D.C. United announces 2019 schedule

Last month, Major League Soccer announced the schedules for the first two weeks of the 2019 season. This afternoon, the league released the rest of the schedule, revealing that D.C. United would be playing 13 games on national TV in the United States from March to October. The Black-and-Red’s first appearance on national TV comes the first week of the season, when they host the defending MLS Cup champions Atlanta United on March 3rd, a game that will be shown by ESPN.

United will be on the main Fox channel once this season, when they host Los Angeles FC at Audi Field on April 6th. The Black-and-Red will finish the season off by hosting FC Cincinnati on Decision Day, which takes place on October 6th.

In addition to the appearance on Fox, United will play another 6 games that will be televised on Fox Sports 1. ESPN will televise another four more games, while UniMas has the rights to the August 21st game against the New York Red Bulls at Audi Field, which is part of the league’s Heineken Rivalry Week.

With MLS condensing the schedule this year to make way for the new playoff format, United will play nine midweek games throughout the course of the season. The first comes on April 9th, when United will host the Montreal Impact on a Tuesday. 5 other games land on a Wednesday, with two Thursday and one Friday tilt as well.

After a crazy backloaded schedule to finish out 2018, United will spend four of the last six weeks of the season on the road, finishing with four Sunday games to round out the season. Over the course of the season, United will play 13 games on Sunday, and 12 games on Saturday. MLS also has the option the flex games in and out of a national TV slot late in the season to get the most intriguing games airtime.

There is also a 25-day break during June for United, part of which occurs during the Gold Cup, which this year will run from June 15th to July 7th.