FLUSHING, N.Y. — Smoke from Canadian wildfires painted the sky a hazy orange-brown above Citi Field on Wednesday, but the conditions did little to dampen the buzz around Gotham FC’s first match in Queens. An announced sellout crowd of 42,175 (with a few visibly empty seats) watched the NWSL club beat the Washington Spirit 1-0 in a rematch of last year’s final, with Etihad Park — Gotham’s future home — visible across the street.
The team announced plans to relocate from New Jersey to the soccer-specific Etihad Park in 2028 after nearly two decades in the Garden State. The turnout at Citi Field was notable: it was the second-largest crowd in NWSL history and the biggest ever for a women’s sporting event in New York City, and it was the largest crowd in Gotham FC history, according to ESPN.
Not everything at the event was without issue. Discolored sod over the baseball infield and extreme heat compounded by poor air quality prompted the league to institute four hydration breaks — the first time that has happened this year and in the careers of the two coaches. Gotham midfielder Rose Lavelle, who scored the match’s lone goal, quipped after the game, “That’s showbiz, baby!”
Gotham and league officials treated the match as both a spectacle and an opportunity to build a fanbase. A Gotham FC executive told ESPN that roughly 80 percent of ticket-holders were attending their first Gotham match, and the club deployed concession-style staff, QR-code footpath stickers and concourse booths to solicit season-ticket deposits. Gotham believes it could secure about 8,000 season-ticket deposits by the time it moves into Etihad Park in 2028 — roughly the club’s current average home attendance in Harrison, according to ESPN.
The turnout marked a stark contrast with the club’s earlier years, when it operated as Sky Blue and often drew crowds in the hundreds while playing at a suburban college stadium with metal bleachers. Players once trained in a facility without running water or locker rooms and took ice baths in trash cans. The Citi Field crowd alone exceeded the club’s total attendance across its 12 home matches in the 2019 NWSL season.
