Gotham F.C., the Women’s Soccer Team, Is Leaving New Jersey for Queens

Every soccer team that’s still in the World Cup wants to get to New Jersey for the final on July 19. But one professional soccer team is going in the opposite direction.

Gotham F.C., the defending champion of the National Women’s Soccer League, is set to announce on Tuesday that it is abandoning its current home in Harrison, N.J., and will play its home games at Etihad Park, the future home of New York City F.C. in Flushing, Queens. The stadium will open next year and Gotham F.C. will move there in 2028.

Since 2019, Gotham has been playing home games at Sports Illustrated Stadium in Harrison, home of the Red Bulls, N.Y.C.F.C.’s rival in Major League Soccer. But Gotham’s owners said the team can attract more fans in New York.

Carolyn Tisch Blodgett, the governing owner of the club, said the move is part of a grand ambition to make Gotham, winner of two of the last three women’s soccer league titles, as popular as any sports team in the country.

“Announcing this new stadium is the next chapter in the story,” she said.

Gotham has agreed to a five-year lease to play at Etihad Park with the possibility that the club could extend its lease “for a very, very long time,” according to Brad Sims, the president and chief executive of N.Y.C.F.C., the park’s builder and main tenant. The stadium is still under construction, but set to open next spring.

According to Ms. Tisch Blodgett, whose family owns part of the N.F.L.’s New York Giants, Gotham conducted research that showed the move to Queens would put an additional three million fans within commuting distance of home games.

“We think it will tremendously open up our fan base,” she said in a telephone interview.

The team averaged over 8,500 fans per game the last two seasons at the Red Bulls ground, below the league average of just under 11,000. It has also played home games at Rutgers University and Montclair State, among others, over the years.

“We have been nomads in a sense,” said Yael Averbuch West, the president of soccer operations for the club, which was founded as Jersey Sky Blue in 2006. “We have some of the best players in the world, and they deserve to be playing in an absolutely world-class arena, and be seen by millions of people.”

Many soccer fans and players feel the Harrison stadium is a superb venue, where Gotham recorded its greatest success.

“We are proud of the years shared together at Sports Illustrated Stadium,” stadium executives said in a statement that lauded Gotham’s notable triumphs. “Their achievements will always be a part of the stadium’s history.”

The club will retain a practical connection to New Jersey. Ms. Averbuch West grew up in Montclair, N.J., and played at the University of North Carolina before turning professional in 2009. During her pro career, she played in small college stadiums, some with multicolored lines intended for different sports, often with fewer than a couple of thousand in attendance. She dreamed of playing in packed stadiums designed specifically for soccer.

“That wasn’t my reality,” she said, “but I would have loved to have had that opportunity.”

Her players have it, but she said most or all will continue to live in New Jersey because that is where they will spend about 80 percent of their time. The team has agreed to move into and customize the Red Bulls’ old practice facility in Whippany, N.J., and train there.

But the New York City club has promised that when Gotham plays at Etihad, the digital signage and colors will reflect Gotham’s uniform and logo. That includes the main entrance cube, which Mr. Sims said was partly inspired by the Sphere in Las Vegas. He said it is nearly eight stories high with 12,000 square feet of LEDs.

He said the venue also hopes to host both U.S. national teams, women and men, and will bid to host lacrosse games and the Rugby World Cup, for both men and women, in 2031 and 2033. But after N.Y.C.F.C., the main alternate tenant will be Gotham.

“When it’s a Gotham match, we want fans to feel that they are at a stadium that was designed, built and executed for a Gotham game,” Mr. Sims said. “And if it’s a U.S. Soccer men’s or women’s team, it will feel like a U.S. Soccer home venue.”

New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul, and Mayor Zohran Mamdani of New York City each expressed delight that the city was able to poach the club from New Jersey.

“Bringing Gotham F.C. to Queens means that the young girl kicking a ball around Jackson Heights, Jamaica or the South Bronx will be able to take the train and watch some of the best players in the world in her own city,” Mr. Mamdani said in a statement.

Gotham will test out its future neighborhood on July 15, when it will play the Washington Spirit at Citi Field. Ms. Tisch Blodgett, who bought into the team in 2023, said the match is designed to build on the momentum from the World Cup, and it will be the first N.W.S.L. game in the city. She said ticket sales have already passed 30,000, breaking the record for the highest attendance at any women’s sports event in the five boroughs.

“When we came in with that vision, people looked at us like we were crazy,” she said. “This was a team that has some of the best athletes in the world but had a very small fan base, no real front office, no staff. The last two and a half years have been a methodical march toward building into this vision.”