On Wednesday, Major League Soccer released the fixture list for their 27th season and Chicago Fire FC’s 25th season will begin the earliest it ever had. The season opens Saturday, February 26th against Inter Miami at DRV PNK Stadium in Fort Lauderdale with a 5pm CT kickoff. A week later, the home opener for the silver season will be against Orlando City at Soldier Field with the same kickoff time.
As of now, there will be no more than three successive games either home or away. The three successive away games take place in May while the three successive home games take place in July. The number of midweek games will be greatly reduced for now with just two Wednesday home dates, 12 on Saturday, and three on Sunday. Of course, that is all pending when the Bears schedule their games for 2022.
There is an increase in Western Conference opponents. Last year, there were just two on the schedule (Sporting KC and Real Salt Lake). This season, there will be eight including home dates against FC Dallas (April 2nd), LA Galaxy (April 16th), and Seattle Sounders FC (July 16th). The Fire will also play first-year team Charlotte FC twice this season going to Bank of America Stadium on August 6th and hosting them at Soldier Field on September 17th. The regular season finale will be Sunday, October 9th, against New England with MLS Cup schedule for November 5th some 16 days before the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.
The Fire were not on ESPN or FS1 at all last season, they will be on the former for the match at Minnesota United on April 23rd.
For the MLS schedule as a whole, the last for this current TV contract, there will be a record 48 matches on terrestial networks ABC, FOX, Univision, and UniMas. ESPN+ will stream all regional broadcasts nationally, out-of-market, in the US and any nationally televised matches not aired by an English-language network will again be streamed live in English on Twitter.
Charlotte FC will begin its maiden season on February 26th at DC United before hosting LA Galaxy on March 5th on FOX in prime time. Nashville SC’s maiden match in their new stadium will take place on May 1st against Philadelphia.
