MLS 2026 Season Schedule Data Collection

This project collects the complete 2026 MLS regular season schedule from the official MLS Stats API and generates a CSV file with all match information in Pacific Time.

Overview

The 2026 MLS season runs from February 16 through November 7, 2026. This project:

• Fetches match data from the MLS Stats API week by week
• Stores raw JSON responses for each calendar week
• Processes all data into a single CSV file with times converted to Pacific timezone

Requirements

• Python 3.9 or higher
• Internet connection to access the MLS Stats API

Installation

1. Install the required Python library:

pip3 install requests

That's it! The scripts use Python's built-in zoneinfo module for timezone conversions.

Usage

Step 1: Collect Data from API

Run the data collection script to fetch all match data:

python3 collect_data.py

This script will:

• Create a data/ directory if it doesn't exist
• Fetch match data for 38 calendar weeks (Feb 16 - Nov 8, 2026)
• Save each week's data as data/week{N}.json
• Skip weeks that have already been downloaded
• Handle weeks with no games (returns 404) gracefully

Note: Some weeks will return 404 errors - this is expected! The MLS season has breaks for:

• International fixtures
• FIFA World Cup 2026 (June-July)
• Other scheduled breaks

The script takes about 20-30 seconds to run and will show progress for each week.

Step 2: Generate CSV

Once data collection is complete, process the JSON files into a CSV:

python3 process_to_csv.py

This will create mls_2026_schedule.csv with the following columns:

• Match Week - The MLS matchday number (1-35)
• Match Date - Date in YYYY-MM-DD format
• Home Team - Home team short name
• Away Team - Away team short name
• Game Time - Kickoff time in 12-hour format (Pacific Time)
• Timezone - PST or PDT depending on the date

Output

Total matches: 512 games across 35 match weeks

Sample CSV output:

Match Week,Match Date,Home Team,Away Team,Game Time,Timezone
1,2026-02-21,Cincinnati,Atlanta,1:30 PM,PST
1,2026-02-21,St. Louis,Charlotte,11:30 AM,PST
35,2026-11-07,Seattle,LAFC,4:00 PM,PST

Data Source

All data is sourced from the official MLS Stats API:

https://stats-api.mlssoccer.com/matches/seasons/MLS-SEA-0001KA

File Structure

mls2026/
├── README.md                    # This file
├── CLAUDE.md                    # Project instructions
├── collect_data.py              # Data collection script
├── process_to_csv.py            # CSV generation script
├── mls_2026_schedule.csv        # Generated CSV output
└── data/                        # Raw JSON data (29 files)
    ├── week1.json
    ├── week2.json
    └── ...

Troubleshooting

Q: Some weeks are missing from the data/ directory A: This is normal! Weeks 6, 16-21, 25, and 33 have no MLS games scheduled.

Q: The CSV shows fewer than 38 weeks A: The CSV shows match weeks (1-35), not calendar weeks. Multiple calendar weeks can belong to the same match week due to scheduling.

Q: Times look wrong for my timezone A: Times are shown in Pacific Time (PST/PDT). The process_to_csv.py script can be modified to use different timezones by changing America/Los_Angeles to your desired timezone.

Re-running Scripts

Both scripts are safe to re-run:

• collect_data.py will skip weeks that already exist
• process_to_csv.py will overwrite the CSV file with fresh data

To force a complete re-download, delete the data/ directory first:

rm -rf data/
python3 collect_data.py

License

This project uses publicly available data from Major League Soccer's official API.

Development

This project was developed with assistance from Claude Code, Anthropic's AI assistant for software development.