The Eastern Conference () is one of

Major League Soccer Major League Soccer (MLS) is a professional Association football, soccer league in North America and the highest level of the United States soccer league system. It comprises 30 teams, with 27 in the United States and 3 in Canada, and is sanc ...

's two conferences, along with the Western Conference. The division of the conferences broadly follows the path of the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the main stem, primary river of the largest drainage basin in the United States. It is the second-longest river in the United States, behind only the Missouri River, Missouri. From its traditional source of Lake Ita ...

from the

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to the

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, with clubs east of the river in the Eastern Conference. As of 2023, the Eastern Conference contains 15 teams. The conference has produced 17 Supporters' Shield champions and 11

MLS Cup MLS Cup is the annual championship game of Major League Soccer (MLS) and the culmination of the MLS Playoffs. The game is held in November or December and pits the winner of the Eastern Conference Final against the winner of the Western Confere ...

winners in Major League Soccer's first 28 seasons. In 2000 and 2001, the conference was referred to as the ''Eastern Division'' when Major League Soccer briefly reorganized into three divisions.

2025 standings

Members

Current

Timeline

DateFormat = yyyy ImageSize = width:1200 height:auto barincrement:20 Period = from:1996 till:2026 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal PlotArea = right:100 left:0 bottom:50 top:5 #> to display a count on left side of graph, use "left:20" to suppress the count, use "left:20"<# Colors = id:barcolor id:line value:pink id:bg value:white id:Eastern value:rgb(0.27,0.47,0.90) # Use this color to denote a that a team was in the Eastern Conference. id:Western value:rgb(0.98,0.83,0.5) # Use this color to denote a that a team was in the Western Conference. id:Central value:rgb(0.82,0.6,0.62) # Use this color to denote a that a team was in the Central Division. PlotData= width:15 textcolor:black shift:(5,-5) anchor:from fontsize:s bar:1 color:Eastern from:1996 till:2000 text:Columbus Crew (1996–1999) bar:1 color:Central from:2000 till:2002 width:8 text: bar:1 color:Eastern from:2002 till:end text:Columbus Crew (2002–present) bar:2 color:Eastern from:1996 till:end text:D.C. United (1996–present) bar:3 color:Eastern from:1996 till:end text:New England Revolution (1996–present) bar:4 color:Eastern from:1996 till:end text:New York Red Bulls (1996–present) bar:5 color:Eastern from:1996 till:2000 text:Tampa Bay Mutiny (1996–1999) bar:5 color:Central from:2000 till:2002 width:8 text: bar:6 color:Eastern from:1998 till:2002 text:Miami Fusion (1998–2001) bar:7 color:Western from:1998 till:2000 width:8 text: bar:7 color:Central from:2000 till:2002 width:8 text: bar:7 color:Eastern from:2002 till:end text:Chicago Fire (2002–present) bar:8 color:Western from:1996 till:2005 width:8 text: bar:8 color:Eastern from:2005 till:2015 text:Sporting Kansas City (2005–2014) bar:8 color:Western from:2015 till:end width:8 text: bar:9 color:Eastern from:2007 till:end text:Toronto FC (2007–present) bar:10 color:Eastern from:2010 till:end text:Philadelphia Union (2010–present) bar:11 color:Western from:2006 till:2011 width:8 text: bar:11 color:Eastern from:2011 till:2015 text:Houston Dynamo (2011–2014) bar:11 color:Western from:2015 till:end width:8 text: bar:12 color:Eastern from:2012 till:end text:CF Montréal (2012–present) bar:13 color:Eastern from:2015 till:end text:New York City FC (2015–present) bar:14 color:Eastern from:2015 till:end text:Orlando City SC (2015–present) bar:15 color:Eastern from:2017 till:end text:Atlanta United FC (2017–present) bar:16 color:Eastern from:2019 till:end text:FC Cincinnati (2019–present) bar:17 color:Eastern from:2020 till:end text:Inter Miami FC (2020–present) bar:18 color:Eastern from:2020 till:2022 text:Nashville SC (2020–2021;2023-present) bar:18 color:Western from:2022 till:2023 width:8 text: bar:18 color:Eastern from:2023 till:end text: bar:19 color:Eastern from:2022 till:end text:Charlotte FC (2022–present) ScaleMajor = gridcolor:line unit:year increment:4 start:1996 TextData = fontsize:L textcolor:black pos:(0,30) tabs:(400-center) text:

Conference lineups by year

1996–97 (5 teams)

''Changes from 1995'': Creation of the

1998–99 (6 teams)

''Changes from 1997'': New York/New Jersey MetroStars simplified their name to ''New York MetroStars''; the Miami Fusion were added in the 1998 expansion.

2000–01 (as Eastern Division) (4 teams)

''Changes from 1999'': The Eastern Conference changed its name to Eastern Division with the creation of the Central Division; the

Columbus Crew The Columbus Crew are an American professional soccer club based in Columbus, Ohio. The club competes in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the Eastern Conference (MLS), Eastern Conference. The team began play in 1996 as one of the 10 cha ...

and the Tampa Bay Mutiny moved to the new division.

2002–04 (5 teams)

''Changes from 2001'': The Eastern Division changed back its name to Eastern Conference following the contraction of the Miami Fusion and the Tampa Bay Mutiny, resulting in the disbanding of the Central Division; Chicago Fire and

moved in from the Central Division

2005 (6 teams)

''Changes from 2004'': Kansas City Wizards moved in from the Western Conference.

