Earlier today, members of the New York City FC media cohort sat down for a roundtable discussion with the club's President and CEO Brad Sims at team headquarters in Midtown Manhattan. It was the first time this season that Sims was made available to the media, and he addressed a variety of subjects, including Etihad Park's much-anticipated debut for the 2027/28 MLS season, the renegotiated MLS-Apple TV broadcast contract, and how transfer deals work for NYCFC inside City Football Group, among other topics.
Note: The statements below were edited for length and clarity.
Q: Can you talk about how the Metropolitan Park casino and what Steve Cohen wants to turn that Citi Field parking lot into affects or doesn't affect your new soccer stadium?
Brad Sims: "I think from a commercial standpoint, I would say advantageous. It's more people, more eyeballs, more foot traffic, and for us, it's a significant investment, what they're talking about doing. I know everyone just likes to talk about the casino, but from what I've seen, it's restaurants and retail, and a concert venue, park, like actual real green space, instead of just service lots.
The biggest practical thing for us is parking, and so their plan would be to build garages, essentially, and they've already shared with us what the plan would be. That would be the first piece of the puzzle is making sure that the parking is always adequate enough to kind of fit what their needs are and what our needs are. But other than that, it's not really impacting us in that way.
We have our agreement with the Mets in terms of not having head-to-head events and things of that nature, but I haven't been super, super close to it other than, it's a significant investment, and I think it just adds to this overall complex of live, work, and play neighborhood and the biggest sports entertainment complex in New York City and one of the biggest in the country, between Citi Field, Etihad Park, the USTA, and everything else that they're doing and we're doing."
Hudson River Blue Staff
Q: There's reporting that FIFA is having problems generating enthusiasm for the World Cup this summer because of ticket prices, what's happening in the United States, stuff like that. How does that affect your approach to opening the stadium, and the team itself? Is there stuff to be gleaned? Things that you've noticed that are good, bad, ugly?
Brad Sims: "That's a loaded question. I don't personally feel like there's a lack of enthusiasm for the World Cup. I think there is a narrative about ticket pricing for the World Cup. I think that there's some geopolitical things happening right now that, who knows how long they're going to be happening or not and what kind of impact that's going to have, that weren't happening necessarily if we had this conversation a couple weeks ago.
