November 22 – New York City FC’s 25,000-capacity new stadium, scheduled to be completed before the start of the 2027 season, will be named Etihad Park under a 20-year agreement announced Thursday with Etihad Airways, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates.
Etihad is also the naming rights holder of Manchester City’s stadium. Both City and NYCFC are owned by the UAE’s City Football Group.
NYCFC president Brad Sims said revenue from the deal will go to the team and not the parent company or English club, which is under investigation by the Premier League for alleged violations of financial fair play rules.
“It’s a 100% New York City FC deal,” Sims said. “Etihad Airways has been essentially our premiere, our principal and founding partner since Day 1 at the club here… We wanted to ideally stay with someone who is a current partner of New York City FC and or someone in the City Football Group family but Etihad was easily kind of the No. 1 focus that we’ve had all along.”
“They’ve been interested for quite some time about this stadium in New York and really buying into, I think, the path of travel of the sport in this country, in the New York market specifically,” Sims said. “For them the New York market, the New York City market is a very strategic commercial market.”
NYCFC announced the site in 2022. The New York City Council approved the soccer stadium in April as part of a Willets Point redevelopment that includes 2,500 housing units, a new public school, hotel, and retail stores. Bulldozers and cranes are involved in pre-construction, lease negotiations with New York City are progressing and a groundbreaking is likely before the end of the year, according to Sims.
“The more activity that can happen in development in Willets Point and make it a live-work-and-play neighborhood the better,” Sims said.
Sims said when NYCFC are playing at home, there has to be a six-hour buffer before a NY Mets game can start as they are located next to each other. When the Mets are home first, there has to be a seven-hour buffer before soccer can kick off.
Sims added that the new stadium will benefit NYCFC if MLS switches to an August-to-May schedule, aligning with most European soccer leagues, from its current February-to-December calendar.
“There’s a lot of pros to doing that. The cons mostly reside in cold-weather cities that have outdoor stadiums,” Sims said. “I think for us with the new stadium we would likely be relatively insulated, at least in the early at least in the first five-, 10-plus years just with kind of excitement around the stadium.”
NYCFC has been hampered since their inception having to play some of their games in the unfriendly confines of Yankee Stadium. With the new facility, NYCFC, believe that they can take the next step in becoming an MLS Super club.
Contact the writer of this story, Nick Webster, at moc.l1734935201labto1734935201ofdlr1734935201owedi1734935201sni@o1734935201fni1734935201