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July 17, 2027 will be the date for New York City FC's first match in their new stadium.
Confirmation of that date for Etihad Park's MLS opener was announced by NYCFC's president and CEO Brad Sims at Thursday's "The Next Chapter" media event organized by MLS at the league's midtown Manhattan headquarters.
Sims spoke alongside defender and recent contract extension recipient Kevin O'Toole at the event, and from hearing each member of NYCFC speak, while also seeing who came out to speak after the duo, it's clear that the new stadium will be a significant difference-maker for the players on the team, as well as for the club's ability to accomplish its stated goal of signing a "flagship" player.
The nailing-down of this true home opener for New York City FC is, as Sims himself described, a long time coming. "This is 12, 13 years in the making, and a lot of people put in so much hard work, time, effort, vetting out dozens and dozens of sites around the five boroughs, starts, stops, good news, bad news," Sims said.
"Part of the grand promise of the club from day one was that we are a team for the city, and so how can you build your stadium, your home, anywhere other than in the five boroughs of New York? And that was hard. It was hard. We knew it was going to be hard. It was harder than I think anyone thought it was going to be, but an incredibly proud moment for us to fulfill that promise that we made and the fact that we kind of never gave up and were very persistent about that," Sims continued.
The difficulties getting it built led to added challenges for the team, like in O'Toole's first season as a professional in MLS, 2022, when New York City FC played home matches at six different venues before the month of June. O'Toole used both "essentially homeless" and "nomadic" to describe the realities he and his teammates faced as the club juggled the start of that MLS season with a deep run to the semifinals of Concacaf Champions League.
"Bouncing from venue to venue, venue changes, guys not sure where they should live because they don't know how many games they're going to play in different places, and it takes a toll," Brad Sims said of the experiences shared by O'Toole and the rest of the team over the years.
The far-off "home" games and extreme venue-hopping have both ceased in recent seasons, with most matches split between The Bronx and Queens, and with only a few played in Harrison, New Jersey.
That shuffle finally ends on a very specific date next summer, and it will usher in not just the new era of New York City FC but the new era of MLS and its reformatted calendar and competition, since Sims confirmed in the mixed zone following the event that NYCFC's July 17, 2027 Etihad Park opener will also be the first MLS match of the new 2027/28 season.
Sims set clear goals for where NYCFC and its deep-pocketed City Football Group owners want to spend money next. "We've got to invest in our training facilities. We've got to invest in the team. I think you've got to have the players. We have a winning team, we have players. I think we also want to have a flagship building. We want to have a flagship player or players to be able to realize that vision. So it's about investment, and we're seeing that not just in buildings, but in players," said Sims.
