{"id":339800,"date":"2025-12-12T05:52:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T05:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/339800\/"},"modified":"2025-12-12T05:52:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T05:52:08","slug":"ncaa-soccer-reform-plans-may-benefit-from-mls-schedule-shift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/339800\/","title":{"rendered":"NCAA Soccer Reform Plans May Benefit From MLS Schedule Shift"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAs the final four teams vie for the NCAA<\/a> men\u2019s soccer College Cup in North Carolina this weekend, work continues on plans to overhaul the college game. And those reform efforts may have received a boost from a radical change at the pro level: MLS<\/a>\u2019 recent decision to change its calendar.<\/p>\n

\n\tLike MLS, the NCAA holds its soccer playoffs during the late autumn, in the long, eclipsing shadow of the NFL and college football. It\u2019s one of several issues bedeviling the college game, particularly on the men\u2019s side, as it struggles for relevance<\/a> amid the collapse of amateurism and changes in the American soccer development system.<\/p>\n

\n\tMLS announced last month it will move its playoffs<\/a> to the spring, part of a calendar switch to a July-to-May season. That change, set for the 2027-28 season, puts the U.S. pro league more in line with the rest of the world and its playoffs safely outside the American football footprint.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt also dovetails with reforms proposed by U.S. Soccer\u2019s NextGen College Soccer Committee. In a white paper<\/a> released in October, the committee recommends moving the men\u2019s game, and perhaps the women\u2019s, from the current fall-only schedule to one that covers the entire scholastic year and culminates in an April playoff festival.<\/p>\n

\n\tIf the committee\u2019s schedule plan earns NCAA approval, having the MLS move in sync will create complementary growth and marketing opportunities for college soccer and the sport as a whole, NextGen committee chair Dan Helfrich said in an interview.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIf the two calendars are in alignment, the late spring becomes a chance for a celebration of soccer in the U.S.,\u201d said Helfrich, a former Deloitte executive who will assume the role of chief operating officer at U.S. Soccer in January. \u201cAnd if the right people get together, which I think they will, and align planning and marketing and broadcasting and those types of things, you can have a ton of synergy with high-stakes, postseason soccer in the springtime.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s also a chance for teams in the College Cup playoffs to gain recognition, which is often in short supply\u2014even when there\u2019s plenty of drama. \u201cThis year will be a good final four, with an unexpected champion, which makes for good storytelling,\u201d Helfrich said.<\/p>\n

\n\tIndeed, a crazy tournament thus far led to a bushel of upsets. Washington beat favored Stanford in the quarterfinals, while NC State upset Maryland to garner a place in the semis close to home; the final two rounds will be Friday and Monday in Cary, N.C. The other two semifinalists, the Saint Louis Billikens and Furman Paladins, have lower budgets but strong soccer traditions\u2014as well as mascots that send people scrambling for their dictionaries.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\n\tThe best story in the group belongs to Furman. The small private school in Greenville, S.C., helped launch the career of three former U.S. men\u2019s World Cup team players\u2014Walker Zimmerman, Ricardo Clark and the legendary Clint Dempsey. But their coach, Doug Allison, has never made a final four. He\u2019s there now, in his 31st and final year at the helm, seeking a career-capping title.<\/p>\n

\n\tStories such as Allison\u2019s, and the buzz and loyalty they can generate among rabid college fan bases, are part of the reason Helfrich is optimistic about the success of a spring calendar switch, where college soccer, and the sport in general, can grab the stage.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIf you lay all of the college calendars on top of one another, you see this really interesting window between the end of March Madness and the start of the spring postseason for lacrosse, softball and baseball in that second half of April, early May timeframe,\u201d he said. \u201cWe feel very confident that we can activate the college athletics fan in a way that galvanizes and grows soccer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHelfrich said it\u2019s \u201cpremature\u201d to speculate on what an MLS and college postseason tie-in might look like. But, he said, \u201cthe concept of creating extended moments of U.S. soccer fan engagement with major events that are linked together will benefit all.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMLS agrees, while echoing that there\u2019s a long way to go. \u201cWe appreciate the work being done to grow the game and evolve college soccer,\u201d Ali Curtis, the president of MLS Next Pro and EVP of MLS Sporting Development said in a statement. \u201cThe discussions have been led by U.S. Soccer, but we have been involved in conversations. \u2026 \u00a0It\u2019s still early in the process, but MLS is open to conversations that benefit fans, student-athletes and the game as a whole.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCurtis, who serves on the NextGen committee, emphasized MLS\u2019 existing connections to college soccer, with a number of MLS and Next Pro players emerging from the college ranks. He noted that MLS Next, the league\u2019s youth-development arm, \u201cis the No. 1 source of talent\u201d for top NCAA D-I programs.<\/p>\n

\n\tRight now, Helfrich said, the NextGen group\u2019s \u201ccore focus\u201d is discussions with the NCAA\u2019s men\u2019s and women\u2019s college soccer sport oversight committees.<\/p>\n

\n\tWithout their buy-in, the reform proposals won\u2019t go anywhere. One of the NCAA\u2019s main concerns has been how the women\u2019s programs, which remain a major talent feeder to U.S. national teams and professional leagues, will be affected by any shake-up, including to the calendar. The NWSL season opens in the spring and concludes with playoffs in the fall.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe recommended calendar switch in the men\u2019s college game provides advantages beyond a potentially higher-profile postseason. The season\u2019s end would coincide with the global summer transfer window, enabling top college players to join MLS or most European teams in their offseason. \u201cThis would potentially sync naturally with MLS, but college soccer needs to be configured in a way that it can be a source of talent for leagues that operate on a variety of calendars,\u201d Helfrich said, referencing the USL and Mexico\u2019s Liga MX.<\/p>\n

\n\tTo be sure, players still develop into pros from the current system, and the College Cup has its hardcore supporters, likely bolstered this year in Cary by the presence of NC State and Furman fans.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut Helfrich believes the college game can offer more. \u201cThere is a segment of fans who are college sports fans first\u2014above their support for an individual sport,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n\tThey\u2019re fans of their schools\u2014NC State Wolfpack hoops fans, for example, who want to see their other programs win a national title. He thinks that for soccer, it\u2019s a market worth developing. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThose fans get excited about high-profile college sports events that have high visibility and are marketed broadly,\u201d Helfrich said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the final four teams vie for the NCAA men\u2019s soccer College Cup in North Carolina this weekend,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339801,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,573,525,561,82,148829],"class_list":{"0":"post-339800","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-mls","11":"tag-ncaa","12":"tag-soccer","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-us-soccer"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339800\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}