Major League Soccer Returns for 2023 Season

Soccer is back - in February.  (Doesn't seem a little early for soccer?)

Major League Soccer (MLS) kicks off its' 2023 season this week with 29 teams as St. Louis becomes newest league franchise.

The league is banking on its younger fan base’s familiarity with technology as it moves the bulk of its games to Apple TV+ as part of a 10-year, $2.5 billion broadcast contract.  FOX and FS1 will continue to broadcast weekly games.

The league has also tinkered with the playoff format as nine teams in each conference will qualify for the postseason.  There will be a play-in game between the two lowest seeds in each conference.   The next round will be a three-game series with the first team to five points advancing to the next round.  The rest of the playoffs will be a single game elimination.  Yeah, this might get a little confusing.

The Los Angeles Football Club won last year's MLS cup over the Philadelphia Union and are strong favorites to repeat.  

Atlanta United led the MLS in attendance averaging 47,116 fans per game at Mercedes Benz Stadium.  Last year's expansion team, Inter Miami FC was at the bottom with an average of 12,637 per game.

According to The Guardian, Players to watch in 2023 are:

• Lorenzo Insigne, Toronto FC. He’ll turn 32 during the season, but MLS’s highest-paid player should live up to that $14m salary. Six goals and two assists in only 11 league starts last year after arriving from Napoli in July was a promising debut, and if he leads Toronto into the playoffs his MVP credentials will be hard to ignore – unless he’s outshone by his teammate and fellow Italian, Federico Bernardeschi, who was even more productive after joining from Juventus in the second half of 2022. 
• Riqui Puig, LA Galaxy. In all honesty, Riqui Puig shouldn’t be in MLS. He’s a former Barcelona star who is still only 23 and demonstrated his quality with a series of eye-catching performances after joining the Galaxy last season. Puig’s guile and technical ability is unmatched in MLS, even accounting for the likes of Insigne and Emanuel Reynoso.
• Hany Mukhtar, Nashville SC. No player has ever won back-to-back MLS MVP trophies, while only one has won it more than once: Preki back in 1997 and 2003. But there’s no good reason why the 27-year-old attacking midfielder can’t thrive as the centerpiece of Nashville’s attack once more after last year’s banner campaign, where he scored or assisted on an eye-popping 65% of his team’s 52 goals. 
• Evander, Portland Timbers. While most of the world was distracted by the World Cup in Qatar, the Timbers were busy signing a new Designated Player. The Brazilian is the most expensive transfer in Timbers history, and he looks more than convincing as 2023 MLS MVP. 

For more information on the MLS, go to:  https://www.mlssoccer.com/