MLL Schedule Released For 2019 Season: Here’s What You Need to Know

The MLL has just released the 2019 MLL schedule, which is their next major step as they move forward in their efforts to reshape what it means to play in the MLL.

The issues this year that we knew to look for were the exact start date of the league, how the all-star game fits into the schedule, the playoff setup and that every team was going to play each other twice. These are all based on previous announcements the MLL made in September. What was new in the MLL schedule release is also their use of GotPro software to automate the creation of their schedule.

The checkboxes of prior problems the league had that this new schedule crosses off are having rookies available in Week 1, a home and away series for every team and a better balance for players during the week. Before we dive into each one of those, let’s take a look at the actual MLL schedule:

When reading through the MLL schedule, there were a few things I looked for based on the items mentioned earlier and general complaints about the league in the past.

Given that nearly all players will be available in Week 1 (with the exception being NLL Finals participants), seeing how much time the players had leading up to the All-Star Game to make an impact seems important.

Putting the All-Star Game right after Week 8 would suggest each team has eight games. That is mostly the case for a few, but not all of the teams. Atlanta, Chesapeake, and Denver are all squeezing nine games into that first half of the season while Dallas only gets seven, and Ohio has just six. That is certainly a slight disparity between a few teams, but it is significantly improved compared to years past.

Part of fixing this problem was likely due to their use of the scheduling software to sort it all out.

When I asked MLL Commission Sandy Brown why they chose to move towards a software solution, his response was rather straightforward.

“A lot of other leagues use them and we felt that anything we can do to automate everything we do in the league, but especially scheduling, which can be a very tedious exercise, increases our productivity,” Brown said.

While this is not exactly a massive 32 team league, agreeing on scheduling is a time consuming exercise. The items Brown also mentioned as having a significant impact with this year’s MLL schedule are the new venue constraints. By running the season all the way through September, several teams are having direct conflicts with the venues as football, soccer and other sports start filing into their normal fall homes. Tracking these constraints with travel considerations and other factors becomes a job by itself.

With regards to travel considerations, the other interesting aspect of this is trying to squeeze as many games as possible in with new constraints. Starting the season in June (technically May) and not going too late into the fall means the MLL needs to ensure teams have their dates while not creating a slew of back-to-back weekends for players or loading up on Thursday and Friday games, which puts a strain on their weekday life. In seeing these dates, it would appear they made significant progress towards those goals.

Tackling the Thursday games first, these are dates which make few happy, but are a league staple to fill out the MLL schedule. Charlotte and Ohio are actually lucky enough to not have a single Thursday date, while most other teams have only one. Only Dallas and Denver have multiple Thursday games, but Denver’s three Thursday’s are in part due to July 4 falling midweek again. Nobody can say no to that huge crowd and fireworks.

Going back 10 years, the league has routinely had Thursday games, except for 2012. It had always been in the three-to-six range, which is acceptable, but not hugely desired. The ramp up over the past three years is why this has become a big sticking points. Moving to ten Thursday games in 2016 and 2017, and eight this past season makes only five a welcome sight.

With regards to avoiding the back-to-back’s, they were very successful. Only Boston and New York were able to get away with no doubleheader weekends, but each team that is forced to play twice a week not only has a corresponding bye-week, but they also have the benefit of a travel day between games in each case.

Denver has to deal with this the most, but it does also mean that they have the most bye’s. As Commissioner Brown elaborated, “Denver didn’t ask for more Thursday’s, it’s just how it shook out. Ultimately, every team needed to makes some level of concessions for the schedule to come together.”

The other thing to keep in mind with these doubleheader weekends, is how they may wind up benefiting teams. In the NCAA ranks, playing two games in three days is viewed as a smart move during the season to prep for postseason scenarios. Now that the MLL is moving to a championship weekend format with a Friday semifinal and Sunday championship game all in one location, having a ‘dry run’ of this a few times during the season could be a good thing.

While this is largely true, I personally think Boston and New York wound up with the best setup while Denver and Dallas conceded a bit more. Denver’s three Thursday games are not ideal, but one of them being July 4th does take the sting off a bit. For Dallas, having back-to-back bye weeks is probably the biggest slight, especially early in the season during Week 3 and Week 4.

Since every MLL team will be truly rebuilding rosters and establishing their identities as a team, this is a critical moment in the season to be missing significant time. For New York, they manage to have no doubleheader weekends, no bye’s and just one Thursday game. That game is against Boston who took it one step further and will play every other game on a Saturday, whether it be home or away. It’s a schedule rarely seen in pro lacrosse, and is pretty remarkable.

Even though the release of an MLL schedule may seem like relatively minor news, it becomes a much bigger piece of this puzzle that is a unprecedented offseason of professional field lacrosse. It shows continued progress for the MLL as they look to redefine themselves as a league and the team look to reestablish themselves.

Do you cheer for a specific team and want that schedule? Here is the MLL schedule based on each team: