Juan Carlos Amoros is always subtle in demeanor, down to his usual all-black attire, so after Gotham FC's uninspiring 1-0 win over the Seattle Reign on Sunday, his subdued tone was hardly a surprise. His post-match remarks, though, were a departure from the victory lap a coach might take after winning in the NWSL quarterfinals.
"I feel the obligation to almost apologize for the state of the pitch," Amoros said. "I think at this level, in this kind of game, as a league, we should be having a better surface. Unfortunately, our football club did absolutely everything in their power to make sure that was the case. Unfortunately, it wasn't but luckily, it looks like nobody got hurt and the game was what it was."
He was hardly the only one to mention the grass at Sports Illustrated Stadium. It seeped its way into every post-match media availability, dominated conversation between the players and was a talking point amongst staff working that day. A dull stretch of grass with yellow-green splotches overshadowed one of the most important matches of the NWSL's season – and put the league on course for an unlikely downsize for Sunday's playoff semifinal between Gotham and the Kansas City Current.
Roughly 24 hours after Amoros' apology, Gotham moved Sunday's game to Icahn Stadium, a 5,000-seater on Manhattan's Randall's Island that they have played at just twice before. Sports Illustrated Stadium, the 25,000-seat venue in Harrison, N.J. that Gotham have called home since 2021, was available but concerns about player safety prompted an unwanted last-minute move.
"We as a team worked extremely hard to earn a home playoff berth," Gotham captain Tierna Davidson said in a statement on Monday. "What we got was a field that is not the standard this club, this league or our fans deserve. The quality of the game is not up for debate, so we've made the difficult decision to move to Icahn Stadium on Sunday. A smaller stadium means many of you will not be there, and that is the hardest part of this decision."
Monday's announcement was the final stage of a back-and-forth between Gotham and MLS' Red Bull New York, the primary tenants and operators of Sports Illustrated Stadium, one that highlights the logistical nightmares that have unexpectedly disrupted the NWSL's postseason.
One pitch, plenty of games
MLS' World Cup break this summer afforded RBNY the chance to install a new pitch at Sports Illustrated Stadium, the process complete by the team's July 25 loss to Charlotte FC. It was the perfect time for a reset ahead of a busy schedule for the new field – 17 other matches were a guarantee, while the potential postseason runs for both RBNY and Gotham meant the number could stretch well over 20 games before the year was over.
By the time Gotham had secured a home quarterfinal with a draw against Angel City on Oct. 4, there was little reason to suspect that the playing surface would become an issue. Matches are rarely relocated because of pitch quality concerns and the field at Sports Illustrated Stadium has historically been one of American soccer's best; it won the Sports Turf Management Association's award for professional soccer fields in 2021, the year Gotham moved in. The NWSL team did not have another home game until Nov. 1, a period in which RBNY played three home games and the stadium hosted a USA Rugby Fall Series doubleheader. Sometime before the early November fixture against the Royals, Gotham raised concerns with their landlords about the field conditions, the scars of the rugby games on Oct. 30 notably visible.
Nothing came of those complaints, though, and so the Royals match went on as scheduled but the conditions did not go unnoticed. The NWSL imposed a $10,000 fine on Gotham for the state of the field, even though they do not manage the venue as secondary tenants. The fine was not widely known – the NWSL Players Association said it was unaware of the punishment, while a source with knowledge of the matter said RBNY also did not know. Many found out about the fine after Reign head coach Laura Harvey mentioned it in a post-match press conference after the quarterfinal, but worry about the quality of the grass had already reached a fever pitch at that point.
Despite the fine, a field consultant working on the NWSL's behalf inspected the pitch at Sports Illustrated Stadium on Friday and declared that it met FIFA standards. The following day, RBNY hosted their regular season finale against Atlanta United and less than 18 hours later, another group took a look at the field in the hours building up to Gotham's win over the Reign. It was deemed playable on Sunday morning by representatives from the NWSL, the Professional Referee Organization and the NWSLPA, according to a source familiar with the situation.
Even from a distance, the grass appeared problematic. The sand that was left over from the rugby doubleheader still lined the pitch, while some rugby lines were faint but visible in certain spots. The players' review of the surface, though, was damning – Harvey called it "s---," Reign captain Jess Fishlock said it was "atrocious," and Gotham midfielder Jaelin Howell described it as "sandy" and "unstable." Gotham attacker Jaedyn Shaw also expressed concern that her planted foot would slip during corner kicks and all agreed that it ultimately impacted the teams' ability to compete.
lower bowl isn’t quite full at kickoff between Gotham and the Seattle Reign, though there are some fans in the upper bowl
— Pardeep Cattry (@pcattry) November 8, 2026
Gotham announced earlier that they sold 3,000 tickets through NYC Mayor Mamdani’s offer (including 1,000 in the first 10 minutes of sale)#NWSL pic.twitter.com/qviBM65bsz
A back-and-forth before the move
Gotham, in conjunction with the NWSL, spent the hours after their quarterfinal win discussing options with RBNY to improve the playing surface. The main solutions, according to multiple sources, were re-sodding the pitch – essentially ripping the existing field out and installing a new one – or a hybrid model in which artificial threads would be stitched into the existing grass. Both would be timely endeavors – the former would be longer while the latter might have been completed in time for Gotham to host the Current on Sunday.
There was just one problem. RBNY have a friendly against Club America scheduled for Saturday.
