Photo: Marjorie Elzey

Last Thursday MLS NEXT Pro — the new MLS reserve league — released its schedule for the 2022 season.

In addition to the games, the announcement included details of match availability on video, as well as team names, stadiums, conferences, divisions, and some of the postseason’s playoff structure.

Schedule basics: regular season and playoffs

Twenty-four games per club will be played across 26 weeks, opening Friday, March 25 and ending Sunday, September 18. The 21 teams divide into two conferences, ten in the East and eleven in the West. Each conference subdivides into two divisions.

Philadelphia Union II is in the Northeast division of the Eastern Conference. Union II will play the other nine Eastern teams home and away, and will additionally play a third game against six Eastern opponents. Three of those additional games will be home and three will be away. Union II plays no games outside the East.

After the regular season there will be an eight-team playoff. Each of the four division winners will qualify along with the two teams from each conference that have the next most points. Other necessary playoff details are not yet mentioned. 

Video availability

The MLS Next Pro announcement said, “Fans can watch every game of the MLS NEXT Pro inaugural season via live stream on mlsnextpro.com.”

“In addition, more than 30 games will be billed as “Games of the Week,” featuring enhanced productions. Each MLS NEXT Pro club will have at least one home game featured, and all playoff games will be enhanced productions.”

That the announcement overtly discriminates between regularly streamed matches and enhanced productions implies that production values for those not enhanced may be quite basic, perhaps only a single camera video stream and an open microphone.

For example, the Academy streams available on the Union’s website are basic: no commentary, no lineups, no graphics, an open mike, and one camera.

Union II tickets

In conjunction with the league announcement, the Union emailed the following general ticket information.

“General Admission tickets can be purchased at Subaru Park for $12 per ticket. Union Season Ticket Members will receive three free Union II games for the 2022 season, and can purchase additional tickets at $7 each. On-Sale information will be released in the near future.”

Interested readers may have noticed that, currently, some organization website links to Union II information do not yet function. An entire new electronic infrastructure is being created, by both the league itself and each of its member clubs.

Union II breakdown

Since the league is brand new, it is less possible than usual to estimate which matches will present Union II with the greatest challenges. Rochester has been on hiatus for four years, and four other Eastern teams have never before existed, Chicago, Cincinnati, Columbus and New York City FC.  Philadelphia itself and Orlando played improvised independent schedules in 2021 against opponents of varied quality.

Eastern teams are only beginning to announce roster signings here and there. None have been announced by Union II, even though the squad was in Florida in Clearwater at the same time as the first team. An earlier version of the Union II’s roster disappeared from sight in January and its replacement has not yet appeared

Fifteen of Union II’s 24 games are on Sunday. Six more are on Saturday. Two are on Friday and one is on Thursday.

All matches start at the top of the hour post meridian. Eleven start at 7. Five tap off at 6. Two begin at 2. The other five start at 1, 3, 4, 5, and 8.

Twenty-four games in 26 weeks means little-to-no forced squad rotation. Eighteen are played on either the sixth, seventh, or eighth subsequent day. Four have longer rest intervals, one of ten days, one of 11, and two of 14. Only two intervals are shorter than six days of rest. One has five, while the shortest interval requires play on the fourth day.

Union II plays a third game against these six teams:

The table applies past Philadelphia Union travel policies to the other teams involved, an unverifiable but probable assumption.

There are no long road trips or homestands. Union II play no more than two consecutive home games, which happens three times. They play no more than three consecutive games away, and that happens once. There is also an away sequence of two.

Two schedule innovations

Previous anticipatory reports suggested the new league might try some different scheduling strategies to both save money and improve player development.

Union II’s 2022 schedule demonstrates both a cost-saving idea and a player development one.

The cost-savings innovation is to have both the first team and the second team travel together on one plane, either for two games on the same day or on consecutive days, has been mentioned more than once over the last two years. Union II’s 2022 schedule demonstrates six consolidated away-travel opportunities, four for themselves and two for their opponents.

Union II are able to travel to away games using the same plane as the first team four times:

• 27 and 28-May to New England Revolution II and New England Revolution,
• 2 and 3-Jul to Columbus Crew and Columbus Crew 2
• 23 and 24-Jul to Orlando City and Orlando City B
• 6 and 7-Aug to FC Cincinnati and FC Cincinnati 2

Orlando has a reciprocal opportunity to fly both teams to Philadelphia for matches on September 10 and 11, while Columbus has the same opportunity on the April 9 and 10.

New York City FC has a similar travel consolidation opportunity on the June 25 and 26. But they will almost certainly travel by bus not plane, so they won’t save money unless they can exclude an extra bus by combining the two teams.

The player development opportunity occurs five times from mid-May to mid-August when both the Union and Union II play at home with the first team playing Saturday and the second, Sunday, or in one case Monday. These sequences allow first-team bench players who do not actually play the opportunity to do so in the following game.

• On May 14-15, the first team hosts Red Bull on Saturday and the second team hosts Orlando City B on Sunday.
• On June 18-19 right after the international break, the first team has Cincinnati and the second, Chicago Fire II.
• On July 16 and 18, the first team has New England, and the second, Toronto FC II.
• On July 30-31, the first team has Houston, and the second, Crew 2
• And on August 13-14, the first team has Chicago, and the second, Miami II.

Appendix

Union II’s schedule