2006 (6 teams)

''Changes from 2005'': The New York MetroStars were bought by Red Bull and changed their name to '' New York Red Bulls''.

2007–09 (7 teams)

''Changes from 2006'':

Toronto FC Toronto Football Club is a Canadian professional Association football, soccer club based in Toronto. The club competes in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the Eastern Conference (MLS), Eastern Conference. The team plays its home matc ...

was added in the 2007 expansion.

2010 (8 teams)

''Changes from 2009'': Philadelphia Union was added in the 2010 expansion.

2011 (9 teams)

''Changes from 2010'': The Kansas City Wizards changed their name to ''Sporting Kansas City''; Houston Dynamo moved in from the Western Conference.

2012–14 (10 teams)

''Changes from 2011'': Montreal Impact was added in the 2012 expansion.

2015–16 (10 teams)

''Changes from 2014'': New York City FC and Orlando City SC were added as expansion franchises;

Sporting Kansas City Sporting Kansas City is an American professional Association football, soccer club based in the Kansas City metropolitan area. The club competes in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the Western Conference (MLS), Western Conference. The ad ...

and Houston Dynamo moved out to the Western Conference; Columbus Crew adds "SC" to the official team name.

2017–18 (11 teams)

''Changes from 2016'': Atlanta United FC was added in the 2017 expansion.

2019 (12 teams)

''Changes from 2018'': FC Cincinnati was added in the 2019 expansion.

2020 (14 teams)

''Changes from 2019'':

Inter Miami CF Club Internacional de Fútbol Miami (), commonly referred to as Inter Miami, is an American professional soccer club based in the Miami metropolitan area. The club competes in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the Eastern Conference (M ...

was added in the 2020 expansion, Nashville SC was added since the MLS is Back Tournament up to the end of the 2020 season; Chicago Fire SC was renamed Chicago Fire FC.

2021 (14 teams)

''Changes from 2020'': Nashville SC moved in from the Western Conference; the Montreal Impact was renamed Club de Foot Montréal. Columbus Crew SC was briefly renamed to Columbus SC and then to Columbus Crew.

2022 (14 teams)

''Changes from 2021'': Charlotte FC was added as a then-unnamed expansion franchise in 2019, with its first season initially set for 2021 but delayed by a year due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. Nashville SC moved back to the Western Conference.

2023–25 (15 teams)

''Changes from 2022'': Nashville SC was moved back to the Eastern Conference as expansion side St. Louis City SC was added to the Western Conference.

Eastern Conference playoff champions by year

Note: The conference finals were a best-of-three series through 2001 (including the MLS semifinals in 2000 and 2001, when a conference playoff format was not used). Matches tied after regulation were decided by a shoot-out. In 2002, a similar format was used except that draws were allowed and the team earning the most points advanced. From 2003 through 2011, the Finals were a single match. Matches tied after regulation moved to

extra time Overtime (OT) or extra time (ET) is an additional period of play to bring a game to a decision and avoid declaring the match a tie or draw where the scores are the same. In some sports, this extra period is played only if the game is required t ...

(

Golden goal The golden goal is a sports rule used in association football, Australian rules football, bandy, field hockey, ice hockey, lacrosse, and rugby league to decide the winner of a match (typically a knock-out match) in which scores are equal at the ...

extra time was implemented for 2003 only), then a shoot-out if necessary. Beginning in 2012, the finals were a two-match aggregate series. The

away goals rule The away goals rule is a method of tiebreaking in association football and other sports when teams play each other twice, once at each team's home ground. Under the away goals rule, if the total goals scored by each team are equal, the team that ...

for series that finished even on aggregate was first implemented in 2014. Extra time and shoot-outs are used if necessary, although away goals did not apply in extra time. In 2019, the playoffs returned to a single match format (including the conference finals), hosted by the higher ranked team through the regular season. ^W – Western Conference team.

Eastern Conference regular season champions by year

No trophy is awarded for leading the conference standings at the end of the regular season, unless the regular season leader also wins the Supporters' Shield. The winner of the Conference play-offs is considered the Conference champion. Three clubs have topped the Eastern Conference standings at the end of the regular season, won the Supporters' Shield, the Eastern Conference (MLS) and the

; D.C. United, twice,

and

. Toronto in 2017 also won the Canadian Championship, being the only

MLS Major League Soccer (MLS) is a professional soccer league in North America and the highest level of the United States soccer league system. It comprises 30 teams, with 27 in the United States and 3 in Canada, and is sanctioned by the United ...

team to therefore take a clean sweep of all titles available to them. ^ – MLS did not have draws until the 2000 season.
† – Miami Fusion were declared winners of the Eastern Division in 2001 after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks forced the cancellation of the rest of the regular season. The MLS Cup playoffs began on September 20.

MLS East at the MLS All-Star Game

In 1996, 1997, 1999, 2000, 2001, and 2004, the Major League Soccer All-Star Game was contested between an all-star team from the Eastern Conference and an all-star team from the Western Conference. In total, the MLS East all-star team has 4 wins, 1 draw, and 1 loss against the west.

References

External links

Complete MLS History
{{MLS Conference Champions 1996 establishments in the United States