At any moment of any day of any season, you can walk around the five boroughs of New York and see people playing football - kids, adults and people of all colors and creeds.
If you enter Manhattan, you’ll be able to see football jerseys from England’s top six, La Liga’s big three, and major teams from the rest of Europe and Latin America. So if NYC is so football-obsessed, why can’t the local professional teams draw a big crowd?
Some background: New York has been the largest hotbed for American football talent. The football culture has been around for decades with teams such as New York FC, Brooklyn Hakoah and New York Cosmos. The city has produced many legendary players like Eddy Hamel, Shep Messing, and Benny Feilhaber. More recently, the city has produced exciting prospects like Justin Haak and Lille forward Timothy Weah.
In 1996, MLS debuted and its NYC franchise was the New York/New Jersey Metrostars. In 2010, they moved to the newly constructed Red Bull Arena in Harrison, New Jersey. In 2015, another New York team joined the league: New York City Football Club, a member of the City Football Group, and since their formation they have played their games at Yankee Stadium, in The Bronx. However, the stadium is predominantly known for the New York Yankees, the MLB’s most famous franchise.
Many American football players hail from the five illustrious boroughs due to the city’s demographics, as large immigrant communities make it the most diverse city in the world. This diversity has brought the world’s greatest game to the world’s greatest city. Some of the larger immigrant communities today are from Central and South America. Just walking through Washington Heights in Upper Manhattan, you can see a colorful array of jerseys, from Mexico City’s Club America to Buenos Aires’ Boca Juniors.
This diversity brings different and intense football cultures to New York. It is understandable: moving to a new country is hard, and bringing something from home, like your favorite football team (a real sense of pride), makes it just a bit easier.
As much as this helps American football culture, it is a reason the professional teams in the area are hurting. Many immigrants and their children have fallen in love with their new local clubs, but many have kept their loyalty to their teams in the originating country. This fact leaves teams like NYCFC, the Red Bulls, and the Cosmos the short end of the stick.
For example, the reported average attendance at Red Bull Arena is around 18,000, half of which show up unless it is a marquee game, but when they host teams like Mexican side Santos Laguna the attendance skyrockets. They have this massive football-loving population in their backyards but are unable to draw interest away from teams such as Independiente Medellin and Corinthians. The disinterest of the new immigrants to the city in the local league and teams, as well as wanting to keep a connection with what is familiar, strongly influences the disappointing attendance of New York City football clubs.
A second reason why the two MLS teams can’t attract fans to their stadiums is their stadiums themselves. For starters, the Red Bulls, who claim to be New York’s first MLS franchise, have never had their stadium within NYC limits.
As previously mentioned, they have their current beautiful stadium in Harrison, New Jersey. Harrison is not an exciting place to have a stadium. Parking is difficult, and so is public transportation. Commuting to the game from Midtown Manhattan can take an hour on a good day. If all trains, including connections, are made. The local PATH transit system might be the most inconsistent form of public transportation across the world, which makes it incredibly challenging to go to a Red Bulls game.
NYCFC is no different. They do have a leg up on the Red Bulls, in that they play within city limits. However, the fact that they play on one of the worst fields in the hemisphere does not help their cause. The field is disgusting and tiny.
The thing that the Blue side of New York boasts about is how much closer their stadium is to city residents. In part, it is true if they could attract a fanbase from the South Bronx, many of whom cannot afford the ticket prices of NYCFC. In reality, their stadium is also around an hour away by public transportation from Midtown Manhattan and farther for residents of other boroughs. Just like Red Bull Arena, parking is abysmal and another cost to add to high-priced tickets.
Attendance has fallen in the last year or so due to an unpredictable factor. Far-Right activists coming to games are chanting propaganda. NYCFC had the opportunity to deal with it. Instead, they didn’t. This turned away fans who were already loyal supporters but made it even harder to recruit new fans with their history of Fascism at games.
Another reason for the lack of attendance at these places is the lack of quality of play. Many new fans are brought on through watching teams on major sports channels such as NBC Sports, and sometimes they are brought to the game by FIFA. These fans are groomed to love the UEFA Champions League and the EPL.
While it is great that these two competitions and others like them are bringing more fans to the game in the city and the country, it gives a false sense of reality for American club football. Not every game is going to be a nail-biting Liverpool vs Barcelona semi-final, or a North London Derby.
This gives new fans and even old fans a sense that European football is superior to that in your backyard. Both teams are smaller projects compared to their owner’s leading clubs. While both ownership groups started very aggressive by signing big-name players, like Thierry Henry, Juninho, Andrea Pirlo, and Frank Lampard, not all have worked out.
After realizing that the ageing superstars are only temporary, risky, and not always good, both MLS clubs have moved on from this strategy. Now, they have looked for younger and more undiscovered players. NYCFC has signed some young unknown players like Heber and Valentin Castellanos. The Red Bulls, while also investing in young players from abroad like Alejandro Romero Gamarra, and have developed their teams from their academy. They have one of the most active academies in the Western Hemisphere, developing players like Tyler Adams and Omir Fernandez, the latter coming from The Bronx.
In all, there are many more factors as to why the MLS teams in New York can’t get large crowds. The inability to unlock a large immigrant population and turn them onto local clubs, the terrible stadium situations, and the lack of quality on the field all contribute to the problems facing the clubs. The question now is what those teams will do to fix their evident and concerning issue?