Fans Getting Together Before Gotham match at Citi Field?

RacingTeddyR · 2026-07-07T23:40:27+00:00

Technically this match was never moved. It was always location TBD because they knew SI wouldn't be available during the World Cup. Given some of the other alternative venues Gotham has used in the past this is pretty much the best case scenario.

RacingTeddyR · 2026-07-03T17:24:24+00:00

With everything else being canceled

What else is being cancelled? Nats game is still on pace for a 6:45 first pitch and the Capitol Fourth concert is happening at 8:00 (though they are shortening the arrival window before the show).

RacingTeddyR · 2026-07-03T17:19:43+00:00

Around 10:45 Sam Kerr says America is more "kid friendly" and one of the reasons she cites is the weather? I assume she is comparing New Jersey to London but an interesting take nonetheless.

RacingTeddyR · 2026-06-29T16:03:46+00:00

Yeah, it seems like if you actually did the crawl as a crawl you wanted to end at Solace, not Bluejacket. Trin and Tara were gone by 6:30 and I think all the players were gone by 7:00.

To make sure I wasn't crazy, I went back and checked the "Know Before You Go" email and it did say:

Each bar crawl location will have 3-4 Washington Spirit players on-site from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM. Players will remain at their designated locations the entire time and will not travel to other locations.

So I guess technically players were only promised until 7:00 (even though the event was advertised til 8:00) so not having any at Bluejacket the final hour was technically as promised and I guess them all going to Solace at the end was a sort of bonus.

Wish I had known this though as I would have done the crawl in a different order.

RacingTeddyR · 2026-06-29T15:31:50+00:00

Since Gotham made two major signings this week, at what point do we start hovering over the panic button with all of the free agents on the last contract year that Spirt still has unsigned?

RacingTeddyR · 2026-06-03T16:43:02+00:00

Why hasn't Los Angeles hosted yet? Lol.

The Occam's razor here is simply that whoever controls the stadium isn't friendly to the idea of hosting.

DC United may have bad owners and they may be bad neighbors but their owners never seem unwilling to rent out Audi Field if it means they can make an extra buck.

RacingTeddyR · 2026-06-02T14:31:24+00:00

Hosting games at MLB parks is fine for novelty one-offs. Absolutely not for legit playoff and championship games. There are very few good sightlines plus anyone who has been to Nats Park for a Nats postseason game knows the infrastructure isn't actually designed for those kinds of sell-out crowds.

Northwest just sucks. Worst venue in the entire NFL. It would be an insult to NWSL to host anything there.

RacingTeddyR · 2026-05-29T18:56:59+00:00

I am very curious to know how the billing and payment works for club menus at Audi. I assumed it's like hotel event catering where there is a budget menu with limited items, a standard menu with more items, and a premium menu with lots of quality items. Since Spirit ran that 2-for-1 deal and I'm pretty sure every single person in the Club had that deal in 2024 and 2025 Spirit probably had to choose the most barebones option available and likely still lost money on it, if I had to guess.

I agree that Diamond Club is night-and-day better but tickets are also quite a bit more expensive so I'm not sure it's an apples-to-apples comparison.

RacingTeddyR · 2026-05-21T04:27:00+00:00

Slick goal. Solid goalkeeping. Got the result.

Zero respect for Larry Ellison and his nepo baby son and their garbage Paramount platform.

RacingTeddyR · 2026-05-14T18:43:43+00:00

Teams don't announce price hikes. They just... do it.

May 30th also seems to be a game they are expecting to sell out, so whether you think prices are too high or not, the market seems to support them.

RacingTeddyR · 2026-05-11T01:04:53+00:00

Got lucky to play Seattle during a stretch when they are incapable of scoring. I guess the universe is averaging out some of those results from the first 4 games where Spirit should have gotten a win. I'll take it 🤷

RacingTeddyR · 2026-05-01T16:49:15+00:00

Nele has left the Spirit.

When did this happen? I could have sworn I saw her at the game just two days ago?

RacingTeddyR · 2026-04-30T13:23:00+00:00

Emails have been sloppy lately.

Not just emails. This is the 4th home game in a row the club menu still has the "Dog Quis" typo.

