2024 Major League Soccer season

The 2024 Major League Soccer season is the ongoing 29th season of Major League Soccer (MLS), the top professional soccer league in the United States and Canada, and the 46th season overall of a national first-division league in the United States.

The league's 29 teams are divided into the Eastern and Western conferences. This is the first season since the 2016 season to have no new expansion teams joining MLS; San Diego FC is scheduled to join the league in 2025. FC Cincinnati are the reigning Supporters' Shield holders; the Columbus Crew are the reigning MLS Cup champions.

Pre-season matches ran from January 19 through February 17. The regular season began on February 21 and is scheduled to end on October 19, with a pause from late July to late August for the 2024 Leagues Cup, which comprises all MLS and Liga MX teams. The 2024 MLS Cup Playoffs are scheduled to begin in October and conclude with MLS Cup 2024 on December 7. MLS will only send 8 senior squads to the 2024 U.S. Open Cup as part of a compromise with the USSF that allows most teams to be represented by MLS Next Pro teams.

This is the second season that Apple and MLS will be part of a ten-year partnership for the broadcast and streaming rights to all MLS and Leagues Cup games, as well as select MLS Next and MLS Next Pro games, on the MLS Season Pass service within the Apple TV app.

Personnel and sponsorships
Note: All teams use Adidas as universal kit manufacturer. As part of Apple's broadcast contract, all MLS kits will include Apple TV+ as a sleeve sponsor.

Format
The regular season consists of 34 matches for each team, split evenly between home and away games. The opening match was played on February 21, the earliest in league history; the regular season will end with Decision Day on October 19, which will comprise simultaneous intra-conference matches. Matches will be paused from July 25 to August 23 for the 2024 Leagues Cup, a knockout tournament that includes teams from MLS and Liga MX. The league did not pause matches for the 2024 Copa América, which was played in the United States from June to July. Most regular season matches will be played on Saturdays and Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m. local time.

The 29 teams are divided into two conferences: the Eastern and Western. The 15 teams in the East will play a round-robin format with intra-conference teams and six matches against six opponents from the West. The 14 teams in the West will play a round-robin with intra-conference teams, an additional one or two intra-conference matches, and six to seven matches against opponents from the East. The top nine teams in each conference will advance to the 2024 MLS Cup Playoffs, which begin with a wild card round for the eighth and ninth placed teams and is followed by a best-of-three series that was introduced in 2023. The remaining matches are single-elimination and culminate with the MLS Cup final on December 7.

Several new rules were scheduled to be introduced for the 2024 season following trials in MLS Next Pro, including in-stadium announcements of video assistant referee decisions, a time limit for substitutions, and mandatory off-field checks for injured players. These initiatives were postponed by MLS due to an ongoing labor dispute with the Professional Soccer Referees Association, who organized a lockout of their referees. Replacement referees from outside the union, including former officials and those from lower level leagues other than USL, were called in to officiate MLS matches. The referees' union and MLS reached an agreement in time for the regular referees to return to the field for Matchday 7, on March 30.

The 2024 MLS All-Star Game will be played between the MLS All-Stars and the Liga MX All-Stars on July 24.

Overall table
The leading team in this table will win the Supporters' Shield.

2025 FIFA Club World Cup
The United States will be the host country for the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup. MLS clubs can qualify as a host nation club; however, the criteria for selection has not been announced. MLS clubs have also been able to qualify through the 2021–2024 editions of the CONCACAF Champions Cup/CONCACAF Champions League.

Seattle Sounders FC have qualified as the 2022 CONCACAF Champions League winners.

Highest attendances
Regular season

Player statistics
Source:

Hat-tricks
(H) – Home team (A) – Away team
 * Notes

Team/Player of the Matchday

 * Bold denotes the Player of the Matchday.