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How Many Games Are There In A Premier League Season (And How It Compares To Other Leagues)

16 Oct, 2025

The English Premier League is viewed by many football fans as the most competitive league on the planet. If you're not on your game, you can be beaten by any team. Plus, the lack of a winter break and the congested nature of fixtures at certain points in the season means that it is an absolutely relentless league to play in.

But how many games are there in a Premier League season? That's the question we'll be answering in this article, as we compare the English top flight with other leagues across the world and determine which country has the trickiest schedule of all. We'll glide through France, Spain, Italy, Germany, and the United States, explaining each league system and the amount of games played by each team.

How Many Games Are In A Premier League Season?

Ever since the league structure was adapted slightly at the end of the 22-team 1994/95 season, which saw four teams relegated and only two promoted, the Premier League has used a 20-team structure. Within this format, three sides are relegated each season, while one side wins the title and the rest of the top four qualify for the Champions League.

Given that each side plays each other twice (home and away), every team in the Premier League plays a total of 38 league fixtures in a single season, 19 at home and 19 away from home.

It's a busy schedule, especially when you consider that every team also has multiple cup competitions to play in, from domestic knockout formats like the prestigious FA Cup and the Carabao Cup (or League Cup) to European competitions such as the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League or Europa Conference League, as well as international breaks that see most Premier League players jetting off across the world to represent their countries in friendlies and World Cup or European Championship qualifiers.

20 teams playing 38 matches each means that in total, there are 380 games in a full Premier League season, many of which will be broadcast on TV on channels such as Sky Sports, TNT Sports, and Amazon Prime Video.

Those games will be divided equally between the season's calendar, which typically runs from August to May, with a break in the summer for players to recuperate and get ready for the new campaign. All in all, it's a lot of football — but that's hardly a surprise, given the reputation English football has for being intense and demanding.

In 2024, Premier League clubs voted to retain the 20-team format despite growing concerns over fixture congestion. This debate was intensified by the introduction of UEFA’s new “Swiss model” Champions League format in 2024–25, which adds extra midweek fixtures for clubs competing in Europe.

How Many Games in La Liga Season?

La Liga is the top division of Spanish football, graced by huge clubs such as Real Madrid, Barcelona, and Atletico Madrid.

Just like the Premier League, the Spanish top flight features 20 teams in total, with each team playing each other once at home and once away.This means each team plays 38 games, with the maximum amount of points that can be gathered being 114. This format has been in place ever since 1997.

As a result, there are also 380 games played in La Liga between August and May. Clubs will also face additional clashes in the country's two domestic cups, the Copa Del Rey and the Supercopa de Espana, and teams like Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid will usually compete in European tournaments such as the Champions League as well.

How Many Games In Serie A Season?

Italy is a historic footballing nation, with glittering tournament performances to their name dating back decades, and four World Cup and two European Championship wins to back it up.

Italy is a nation that has produced influential philosophies and positional concepts such as catenaccio, trequartista and regista, and it's also a country with a hugely popular domestic league featuring some massive clubs such as Juventus, Internazionale, Milan, and Napoli.

The Italian top division is called Serie A, and it is structured in much the same way as La Liga and the Premier League, with 20 teams competing and three teams being relegated to the second tier (Serie B in this case). This means that each time plays 38 games in a regular season.

How Many Games In Bundesliga Season?

Interest in the Bundesliga amongst English football fans seems to have increased since the arrival of Three Lions captain Harry Kane in Bavaria. Since his high-profile transfer from Spurs to Bayern Munich in 2023, Kane has taken German football by storm, finishing his debut season as the Bundesliga’s top scorer with 36 goals — a record for a debut campaign. In September 2025 he scored his 100th goal in only 104 appearances for Bayern Munich, breaking the European record held by Erling Haaland and Cristiano Ronaldo by 1 game.

His brilliant array of skills is clearly the major factor behind this explosive start, although Bundesliga critics would argue that he's aided by the fact that Bayern have massive financial advantages over their domestic rivals, and the Munich giants have admittedly been unassailable in Germany in recent years.

However, the Bundesliga is still competitive and over the course of each season it produces some fascinating and inspiring stories, including the rise of underdog sides such as Union Berlin.

The German top flight has slightly fewer clubs in it than the most other top 5 leagues, with 18 sides playing in the competition each season as opposed to 20. This means there are slightly fewer games each year; every team will play 34 fixtures in an ordinary campaign, meaning that in total there are 306 league games across the whole season.

Relegation and promotion between the German top flight and its second division (2. Bundesliga) is also done differently to many other top leagues. In Germany, at the end of the season there is a dramatic relegation play-off match between the team that finishes 3rd from bottom in the top division and the team that finishes 3rd in the second division.

It's a two-legged, winner-takes-all scenario that can leave the 16th-placed team in the Bundesliga having their top flight status snatched by a strong up-and-comer from the league below. Similar systems exist in other leagues across the world, including the Scottish professional league system.

How Many Games In Ligue 1 Season?

Despite hosting a wide range of world class players including Kylian Mbappe, Ousmane Dembele and Jonathan David, the French top flight (labelled Ligue 1) can sometimes face criticism from abroad, with PSG's domination of the division in recent years causing some to dub Ligue 1 a "farmer's league" (a derogatory term for a league lacking competitiveness or quality).

It's true that it's been extremely difficult for other clubs to take the league title away from Paris Saint Germain in recent seasons, although sides such as Lille and Monaco (thanks in large part to an explosive young Kylian Mbappe) have managed to break the trend in the last decade.

In total, there are 18 teams that battle it out across the division each season, the same amount of clubs as the German Bundesliga, and therefore the same amount of total games — 306.

Historically, the 16th-placed team would face a promotion/relegation play-off, but since the 2023–24 season, Ligue 1 has done away with this system. Now, the bottom two sides are relegated automatically, while the top two from Ligue 2 are promoted.

How Many Games In MLS Season?

Major League Soccer (MLS) operates very differently from most football leagues around the world. It uses a closed franchise system with no promotion or relegation — once a club is granted an MLS franchise, it remains in the league regardless of results. This structure is combined with the unique geography of the United States and Canada, which has led to the league being divided into two conferences: Eastern and Western.

The league continues to grow rapidly. In 2025, San Diego FC becomes the 30th franchise, bringing the total number of clubs in both conferences to 15 each, creating a balanced structure across the country.

The MLS season is split into two parts:

Regular season
Postseason (MLS Cup Playoffs)

During the regular season, each MLS team plays 34 matches.

Teams play every other club in their own conference twice (home and away).
They also play eight matches against teams from the opposite conference (four home, four away).

After the regular season, the top sides in each conference advance to the MLS Cup Playoffs, a knockout tournament that determines the overall league champion.

It’s a unique and sometimes confusing format, but it reflects the league’s rapid expansion and North America’s vast geography. And with MLS continuing to grow in popularity — boosted by stars like Lionel Messi and new franchises like San Diego — the format looks set to stay for the foreseeable future.

Author: Fred Garratt-Stanley

Lead Content Writer

Fred Garratt-Stanley is an experienced football writer and journalist, specialising in industry insights, tactical analysis, and the culture of the game. He has contributed to publications such as NME, GQ, The Quietus, and Resident Advisor. As Lead Content Writer at Jobs In Football, he focuses on providing reliable, research-driven articles to help people navigate careers in the football industry.