Last month, I made the case for the WNBA to play in the winter. That article seems even more poignant now that the WNBA has reportedly proposed beginning the season earlier, which would overlap with just about every international league as well as the NCAA Tournament. My very first point in that article was that the best way for the league to add more games is to play from October to May, like the rest of the basketball world.

In that article, I mentioned that I thought the NWSL needed to adopt a similar schedule.  While the two leagues have quite a bit in common, there are a lot of important differences that also point towards the need for NWSL to play in the winter.

One of the biggest differences between the WNBA and the NWSL is that the NWSL has competition for the best players in the world. That was one of the reasons I thought the WNBA should move: now that salaries are set to increase so rapidly, the WNBA doesn’t have to worry about losing players to leagues in Europe or Asia. They can afford to play the same schedule as everyone else because nearly all the best players will want to play for more money in the U.S.

The NWSL will never have all of the best women’s soccer players because the Women’s Super League exists. In this case, however, I think one of the reasons the NWSL is losing players, particularly stars, to the WSL, is the schedule. Outside of international competitions, professional soccer is not played between June and August in most of the world. I think the NWSL might be able to keep more players here if they could offer the same schedule, rather than the schedule they have now, with all of the issues it presents.

Lining up the calendar with other global leagues would also make it easier to bring players in during international transfer windows. Rather than signing new players after their season ends, which is currently in the middle of the NWSL schedule, you could give new signings some time off before they would join your league, which would have a familiar schedule for the players and fans and would not conflict with international competitions.

Speaking of international competitions, taking a month off in the middle of the season so that the best players can compete in Euros or the Olympics or Copa America Femenina is less than ideal. There is plenty of time for fans to forget about your league and move onto something else when they are going two months between home games. I think it also hurts the teams to have to deal with so many players in and out of lineups and dealing with injuries that may have occurred while the season was paused. Any soccer league is going to have to contend with international breaks, but taking one week off so players can compete in World Cup Qualifiers or Frendlies is entirely different than taking a month off right in the middle of the season.

The only good thing about the international break in July is that it is the hottest time of year in the United States. Of course, as we saw this season, the entire can get hot, and it was an issue that hung over the NWSL for some time. The commissioner reportedly threatened the Kansas City Current ownership with a fine over a heat delay that took a prominent game outside of their national broadcast window. That the owners were following the league’s own player safety policy is neither here nor there. Unsafe temperatures were a concern at stadiums around the country, and so long as the league plays in the summer, it is hard to see that changing. That is especially true of games scheduled during the day. You can of course have games delayed or postponed in the winter due to snow or cold, but overall I think cold temperatures are much safer for players and spectators than hot temperatures.

As the Kansas City Current incident illustrates, the NWSL, like most sports leagues, is primarily a television show. Playing in the winter may hurt attendance in certain cities, but it won’t hurt the television product, and in fact may improve it. I believe any hit in attendance would be offset by increased television ratings. Not only would the league move away from the summer months when fewer people are watching TV in general, but it would also get the end of the regular season and the playoffs out of football season.

In our defense of a fall-to-spring WNBA calendar, we pointed out that one reason the WNBA began playing in the summer was to avoid the NBA calendar, and that I no longer believe that is necessary. I don’t think the NWSL should change its schedule to match MLS’s change, but I don’t think it would hurt. I think the two leagues have done a reasonably good job at cross-promotion, especially in cities that host both leagues. I can personally say that at the only Chicago Fire game I’ve ever gone to, I wound up buying Chicago Stars tickets. When they held a doubleheader at Soldier Field in June, it benefited both teams. Those leagues could continue to work together even if the schedules don’t line up, but I do think it is fair to say that most of the reasons why the MLS chose to make that change also would apply to the NWSL.

In some ways, this change would be more difficult for the NWSL than my proposed change for the WNBA. Basketball is an indoor sport and at the highest level of the men’s game in this country, it is played Fall-to-Spring. Soccer has had a hard enough time making inroads in the United States without trying to get fans to watch outside in the cold.

That being said, I think this move will happen first in the NWSL. The MLS move has paved the way, and it also helps that the league appears to have a better relationship with its players than the WNBA. The fact that the WNBA proposed to lengthen the season but not flip the schedule seems like an indication that a change isn’t really on their radar. But with the MLS changing its schedule, I am optimistic the NWSL could do the same before long.