November 22 – New York Metropolis FC’s 25,000-capacity new stadium, scheduled to be accomplished earlier than the beginning of the 2027 season, can be named Etihad Park below a 20-year settlement introduced Thursday with Etihad Airways, the nationwide airline of the United Arab Emirates.
Etihad can be the naming rights holder of Manchester Metropolis’s stadium. Each Metropolis and NYCFC are owned by the UAE’s Metropolis Soccer Group.
NYCFC president Brad Sims mentioned income from the deal will go to the group and never the guardian firm or English membership, which is below investigation by the Premier League for alleged violations of monetary honest play guidelines.
“It’s a 100% New York Metropolis FC deal,” Sims mentioned. “Etihad Airways has been primarily our premiere, our principal and founding companion since Day 1 on the membership right here… We wished to ideally stick with somebody who’s a present companion of New York Metropolis FC and or somebody within the Metropolis Soccer Group household however Etihad was simply type of the No. 1 focus that we’ve had all alongside.”
“They’ve been for fairly a while about this stadium in New York and actually shopping for into, I feel, the trail of journey of the game on this nation, within the New York market particularly,” Sims mentioned. “For them the New York market, the New York Metropolis market is a really strategic business market.”
NYCFC introduced the positioning in 2022. The New York Metropolis Council permitted the soccer stadium in April as a part of a Willets Level redevelopment that features 2,500 housing items, a brand new public faculty, resort, and retail shops. Bulldozers and cranes are concerned in pre-construction, lease negotiations with New York Metropolis are progressing and a groundbreaking is probably going earlier than the tip of the yr, in accordance with Sims.
“The extra exercise that may occur in improvement in Willets Level and make it a live-work-and-play neighborhood the higher,” Sims mentioned.
Sims mentioned when NYCFC are enjoying at residence, there needs to be a six-hour buffer earlier than a NY Mets recreation can begin as they’re situated subsequent to one another. When the Mets are residence first, there needs to be a seven-hour buffer earlier than soccer can kick off.
Sims added that the brand new stadium will profit NYCFC if MLS switches to an August-to-Could schedule, aligning with most European soccer leagues, from its present February-to-December calendar.
“There’s plenty of execs to doing that. The cons largely reside in cold-weather cities which have outside stadiums,” Sims mentioned. “I feel for us with the brand new stadium we might seemingly be comparatively insulated, at the least within the early at the least within the first five-, 10-plus years simply with type of pleasure across the stadium.”
NYCFC has been hampered since their inception having to play a few of their video games within the unfriendly confines of Yankee Stadium. With the brand new facility, NYCFC, consider that they’ll take the following step in turning into an MLS Tremendous membership.
Contact the author of this story, Nick Webster, at moc.l1732247688labto1732247688ofdlr1732247688owedi1732247688sni@o1732247688fni1732247688