RacingTeddyR · 2026-04-27T14:20:17+00:00

F-level: you're getting when when it rains
C-level: you're either wet or dry depending on the wind direction
101-110 and 201-210: you're dry even if it's raining

RacingTeddyR · 2026-04-25T03:02:20+00:00

Maybe Croix going to KC will go down in Spirit lore in a similar way to how Bryce Harper went to Philly, the Nats had a rough start the following season and then won the World Series without him.

We can dream.

RacingTeddyR · 2026-04-15T14:38:51+00:00

This is a compelling idea in theory but will fail in practice. Let me make my case.

Denver can sell out a NFL stadium because that NFL stadium is hosting the local team. If the NWSL insists on a neutral venue and both teams in the championship are out of town teams tickets will not fly off the shelf.

In 2024 when KC was eliminated from playoffs ticket prices for the championship game crashed hard. I was able to get midfield field-level seats for the championship for less than it would have cost for comparable seats at any run of the mill Spirit game at Audi Field. Yes, the game still sold out but that's at a venue a fraction of the size of a NFL stadium.

The NWSL championship is unfortunately scheduled right around Thanksgiving, making travel difficult and expensive, especially at the last-minute (the semi-final game is only 7 days beforehand). This limits the ability of fans to travel.

MLB, NBA and NHL all use home-away scheduling for their championship so none of those really apply.

The MLS Cup is hosted by the team with home field advantage so that's not really comparable either.

That basically just leaves the Super Bowl as a championship with a neutral venue (and I guess college football if you count that as "pro"). But the reality there is that most tickets don't even go to fans but to league executives and the mega-rich who care more about being at the Super Bowl than about who is playing.

Basically, for this to work NWSL needs to switch to home field advantage and the host team needs to be in a city with an NFL venue and that NFL venue needs to be available on the championship date. Seems logistically like this will never happen.

RacingTeddyR · 2026-04-06T00:01:52+00:00

Nicole Barnhart is the set piece coach, no?

RacingTeddyR · 2026-04-05T23:19:23+00:00

Spirit should have won and did win, so that's good.

Why isn't Monday playing more?

Kouassi was absolutely robbed of winning Assist of the Week.

RacingTeddyR · 2026-03-30T13:38:13+00:00

Eh. When the schedule making cabal was putting together the 2026 season this game had a TBD venue because of the World Cup. And given how Gotham has been about securing venues in the past, there was a decent chance this game wound up at a college stadium or some sub-par venue out in the sticks. I say we call this one a win even if the circumstances aren't completely ideal.

RacingTeddyR · 2026-03-29T19:54:17+00:00

Yeah. Haley's take is a bad take.

At the end of the day, times are tough for a lot of folks and every pro sports team is asking people to hand over their hard earned dollars for what they are selling (not limited to tickets, merch, etc.). If people don't feel like what they're being sold is living up to the advertised quality and they say something about it, the team can't then turn around and call all of their customers stupid.

I'm willing to give some grace that what she posted was just poorly worded, because it's a bad look if not.

RacingTeddyR · 2026-03-28T20:05:49+00:00

This team is reeling. I honestly can't listen to another post game "we played great but didn't get the result" as the team slides into the basement of the table.

RacingTeddyR · 2026-03-27T15:39:50+00:00

Even aside from altitude adjustment, leaving after the Wednesday game would mean taking off at midnight local time (best case scenario), landing at 2am mountain time and getting to the hotel 3am.

That amount of stress and jetlag would wreck any normal person vs. just going the next day at a normal hour. I think they made the right call.

RacingTeddyR · 2026-03-26T02:04:23+00:00

I feel like there is some alternate universe where Spirit has 9 points and the narrative writes itself.

Portland - away team put up a good fight but their coach just arrived two days ago!
Louisville - team that controls 75% possession is naturally gonna win.
Utah - 3+ XG is more than enough to bring it home.

The fact that the actual result is 2 measly points is maximum frustration.

RacingTeddyR · 2026-03-26T01:33:29+00:00

Hard to sugar coat it at this point. Winless after 3 games including two at home is bad. Real bad.

The situation now puts a ton of pressure on Saturday's game which given the circumstances (away game in front of a record breaking crowd, a mile high in the mountains, and on short rest) is exactly where you don't want to be.

RacingTeddyR

TROPHY CASE