Larry Berg faces ambitious agenda as MLS commissioner-elect succeeds Don Garber

As Larry Berg fielded his first wave of questions as MLS commissioner-elect, he tried to make clear his ambitious vision to take the league to another level. Until a question about the league’s broadcasting plans came up, that is. To his right sat Don Garber, whose 28-year tenure in the role will conclude at year’s end.

“Well, as the incoming commissioner, I’m allowed to kick it to the current commissioner to answer that question,” Berg said with a laugh as he briefly reclined in his chair at the league’s headquarters in Manhattan. “Only for a few months,” Garber said.

To follow MLS is to following a sprawling soccer league as well as a self-proclaimed “challenger brand”. Every action is contextualized by MLS’s ongoing search for greater relevance and respect. On 1 January, that project will be Berg’s to helm – and there are plenty of items on his to-do list.

Chart a broadcast future

Berg will eventually be looked to for answers about what MLS will do when its current pact with Apple concludes after the 2028-29 season.

From the beginning, MLS’s streaming deal with Apple looked like a gamble, netting an initial $250m per year to partner with one of the most trusted innovators in any arena, albeit one that had limited experience broadcasting sports and whose adoption was (and remains) not nearly as widespread as more traditional networks. Now in their fourth year together, the platform’s offering of ancillary content beyond matches and occasional pregame shows has nearly run dry altogether. Multiple sources throughout the landscape have acknowledged the decrease in cameras at MLS matches compared to the first year in 2023.

Evidence of how the audience is responding to their partnership is scarce. In July 2025, Garber said MLS broadcasts were “averaging 120,000 unique viewers per” game, a rare bit of hard data in an era where streamers obscure specifics of their viewership. While MLS will never command comparable interest to a World Cup, the fact the 2026 installment set multiple records for soccer viewership is a reminder that there are plenty more eyeballs to be won.

It’s impossible to underemphasize the importance of media rights deals. They represent a significant chunk of any sports league’s revenue stream, which is shared among the teams. A wimpy broadcast deal can complicate the path ahead for even the greatest of leagues: Ligue 1 has learned that the hard way. MLS can’t afford to take a step back, but is another streaming-only solution its best option?

Clarify how the league will evolve on the pitch

Berg’s candidacy was boosted by his work leading the sporting and competition committee, with Garber affirming he was hand-picked well before showing aspirations to become a commissioner. It’s a powerful board which works to gradually evolve MLS’s roster rules to improve the standard of play. On Tuesday, he wasn’t shy about stating his ambitions.

“Look, we have a lot to do. Obviously, the foundation’s terrific, but I think it all starts with quality on the field,” Berg said. “Everyone wants to take advantage of this rocket fuel from the World Cup, but they have different views of how to do so. … It’s my job to take all these things in and come up with a plan going forward. And sometimes it’s just a question of being a little bit creative.”

The current framework isn’t lacking for creativity, a charitable way to describe much-maligned rules like discovery rights and strict squad designations. Those mechanisms have limited more ambitious teams’ abilities to spend across their entire rosters as they’d wish, while aspiring “selling teams” can only reinvest so much of their transfer windfalls into the next wave of talent.

The league’s upcoming calendar switch will put it on the same player transfer schedule as the world’s other top leagues, so owners have already begun talks about how to evolve the roster rulebook. The main case for “flipping” the calendar was led by sporting cues. Anything short of a radical reinvention in how MLS’s roster construction would make one wonder why the calendar was flipped in the first place.

Keep strides with Liga MX, then Americas, then the world

Late in his availability, Berg alluded to needing to try to get more people aware of the Leagues Cup, the annual summer showcase tournament pitting MLS teams against foes from Liga MX. Its broadening into a proper competition coincided with MLS’s deal with Apple, and four years have done little to make it a must-watch.

If there’s still a benefit for MLS to take from the Leagues Cup, still largely being played on a lopsided field with most games in MLS venues, it’s to test its mettle against Liga MX’s best. An MLS team has reached the final of the region’s top competition, the Concacaf Champions Cup, every year since 2022, bucking a longtime trend of outright Mexican dominance. Still, the balance of squads usually leaves MLS’s best at a disadvantage compared to giants like Monterrey, Club América, Chivas and others.

This all scales beyond North America, too, as Conmebol president Alejandro Domínguez has left the door ajar for future Libertadores participation from MLS and Liga MX sides. But with MLS’s restrictions to squad-building, it’s difficult to see even one of their best sides contending with the likes of River Plate, Palmeiras, or Flamengo.

And then there’s the scaling effect beyond the Americas. Inter Miami grabbed the kind of attention and respect that MLS yearns to make regular with a win over Porto: MLS’s first competitive triumph over a European opponent. But it wasn’t all good; Berg’s LAFC struggled at the Club World Cup, having been the final team into the field by way of a late play-in game.

Even just regularly making the Club World Cup ought to be a priority given the ludicrous prize pool on offer simply for showing up. But in order to get there, Berg and the MLS front office need to find ways for teams to raise their quality enough to make regional titles more attainable.

Increase clubs relevant in their markets

It was no small feat for Berg and his now-former ownership peers to make a second team stick in Los Angeles, especially in the immediate aftermath of Chivas USA.

The owners also deserve some measure of commendation for fostering a rapport with their supporters, collectively called the 3252, who create singular and engaging matchday atmospheres. LAFC found a stadium site in the city proper, built a great facility there, and has become an established part of the city’s sports landscape. Their support feels authentic to the region and the scenes in the supporters bank are often used by MLS in advertisements.

The league needs more teams to enjoy such a strong overall picture. For the successes of LAFC, there are also longtime struggles to become prominent in major markets like Colorado, Houston, New England, and Dallas – legacy MLS clubs who have improved along with the league in some ways but not in others. Fixing these issues was a priority under Garber as well, but the work here is far from over.

The next CBA

All of these factors will be considered during the most immediate of these headline items: looming labor negotiations. MLS and the MLS Players Association renegotiated their previous terms in 2021 in light of the Covid-19 pandemic, extending the deal to the end of 2027. That endpoint is approaching with haste, and how Berg handles his first bargaining process taking cues from all 30 ownership groups, rather than being one of 30 voices weighing in, will set a tone between the entities that will have ramifications throughout the rest of his tenure.

MLS has evolved a lot since that re-worked deal was ratified in 2021. There are the aforementioned changes: the calendar flip, the Leagues Cup, and now a new commissioner. The league has also changed its playoff format to include a best-of-three first round and a wild card round (though berg hinted this would change in his press conference), launched developmental MLS Next Pro to link MLS academies to their first teams, and seen another four teams debut.

Much of the mid-2020s will be remembered in the background of Lionel Messi’s stateside exploits, but the 39-year-old won’t be touring MLS venues forever. These talks will clarify and codify the priorities and framework for the league’s next chapter – one stewarded, officially, by Berg. There is no indication that a work stoppage of any type is coming, but a long, drawn-out CBA fight could bring one about, and that would be a disastrous scenario for the league’s overall momentum.