The game will serve as the final match of their season after they missed the MLS Cup playoffs and takes place during the men's international break, which means some players from both teams will be tied up with their national teams instead. Multiple sources said the NWSL could not guarantee that the hybrid model project would not actually be completed in time for RBNY's friendly on Saturday evening, even if it would have been ready in time for Gotham's Sunday afternoon game against the Current. RBNY were unwilling to proceed with the hybrid plan, as a result, and so Gotham chose to leave Sports Illustrated Stadium for Icahn Stadium.
RBNY still intend to play on the pitch that NWSL players complained about on Saturday and no changes to the field are expected to be made beforehand.
"We understand how frustrating the move is for Gotham and their fans. We had hoped to see Gotham continue its championship run at Sports Illustrated Stadium, too," RBNY said in a statement. "We invest in the pitch year-round, with a dedicated grounds team and specialist field partners, and it was cleared for every match played there this season. Those inspections continue for all remaining events this year. We worked closely with Gotham and the NWSL to address their concerns, but unfortunately the experts and the league couldn't guarantee the additional work they wanted to be completed could be done in time. We wish Gotham the best in their match."
The venue is not brand new to Gotham, who have hosted two games at the stadium in the last two years, and seems well-equipped to at least solve the main problem they faced at Sports Illustrated Stadium. Amoros complimented the quality of Icahn Stadium's pitch when Gotham hosted a Concacaf W Champions Cup group stage game there in Aug. 2025. Though it did not prompt Gotham's selection of Icahn Stadium to host that match, the New Jersey venue's field had also looked suboptimal in the run-up to the continental clash. RBNY subsequently replaced the pitch during that period, weeks before the U.S. men's national team played a friendly against South Korea on Sept. 6 last year.
"I don't really want to talk too much about it but the Sports Illustrated Stadium has traditionally been the best pitch in the league," Amoros said at the time, "and the last couple of games, it's definitely been far away from that so this pitch here is outstanding."
NWSL's underlying logistics issues
Gotham's last-minute switch to Icahn Stadium was a surprise in large part because an entirely separate scheduling issue had overshadowed the first week of the postseason.
The NWSL had two broadcast slots for the semifinals, Saturday at noon ET on CBS and Sunday at 3 p.m. ET on ABC, but did not exactly have the first-choice venues to host them. RBNY's Saturday friendly locked Gotham out of that time slot entirely if they wanted to play at Sports Illustrated Stadium, but they needed the Washington Spirit to beat the Portland Thorns for the Sunday window since the Thorns would be unable to hold a game that kicked off at 9 a.m. local time. The Spirit's lopsided win guaranteed Gotham would play on Sunday but they had their own issues – the Secretaries' Cup, a Division III college football game between the United States Merchant Marine Academy and the United States Coast Guard Academy, was taking place at Audi Field during the Saturday time slot.
The Spirit seemed destined for a semifinal at Northwest Stadium in Landover, Md., home of the NFL's Washington Commanders and a stadium they had never played in before, but late discussions with Audi Field's owners, MLS' D.C. United, and a contribution from sponsor Lafayette Federal Credit Union to underwrite the costs of the schedule change meant that problem was solved.
Gotham's move to Icahn Stadium, though, only reinforced the logistical issues that the NWSL has battled for its entire existence. The optics have favored the league in recent years, with the vast majority of their teams playing in state-of-the-art soccer-specific stadiums and managing to survive the constant game of venue Tetris. Scheduling conflicts, though, were never out of the realm of possibility, and many have marred the league this year. The Boston Legacy, for example, had to move home games from Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass. to Centreville Bank Stadium in Pawtucket, R.I., during the World Cup and will play there in 2027 while the construction project continues on Boston's White Stadium.
The issues that plagued Gotham and the Spirit, though, are in line with a different problem – control over facilities. Around half of the league's teams are secondary tenants in the stadiums they play in, so management of the venues is almost entirely out of their hands. It is unclear how quickly that will change for any of those teams. Gotham will leave Sports Illustrated Stadium for Etihad Park in 2028, but that stadium will be managed by MLS' New York City FC. They will continue to be secondary tenants in that building, which technically means they could be subject to the same problems they currently face. MLS' calendar flip next year will likely see the issue morph but not necessarily change. The leagues' postseason schedules will be different for the foreseeable future but teams like Gotham and the Spirit will still be at the mercy of their landlords in the meantime; Gotham's conflict with RBNY an example of just that. RBNY's friendly was the sticking point in their discussions over the pitch and ultimately took precedence over an NWSL semifinal.
Control over venues continues to weigh heavily in the NWSL's expansion process and is a key part of the issue that causes the most hand-wringing in the league's front office – the calendar. The Current might be the NWSL's gold standard as the owners and operators of CPKC Stadium, though they have been hamstrung by the NWSL's scheduling issues. Kickoff of their quarterfinal win over Angel City was at 11:30 a.m. local time because they were the only team able to take that broadcast slot on CBS. The since-ousted San Diego Wave could not host a game with a 9:30 a.m. local kickoff, while Gotham and the Spirit were locked out of their venues because of MLS matches on the same day.
There is a meet-in-the-middle approach, one that the NWSL might use as often as they can as the expansion process continues. A handful of teams share ownership groups with MLS teams, who chiefly own and operate their own stadiums and tend to treat the NWSL teams as equal tenants. The number will grow in 2028 when teams in Atlanta and Columbus, both owned by the local MLS clubs, will join the league.