A Union playoff game on Black Friday? It’s possible. Here are the scenarios.
Their home contest in the best-of-three series is expected to be either Friday, Nov. 27 or Saturday, Nov. 28. That might annoy fans with Thanksgiving travel plans, but there isn't much room to move.
If you’re a Union fan with plans for Thanksgiving weekend, you have some things to think about.
The No. 6-seed Union’s first-round home playoff game in the best-of-three series against No. 3 New England will be either Friday, Nov. 27 or Saturday, Nov. 28, according to the league’s current calendar.
Here’s our Q&A about what to know.
MLS’s playoff schedule format this season
The postseason starts Thursday, Nov. 19, with the Wild Card games between the No. 8 and 9 seeds in each conference.
The first round starts the next day. The league has not yet set the exact schedule of games.
MLS has said things are subject to change, but there isn’t much wiggle room. The series openers are set from Friday, Nov. 20 to Tuesday, Nov. 24; and any potential Game 3 matchups will be played Tuesday, Dec. 1 or Wednesday, Dec. 2. The round after that, the conference semifinals, is set for Saturday, Dec. 5 and Sunday, Dec. 6.
The conference finals are Dec. 11 and 12, with the MLS Cup final on Dec. 18, the latest it has ever been held. And if that isn’t enough of a risk of cold weather, it’s a Friday night kickoff, in part so FOX can televise it on its big broadcast network.
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Why are the Union playing on Thanksgiving weekend?
Because of how this year’s MLS calendar set up.
The long break for this summer’s World Cup was understandable, but it pushed lots of things later in the year than usual. One, being a pileup of games at the end of the regular season.
It also affected how MLS deals with the upcoming final FIFA match dates for national team games, from Nov. 9-17. In recent years, that landed in the middle of the playoffs. This year, MLS ended the regular season right before the window, and will start the postseason the day after the window ends.
The league rightly does not play during the window because of how many of its players are gone with their national teams during it. That will happen again this year, with games including the Concacaf Nations League quarterfinals. The Union’s Cavan Sullivan and Neil Pierre are on the U.S. squad that faces Danley Jean Jacques’ Haiti.
The good news is this is the last season this will happen. When MLS flips its calendar to a fall-to-spring format next year, the playoffs will move to May. That will take care of the weather, and all the traffic jams.
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Have the Union played on Thanksgiving weekend before?
Yes, once. The 2021 Eastern Conference semifinal win over Nashville was on a Sunday night.
But while they made the MLS Cup final in 2022, they did not play on Thanksgiving weekend that year because the whole postseason was moved many weeks earlier to accommodate the World Cup. The championship game was played on Nov. 5.
In all the other years the Union have made the playoffs, they’ve been eliminated before Thanksgiving.
MLS has regularly had playoff games on Thanksgiving weekend over the years. Before the Apple TV deal started, it was common to see a Sunday game on ABC.
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There was even a Thanksgiving Day game on Fox in 2021, aired in the 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time window after the network had the early NFL game. While the viewers were fewer than the late NFL game at the same time, it still drew 1.89 million viewers — a big number by MLS standards.
Apple started putting games on Saturday nights once its deal began in 2023, and it has done so every year since then. But this will be the first time there are games on Black Friday.
