the league as a way to return from its pause for the early rounds of the men’s World Cup played largely in the United States.
Each of the 16 teams will play 15 regular-season home games. The schedule currently includes four midweek matches, divided between two home and two away per club. The weeklong break mandated by the league’s collective bargaining agreement would begin in early June. The league will then move into an almost two-month pause for the World Cup, with NWSL games resuming on July 30.
Decision Day is scheduled for Oct. 31. Similar to recent seasons, the playoffs will follow, beginning Nov. 5 and concluding with the NWSL Championship game on Nov. 20, leaving a short three-day buffer before the next FIFA window opens.
The league is expected to share the calendar footprint next week.
Even with an earlier start, fitting in a full regular season around international commitments for the 16 teams that will make up the league next season, and minimizing disruption to those clubs, is a balancing act.
The NWSL also has to coordinate with Major League Soccer (MLS), because 10 of its teams will share stadiums with MLS clubs in 2027. The NWSL schedule is unlikely to be confirmed until MLS finalizes its own, according to a source.
Starting the season so early in a year also poses logistical challenges for clubs that may lack the necessary infrastructure to train or play games in their markets during the worst of the winter’s weather, likely adding another factor to the league’s decision-making.
The international calendar leaves little room for flexibility. If the 2027 regular season starts on Feb. 11, there will be 12 days before the next international break, Feb. 23 until March 6, with another one soon after from April 13 to 27.
In April, the league decided not to proceed with a vote to flip the calendar to a fall-to-spring format, which was on the Board of Governors meeting agenda, sources confirmed to The Athletic at that time. Instead, they postponed consideration until after the 2030 season, ahead of a possible Women’s World Cup hosted by the United States, Mexico, Costa Rica and Jamaica the following summer.
Flipping the calendar has been a point of debate within the league for many years but regained steam after MLS decided to get in sync with most European soccer leagues last November during a Board of Governors meeting in Palm Beach, Fla. Many NWSL players opposed flipping the calendar, citing concerns over cold-weather conditions in winter.
The 2027 season will serve as an important test of whether the NWSL can balance regular-season continuity with an increasingly crowded international calendar — a challenge men’s and women’s leagues around the world are facing as FIFA continues to add and expand its tournaments.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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