I believe that everyone has a time in their lives where, by choice or by necessity, they have to be a little nomadic. Finding a new school, following a family member, chasing a dream, taking on a new job, or maybe just getting a little bit bored. Sometimes, unfortunately, there is just not enough budget to stay where we have been, and we are forced up out of the home we loved, warts and all.
Welcome to MLS Fantasy in 2026! As you may have gathered, Major League Soccer has not renewed its fantasy platform going forward, and has chosen instead to partner with Kickbase for their official fantasy product. Kickbase started as a German platform, where it is fairly popular, then expanded to La Liga and is starting an MLS offering this year.
There are two other major platforms that are also trying to fill the void this year. The first, which you may have seen Sounder at Heart promote already, is Fantasy UTD, which was in beta last year and launched officially this year. The rules are very different from what you may be used to, but it should be an interesting platform. The second is Sofascore, who launched their fantasy platform very recently. Sofascore has what I'd call a "traditional" fantasy structure and will be the most familiar to MLS Fantasy veterans.
I'll go through each platform in some more detail below. What this means for following along and playing fantasy as a community remains to be seen. I will be doing my best to be active on each platform, and I will adapt my articles to the community based on where people have interest. Please let me know where you are and what kind of analysis is helpful. Some parts will be difficult as certain types of players are valued much more highly on one platform than the others, but we'll figure it out as we go.
Kickbase
The new official MLS platform is known as Kickbase, which is available on iOS and Android devices. Unfortunately there is no web platform at this time. There are three main ways to play MLS Fantasy on Kickbase:
(1) 2026 Season Challenge, which is their official generic challenge that everyone can participate in together.
(2) Rush challenges, which are weekly challenges with special rulesets that earn you "Skill Points" to advance in their "Progression System." The week 1 challenge is picking six players with a $250m budget and only one player per club.
(3) Arena seasonal leagues, where you compete with a group of up to 18 players with your own customized ruleset.
Unfortunately, what you don't see here is anywhere to have an open Sounder at Heart league where everyone can join in one ranking table with the same rules (besides the general Season Challenge that is open to everyone). That is a bummer and does not sound like it will be addressed this year. I plan to organize leagues for people who are interested, primarily through Discord, but feel free to drop a comment or reach out to me on Bluesky if you are interested in joining. You can make 6-player or 11-player leagues; rank on season points or head-to-head; and use big, medium, or small budgets.
As for team building, the default way to play is 11-player teams on a budget of $250m. Messi is currently $62m, Son is $55m, and Yu Tsukanome is $0.5m, so there is a big range. There are no benches, and rosters lock sometime before the first kickoff of the week. That means no last-minute tinkering based on lineup releases, and no opportunity for the switcheroos that were so popular in MLS Fantasy. It also means harsh punishments if you don't predict the lineups accurately, especially in double-game weeks where the weekend games all lock with the midweek kickoff. There's also an interesting twist where players score based on Kickbase's determination of their actual position on the field, so if a defender is actually being used as a winger (like Ali Ahmed last year), they will score as a winger.
Scoring is based on around 100 different metrics that are much more incremental than other scoring systems. Points for minutes and clean sheets are based on 10-minute increments. Almost anything a player does on the pitch is likely going to factor into their scoring. This deep look into the stats boosts some positions that are overlooked in other games, especially defensive midfielders and goalkeepers. Applying last year's scoring to 2025 MLS, Sebastian Berhalter was the 6th-best per-minute midfielder—ahead of Rusnak in 7th—and Jeppe Tverskov and Cristian Roldan were 10th and 11th. Of course, all the players you expect to be good are still good. Messi had an insane average of 285 points per 90, with Son a distant second at 200 and Muller third at 175. I expect the scoring will feel intuitive as the season goes on.
As for prizes, weekly challenge winners get cash prizes and the year-long challenge winner gets $1,000 (second and third get Kickbase subscriptions).
Unfortunately, I have not discussed the biggest negative of Kickbase yet. There are some quality-of-life features locked behind a paywall, including ad-free live scoring on game days and player profile pictures. To be clear, it is free to play all modes, there are just some features they ask you to pay for. For the MLS season launch they are offering everyone two months free of the premium subscription, but after that it is $30/year for the features with some ads, or $60/year for ad-free. While I personally understand the need to monetize to run a quality platform (after all, Sounder at Heart depends on its generous paying readers), it is disappointing that Kickbase is the official MLS partner and has paywalled some features that were free on the old league platform.
