New York City FC

New York City Football Club (often referred to as NYCFC) is an American professional soccer club based in New York City. The club competes in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the Eastern Conference. New York City FC is owned by City Football Group, a subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi United Group, with minority stakes held by Yankee Global Enterprises (owners of the New York Yankees) and investor Marcelo Claure.

New York City FC played its first league game in the 2015 MLS season, as the twentieth expansion team of the league; it is the first franchise based in the city, and the second in the New York metropolitan area, after the New York Red Bulls, with whom they contest the Hudson River Derby. Since 2015, the club has primarily played its home games at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. Beginning in the 2022 season, NYCFC has played at least six of its seventeen home matches at Citi Field in Queens, across the street from its future home, Etihad Park, which is scheduled to open in 2027. Several alternative venues have been used when Yankee Stadium and Citi Field are unavailable, including Sports Illustrated Stadium in Harrison, New Jersey.

After five years of performing well in the regular season but falling short in the playoffs, New York City FC won the 2021 MLS Cup. The club then won its first international trophy when they defeated Atlas at the 2022 Campeones Cup, becoming the first New York–based club to win an international trophy.

New York City FC is the fifteenth best attended club in the league, and the fifth most valuable, worth $1 billion, based on attendance data from the 2024 regular season and valuations by Sportico.

In early 2006, Major League Soccer had an interest in placing a second team in the New York City area, following the expiry of MetroStars' exclusive territorial rights as a condition of the creation of New York Red Bulls. By 2007, the league had held talks with several groups, including New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon and his family, about owning the second New York franchise. The Wilpons' interest in MLS reportedly faded following the family's losses in the Madoff investment scandal, but the league continued to look for investors.

In 2010, MLS commissioner Don Garber officially announced the league's intent to make its 20th franchise a second team in the New York area. At that point, the league hoped to have the new team beginning operations by 2013. Garber held discussions with the owners of the rebooted New York Cosmos, but they balked at the league's expansion fee and single-entity structure and decided not to apply for entry, instead joining the second-tier North American Soccer League.

In 2012, following a failed bid for a Miami expansion team led by Barcelona Garber reached out to Ferran Soriano, Barcelona's vice president at the time of the Miami bid, who had since been Manchester City CEO. In December 2012, unnamed sources told the media that Manchester City were close to being announced as the new owners of the 20th team of MLS, and the brand name "New York City Football Club" was trademarked, although the club quickly denied the report.

Manchester City, in association with the New York Yankees baseball team, paid the $100 million expansion fee to join the league. New York City Football Club, LLC was also registered with the New York State Department on May 7, 2013, and on May 21, the team was officially announced as the 20th Major League Soccer franchise.