When MLS schedule makers lay out the schedule for the 2026 season, they won’t have many home date options for Vancouver Whitecaps FC, who are tenants in BC Place, a stadium that will host seven FIFA World Cup matches next summer.
“We get 17 days where we can play our games, and that’s it,” said MLS Commissioner Don Garber ahead of the 2025 MLS All-Star Game when asked about Vancouver’s status in the 54,000-person stadium as well as the long-time ownership’s efforts to sell the team.
BC Place––an indoor venue with retractable roof––has been the home of the Whitecaps since the end of 2011. Yet, as the league has grown to include club-owned, soccer-specific stadiums, the Whitecaps have been left without control of their venue, which is operated by a Crown corporation of the Provincial Government.
It has left the Whitecaps with scheduling issues, forcing them to play an MLS Cup Playoff match in Portland in 2024, despite having home advantage over the Portland Timbers, due to a previously booked Motocross event. If Vancouver had qualified for the 2024 MLS Cup, it would also have conflicted with the previously booked Taylor Swift concerts at the venue.
“We’ve got to get a new stadium situation for the Whitecaps...we have no plans to move the Vancouver Whitecaps. But right now, they don’t have a viable stadium situation,” Garber added, further stressing the club and league’s desire to keep Canada’s oldest professional soccer team in its current market. “[It’s] not our first rodeo. We’ll figure that out. We’ll be able to get the stadium, I hope, and we’re working hard at it.”
Meanwhile, Whitecaps CEO and Sporting Director Axel Schuster offered some reassurance on the team’s status and efforts to build a new home, potentially at the Pacific National Exhibition, near the club’s old base of Empire Field, outside the Downtown Core.
“I have a very strong message from our commissioner, that everyone in our market should get behind us, and support us in the approach to put as much pressure on those who can make final decisions on this, to make it work,” Schuster said on the Sekeres and Price Podcast.
“I think it only helps to make everyone in this market, especially decision makers, aware of how serious this is. Now, this is important, and it will only help us to execute one of the plans.”
Added Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim in a statement to CTV News: “The club’s ownership has always been clear on their goal of constructing a purpose-built stadium since Vancouver was awarded an MLS franchise back in 2009. While we cannot disclose specific information regarding potential land-use matters, we are continuing to explore ways to ensure the Whitecaps can remain in Vancouver for generations to come.”
This season, the Whitecaps are enjoying their best spell since joining MLS, currently sitting second in the Western Conference, after making a run to the Concacaf Champions Cup Final, where they fell to Liga MX’s Cruz Azul.
Whitecaps CEO Confirms 2026 Plans
Even with tight availability of dates, the Whitecaps will be able to play their 2026 home matches at the 42-year-old BC Place. However, the club remains in negotiations with the venue regarding a new lease contract, as the current deal expires at the end of the 2025 MLS season.
Amid negotiations, Schuster confirmed that the club has also taken a firm stance on date availability, suggesting that the issues that arose in the 2024 MLS Cup Playoffs, and with a rescheduled Champions Cup game in 2025, were key concerns in the previous arrangement.
“No one was happy about that,” Schuster said of those situations. “I think what Garber wants to say, and what we want to say, is this can never, ever happen again. So we are in negotiations with BC Place about the new contract and about how this contract has to change.”
Outdoor Stadium Concerns with Possible MLS Schedule Change
As the Whitecaps look to a potential soccer-specific and fully outdoor stadium, MLS also appears to be nearing a schedule shift to a winter-based regular season, which would see matches played in cold conditions across the league’s northern markets.
Although Vancouver does not experience similar frigid temperatures to Toronto, Montreal, Minnesota, Boston, Chicago, or New York City, the rain-filled winters could prove an issue—a currently avoidable factor at BC Place—but not one that would stop them from tackling a new outdoor build.
“The calendar change is not happening in a way that we play like England all the way through the winter, through and through Christmas,” Schuster added. “I would say no one has to be worried about this either. I say it wouldn’t hold us back from building a grass stadium, an open outdoor stadium.”
While the status of the Whitecaps in Vancouver and the plans for a new stadium remain hopeful, nothing is set in stone yet, as the club continues to seek new ownership to take over from the current group, led by Greg Kerfoot, Steve Luczo, Jeff Mallett, and former NBA star Steve Nash.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Future in Vancouver? For-Sale Whitecaps Share Stadium Hopes, 2026 Plans Despite MLS Commissioner’s Comments.