Overall, I am optimistic about Kickbase. I'll be happy to pay if I find it to be a quality platform with fun features and a great community. Thus far, their moderators have reached out in the MLS Fantasy Insider Discord and have their own Discord for people who want to get involved and leave feedback. The Season Challenge they are offering for everyone grew directly out of the early feedback, and they are committed to responding to every piece of feedback they get. I do think this might be a learning year for them, with an even better offering next year, but it should be fun anyway.
As I said above, if you want to join other Sounder at Heart readers in custom leagues either find us in the Fantasy channel on our Discord, leave a comment here, or find me on Bluesky and we'll get you invited.
Sofascore
Sofascore will be the platform for people who just want to stick with what's familiar, and, to a certain extent, with what is popular. I'm not sure how telling it is, but it is remarkable that Kickbase's Seasonal Challenge (which you do have to join) has 454 players as of this writing. Sofascore's global MLS league currently has about 19,000 players (and looked to have about 18,000 when I started writing this article).
Team-building and scoring will look very familiar to anyone who has played MLS Fantasy in the past. You start with a 15-player squad and a $100m budget, then prices will change throughout the year and you get five free weekly transfers to change up your squad. If you need more, there are a few "tokens" you can use to temporarily or permanently make subs, or you can take a 5-point penalty that week for extra changes. Scoring is largely the same as the old MLS Fantasy rules, though a player's Sofascore rating is directly added to their scores and there are a couple of additional bonus point categories.
Sofascore has a transfer period every week where you can make changes. The transfer period ends when the game week starts, but you can move players around in your lineup with some restrictions. If a player has played, you can sub them out for a bench player who has not played if the lineup is still valid, and you can move the captaincy off a player to someone who has not played. As a result, you can still do some live tinkering with your teams by picking risky early players and then sub them out for another shot with players from later games. So, your 15-player squad is locked but you can still tinker! I do not believe players automatically substitute in though, so you will have to be active to fix holes in your lineup.
Sofascore is free, though there are ads in the app and of course on the website. I am not aware of any prizes you might win through the fantasy game.
We do have a Sounder at Heart Open league for everyone who is interested – just follow the link here or use league code Q6ZDL.
Fantasy UTD
The last of the primary options is Fantasy UTD, another app-only platform. They set up a specific Sounder at Heart Fanzone for us, with an official league.
Looks like we have some work to do to move up these charts…
— Sounder at Heart (@sounderatheart.com) 2026-02-10T02:08:41.728Z
The unique twist to Fantasy UTD is that you are building a 25-player roster by bidding on players in open auctions, with the players only used by the fantasy managers who win their auctions. Ahead of the season (or your league's start date), all players are available for bids starting at pre-set base prices. Once that first transfer deadline passes, you can bid on players or buy them outright for a set higher price. Once you win a bid, you have 24 hours to complete the transfer by clearing space on your team and ensuring you have the budget. Once players are on teams, you can bid on a player from another team, and they can choose whether to accept. You can also sell your players by putting them on a transfer market to open bidding or by selling directly to the open market for a set price.
As you can imagine, this requires much more active managing. Buying players on the rise, putting together a strong team, and capitalizing on sales at the right times will be key to building team value and of course scoring points. Actual scoring is similar to other games, with your basic point categories and some bonus points. Fantasy UTD does have a lengthy set of negative points, including for offside, failed crosses, missed chances, fouls and dispossessions. For team selection, you do get rolling lineup locks based on individual kickoff times, but you cannot move players once they are locked.
Honestly, this game intrigues me. The structure of limiting players to one manager and transferring players around the league creates a lot of opportunities for smart managers to build strong squads. It also prevents teams from all feeling identical and stale, as you have to get a little creative to find points when only one person gets to use Messi. But it also means that general fantasy advice is not as relevant when so much depends on the managers you are playing with. I don't plan on making Fantasy UTD-specific content unless the people demand it. It all depends on what people are playing.
Where for NWSL?
One of my disappointments in all three apps here is that none of them support NWSL (yet). I do have some hope that Kickbase will be interested, as they have already done some games with the Bundesliga Women. It would seem a good opportunity for Kickbase to also launch an NWSL league to bring both the domestic leagues under one roof. Sofascore does not support any women's soccer as far as I can tell, which I find distinctly disappointing. Who knows what the future holds though; the NWSL season kickoff is still about a month away and we did not have this information for MLS a month ago. Still, I will be on the lookout for where we can be active for the Reign and our other favorite NWSL players.
Overall, I think Kickbase has great potential, but it has some big issues that may or not be worked out. Sofascore has the benefit of being a familiar format on a big and popular platform, but I do not know how well it will be supported. Fantasy UTD might be the most fun for the sickos, as the auction format may give big benefits to savvy players, but it is still a little experimental and lacks the boost of being an official partner or a bigger platform. At any rate, it should be a fun year.
