Gotham FC is transferring to the massive metropolis — from New Jersey to Queens, the place beginning in 2028, the reigning NWSL champion will play residence video games at New York Metropolis FC’s soon-to-be-opened Etihad Park.
However the , formally introduced Tuesday at a Metropolis Corridor set piece with Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Gov. Kathy Hochul, is greater than your typical story of rising up and nabbing a residence in a shiny new growth. To the group’s stewards, it represents one thing greater and extra world.
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“We set a imaginative and prescient to be probably the greatest groups on the planet, and to be probably the greatest groups on the planet, it’s a must to play in world-class venues,” Gotham proprietor Carolyn Tisch Blodgett instructed The Submit. “It felt like this was the place to raise our group to the following degree.”
Gotham FC president of soccer operations Yael Averbuch West and proprietor Carolyn Tisch Blodgett stand with New York Metropolis Mayor Zohran Mamdani, New York Governor Kathy Hochul and Queens Borough President Donovan Richards at Metropolis Corridor on July 7, 2026. James Keivom for the NY Submit
Etihad Park, the 25,000-seat, roughly $1 billion venture close to Citi Area in Willets Level that’s set to open in 2027 for its MLS occupants, “matches Gotham FC’s normal of excellence,” Mamdani mentioned.
Gotham will begin on a five-year lease with choices to increase it as much as 15 years, per a group spokesperson.
Gotham has performed at Sports activities Illustrated Stadium, previously often called Pink Bull Area, in Harrison, N.J., since 2021, and can stay there via the 2027 season.
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The upgrades at Etihad Park? Gotham can have a devoted locker room for the primary time. With the stadium’s all-digital signage, “on sport day, it’s going to actually really feel like a Gotham residence — it is going to be utterly branded,” Tisch Blodgett mentioned. There can even be higher food and drinks choices. And new constituencies.
“Our capability to create that form of environment on sport day that offers us a real home-field benefit the place different groups hate coming to play in opposition to us and now we have our crowd packed out all rowdy, I feel is actually thrilling,” president of soccer operations Yael Averbuch West instructed The Submit.
Gotham averaged 8,892 followers in 2025, which ranked eighth of 14 NWSL groups. This season, it’s 8,148 (twelfth of 16), although that determine is anticipated to rise because the climate warms up and with the July 15 Queens Basic at Citi Area anticipated to attract within the neighborhood of 40,000.
An aerial view of Etihad Park underneath development. Courtesy Gotham FC
“Our aim is to fill a sport each single week. We ought to be offered out. That’s what ladies’s sports activities deserve,” Tisch Blodgett mentioned.
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A recurring knowledge level introduced up Tuesday: The brand new Queens location makes Gotham video games accessible to a further 3 million individuals inside a 75-minute public transit commute. Tisch Blodgett additionally mentioned inside knowledge present 60 % of Gotham’s present season ticket holders and followers can have the identical journey time or much less.
“What we hear from our followers time and again is that they completely love the product, they love the expertise and it’s actually onerous to get to,” Tisch Blodgett mentioned. “And that limits them.”
A rendering of Gotham FC game-day branding on Etihad Park, set to open in 2027. Courtesy Gotham FC
The opposite aspect of these tracks: The diehards based mostly nearer to Harrison or the group’s earlier residence (within the Sky Blue days) at Rutgers, for whom a visit to the top of the 7 line can be prohibitive.
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Gotham additionally just lately introduced plans to open its personal coaching facility in Whippany, N.J.
“New Jersey is the place this group was born. It’s the place our early life have been, and so now we have thought lots about: How will we proceed to make this accessible?” Tisch Blodgett mentioned. “We hope as many followers as attainable will transfer with us.”
MLS’ adoption of a late-summer-to-spring calendar for the 2027-28 season will ease scheduling considerations between NYCFC and Gotham, which performs from spring to fall. Nonetheless, count on loads of two-game weekends and even some day-night doubleheaders. A partnership that was a “couple of years within the making,” in keeping with NYCFC CEO Brad Sims, formally kicked off Tuesday.
“They have been very, very fascinated with what we have been constructing from Day 1 and our imaginative and prescient for the stadium,” Sims instructed The Submit, “and we have been fascinated with their group as a result of it’s a terrific group.”