Gotham FC to play Washington Spirit at Citi Field, marking first NWSL game inside New York City
NEW YORK – Gotham FC is scheduled to face the Washington Spirit at Citi Field, home of Major League Baseball’s New York Mets, in a summer matchup that is part of the NWSL’s strategy around the Men’s World Cup.
The match will take place on July 15, four days before the World Cup final at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Gotham’s usual stadium, Sports Illustrated Stadium in Harrison, New Jersey, home of MLS’s New York Red Bulls, will not be available that week as a potential training site for the World Cup finalists, posing a challenge – and an opportunity – for the NWSL club.
“It took a year, if not more,” said Carolyn Tisch Blodget, Gotham owner and club governor. “The genesis was the World Cup. When we started talking [and] We knew the men’s World Cup was going to be in our region, then we knew we were going to have the final, we kept saying this was the time we wanted to be an iconic global brand. We want to be the first women’s sports brand known worldwide. The whole football world will be in New York, in this region. What can we do about this? How can we activate it? How can we make our presence known? And then the idea came, the idea that we could actually play a game here and we couldn’t just show up at fan parties, which we will also do, but even show our product to the football world. »
The match at Citi Field will be a marquee moment for the NWSL as it tries to attract attention during the World Cup. The league will resume play over the July 4 weekend, while the World Cup round of 16 is still taking place, and will also host the Challenge Cup in late June at ScottsMiracle-Gro Field in Columbus.
“I think our approach is to build on the momentum and ride the wave rather than trying to counter-program, so we have two really unique moments now: the Challenge Cup, which will take place in Columbus, Ohio, on June 26 and this one will intentionally take place in a market that does not have World Cup matches,” said Sarah Jones Simmer, NWSL director of operations. “We expect there to be pent-up demand for world-class football. To be able to bring Gotham against Kansas City [Current] there, we think we can really meet the needs of the market. Then you’ll see us tie this lineup together very strategically here the week of the men’s World Cup final, but again, I think it’s a groundswell of support and enthusiasm and momentum. It’s not about counter-programming. It’s really about being part of that momentum in a way that brings it to life in a unique way in women’s football. »
It is also the latest in a growing list of NWSL fixtures that will take place at ballparks and other regional venues. The move is designed to attract bigger attendance figures, with several league-wide attendance records set in games like this. The current NWSL attendance record is held by Oracle Park, home of MLB’s San Francisco Giants, for a game between Bay FC and the Spirit last year that had just over 40,000 in attendance.
“I think baseball stadiums are often in really iconic and important places that are accessible to fans,” Jones Simmer said. “Think about where Oracle is in the Bay Area. Think about where Wrigley Field is in Chicago. They have a smaller footprint than a football stadium. In many cases, football stadiums are more on the outskirts of a metropolitan area and for us, the size of a baseball stadium is an exciting step up from the size of many of our current stadiums. We have a lot of confidence and excitement about filling them and showing what 30,000, 40,000 people feel our players and the fans there experience it.”
Gotham hopes to use this game, which will be the first women’s sporting event to take place at Citi Field, as a focal point to grow women’s soccer despite the focus on men’s soccer this summer.
“We now have an opportunity to think forward-looking about how we want to leave things after this World Cup,” Gotham general manager Yael Averbuch West said. “What’s really important is we have these marquee events and Americans love these events – the World Cup, the Olympics – but we have this enthusiasm all the time. We have the highest caliber of soccer playing week in and week out, some of the best players in the world at what they do, World Cup champions playing here at our club and people need to know that and continue to follow it beyond this moment.”
This won’t be the first time Gotham has played within the confines of New York City. they played at Icahn Stadium on Randall’s Island for a Concacaf W Champions Cup match last August — but this will be the first NWSL game in the city, but not the last. Gotham will return to Icahn Stadium on July 18 for a championship game against the Seattle Reign, allowing the team to build on its footprint. Tisch Blodget said the team currently only has 2 percent awareness in the region and hopes a game at Citi Field will raise Gotham’s awareness in the region.
“The idea that we can bring Gotham to 40,000 people here is on a different scale than what we have at Icahn but yes, we know that accessibility to the stadium and getting to games is difficult,” she said. “We have fans who raise their hands and say they’re interested in Gotham and then they can’t make it or they can only make it once or for whatever reason, so being able to have those really accessible moments for our teams, especially the one-two, is really important to us.
“We’ve always been the New York/New Jersey team – our players live in Jersey, our staff lives in Jersey, we play in New Jersey. Even though we’ve always been New York/New Jersey, we’ve only really delivered on the New Jersey side.”
