MLS hired Larry Berg to run the hard years after expansion.

Major League Soccer owners did not hire a new commissioner to invent another expansion fee.

On Monday in Manhattan they voted Larry Berg — co-managing owner of LAFC, co-chair of the league’s Sporting and Competition Committee, three decades in private equity at Apollo — as the third commissioner in MLS history. He will be introduced Tuesday and take the job on Jan. 1, 2027.

Don Garber stays commissioner through the end of 2026, then moves to chairman. Berg will divest his LAFC stake under league governance rules so he can run all 30 clubs without owning one of them.

The résumé is why owners felt comfortable. Berg helped build LAFC from a 2014 expansion award into an MLS Cup winner (2022) with Supporters’ Shields and a stadium that still photographs like a product brochure. He has also held interests in AS Roma and Swansea City. He beat out former Fox executive David Nathanson in final presentations that needed a two-thirds supermajority.

The job description is why the hire matters.

Garber’s 27 years grew the league from 10 clubs to 30 and put 26 soccer-specific stadiums on the map. The next chapter is less about adding logos and more about making the product work on a global calendar.

Starting in mid-2027, MLS flips to a summer-to-spring season — July start, winter break, May MLS Cup — after a short “sprint” campaign earlier that year. The point is alignment with European transfer windows and FIFA’s dates, and playoffs that no longer hide under American football.

Berg inherits that flip on day one. He also inherits a collective bargaining agreement that expires in January 2028, midstream through the first full summer-to-spring season, and a media clock that is already ticking.

Apple’s revised MLS package now runs through the 2028–29 season after Season Pass was folded into Apple TV and the original decade-long runway was shortened. Linear deals with Fox and others are also coming due. The next full rights market will be Berg’s to shop, not Garber’s to invent.

World Cup summer still hangs over the transition. MLS wants the tournament’s afterglow. Berg’s practical test is colder: can clubs, players, and broadcasters survive a calendar redesign without losing the audience they spent a generation building?

Private equity language will follow him into the office — Apollo, 26North, board chairs at McGraw Hill and 2U. The more useful frame is narrower.

MLS already sold the growth story. Berg was hired to operate the version that has to compete with Europe on dates, labor costs, and a media deal that cannot hide behind expansion checks forever.