New York City FC just announced that the scheduled match against Columbus Crew this coming Saturday, August 9, is postponed and will now be played at Yankee Stadium on the night of Wednesday, September 17.
The reason: The grass at Citi Field.
A huge portion of the outfield grass in center field recently needed to be re-sodded and stadium owners and primary tenants the New York Mets won't permit any non-baseball events, namely soccer, to be held atop that grass for three weeks.
What necessitated such a drastic grass transplant in Flushing? A combination of two concerts recently held on the Citi Field grass, plus the extreme heat that gripped the New York area right after those concerts, led to major playing-surface problems. "To ensure the best and safest playing surface for all athletes, the field has been resodded. As a result, only baseball events are permitted at Citi Field for a minimum of three weeks while the field fully recovers," according to the official statement shared by NYCFC.
That Citi outfield sod looked rough, and hours of soccer would put it through a different kind of beating from what it gets during baseball games. The dead or barely-alive grass was deemed playable for the New York Mets, but not for NYCFC, so they'll now get an extra game in the Bronx later this season.
• MD 29: New York City vs Columbus Crew
Wed, September 17, Time TBA at Yankee Stadium
• MD 30: New York City vs Charlotte FC
Sat, September 20, Time TBA at Yankee Stadium
How K-pop led to postponement
The outlier events hosted at Citi Field that contributed to this grass catastrophe: Blackpink, the hugely popular K-pop group, performed twice at the Queens baseball stadium on the nights of July 26 and July 27.
The entirety of the outfield grass, as you can see above in a pre-show photo shared on Facebook, was covered with a stage and seating. The Mets were playing out west on a lengthy road trip in the days around the two concerts, but returned this past weekend to begin a stretch of six straight home games at Citi. The new sod put down for their post-concert home stand didn't look great to the naked eye, and apparently isn't up to the challenge of both soccer and baseball, at least according to the Mets and their groundskeepers.
If you watched any of those recent Mets games against the San Francisco Giants and Cleveland Guardians, you could easily notice how faded, brown, and blotchy the outfield grass looked. That temperatures reached the high-90s for almost all of the days immediately following Blackpink likely didn't help the new grass out.
The end result is a postponement for New York City FC, though it wasn't possible to relocate this Crew match so it could still be played elsewhere in the area on the same date.
The New York Yankees are home playing the Houston Astros at Yankee Stadium all this weekend, while Sports Illustrated Stadium in Harrison, NJ, is hosting Gotham FC vs Washington Spirit at 12:00 pm ET. Rescheduling the match against Columbus wasn't a straightforward task, but NYCFC found a date for the game to still be played in the city at Yankee Stadium. One side effect: The Yankee Stadium match against Charlotte FC planned for Friday, September 19, is now taking place one day later, on Saturday, September 20, to allow for sufficient recovery time following the Crew's midweek visit to the Bronx.
September logistics sorted, in the near-term, this all means that New York City will go 12 days between games following the loss to Deportivo Toluca FC in Leagues Cup, as they'll next face Nashville SC on Sunday, August 17 at Yankee Stadium. Oddly enough that's the first-ever trip to the Bronx for Nashville, as they've only ever faced NYCFC at Red Bull Arena or Citi Field.
Concerts, soccer not a great pair
Speaking of what was once Red Bull Arena, the grass also looked pretty rough out there in the soccer-specific stadium in Harrison, New Jersey. That stadium also hosted two nights of concerts on its playing surface, with Rüfüs Du Sol, an electronic band from Australia, performing on Friday, July 25 and Saturday, July 26 — three days before Sports Illustrated Stadium started hosting Leagues Cup matches, when NYCFC lost to Club Puebla to open Leagues Cup.
Multiple concert-related grass issues – and there were issues, as the manager from Deportivo Toluca FC was reportedly outspoken in his dissatisfaction with the pitch – should be something of a caution to the local teams and stadiums directly involved, and also to New York City FC, since they plan to turn their own under-construction soccer stadium in Willets Point into a multi-purpose venue that also hosts some number of concerts.
That stadium won't open until 2027, so for now New York City remains at the mercy of what goes on at stadiums owned and operated by others. That means postponing the Columbus game, which means the team won't return to Queens for a match until Wednesday, September 24, when Inter Miami CF and their numerous big-name stars come to town – an MLS version of Blackpink, minus the songs but at least with the right colors on the jerseys.
Etihad Park, meanwhile, can't get here fast enough. New York City FC CEO Brad Sims namedrops the under-construction venue while apologizing to fans about this Crew match rescheduling, quoted in the club's release as saying, "...We understand and apologize for the inconvenience this causes our loyal fans and would like to thank them for their continued support and understanding as we navigate this period before Etihad Park opens in 2027."
Someday (in 2027) we'll all look back and laugh at New York City FC stadium-related nightmares like this latest one involving the Citi Field sod.
