For all the talk of lessons learned from the first season of nearly uniform kickoff times and over-indexing on Saturday evening matches, the Seattle Sounders’ 2024 schedule looks an awful lot like its immediate predecessor. The regular season kicks off on Feb. 24 at LAFC – a rare road opener to allow for the installation of new FieldTurf – and will conclude on Oct. 19 at home against the Portland Timbers with MLS Cup scheduled for Dec. 7.
The Sounders will play just three of their 34 regular-season matches on Sundays and all but four of their 17 home matches will kick off at 7:30 PM, one of which is the Decision Day match that is scheduled to start at 6 PM.
Also like previous seasons – albeit more expected – is that all but six matches will be played against Western Conference opponents with the last match against an Eastern Conference team coming on July 6 against the New England Revolution. The other Eastern Conference opponents they’ll play are at Philadelphia Union (March 9), vs. FC Montreal (April 6), at D.C. United (April 27), at Columbus Crew (June 1) and vs. Chicago Fire (June 29).
The Sounders will avoid playing on some of the FIFA dates, but aren’t entirely spared. They will play at the San Jose Earthquakes on March 23, as well as the June 8 match against Sporting KC and then have five matches scheduled during the UEFA championship, four of which are also impacted by Copa America. Virtually all teams will be similarly impacted by those summer tournaments, though. Contrary to previous fears, the Sounders also don’t have any matches scheduled on U.S. Open Cup dates.
Almost immediately after those international tournaments are over, the league will then take a break for Leagues Cup that runs July 26-Aug. 25. The Sounders will have already played 25 matches at that point, one more than they had played heading into Leagues Cup last year.
To make that happen, they’ll play six league matches in May, six matches in June and four matches during the first three weeks of July. Of those 16 matches, seven will be played on four days’ of rest or less.
There are two particularly brutal batches of matches during that stretch. The first has them playing at Portland on May 12, at Real Salt Lake on May 15 and then home against the Vancouver Whitecaps on May 18, the day that they’ll mark the 50th anniversary of their first-ever match. After getting the following Wednesday off, they’ll jump right back into it with another tough stretch that starts with a road match against St. Louis on May 25, a home match against RSL on May 29 and a road game against defending MLS Cup champs Columbus Crew on June 1.
The Sounders' big 50th Anniversary celebration match will take place on June 15 against Minnesota United. In a change from previous years, the Fan Appreciation match will be on Sept. 28 vs. the Houston Dynamo, as opposed to the final home game of the year.
Note: Schedule most be viewed in 'day' mode
