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This Week In Cosmos: Season Tickets, Training Facility, And Open Tryouts

By

Dan Dickinson

Published Apr 11, 2013

Modified Apr 11, 2013

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Cosmos COO Erik Stover.

 

photo: New York Cosmos

By

Dan Dickinson

Published Apr 11, 2013

Modified Apr 11, 2013

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There's less than four months to go until the New York Cosmos return to the field after an absence spanning nearly three decades. We checked in with the team this week to learn more about their plans for the game day experience, their newly announced training ground, and their plans to travel the city searching for talent.

Public Season Ticket Sales Start Friday

While season tickets had been available for the dedicated fans who were willing to put down an early deposit, Friday marks the first day that Cosmos season tickets will be made available to the general public. With fall season tickets (consisting of seven home games and one bonus event at Hofstra University's Shuart Stadium) ranging from $96 to $680, we spoke to Cosmos COO Erik Stover to get his take on why area sports fans should come out to a Cosmos game.

"The first thing is that we anticipate creating a very special atmosphere there," said Stover. "We have an experienced staff that will establish a very professional, high-level game day experience. We've gotten a lot of traction so far with supporter groups...they're going to bring the passion and the energy and the excitement."

Stover emphasized his drive to ensure the club connected meaningfully with soccer fans. "We've talked very openly about building a proper soccer club, and I think if you're following the big leagues you understand what that means. It's not only your team on the field, it's the relationship you have with your supporters' group. Whether they're supporters sitting behind the goal or regular season ticket holders or just the occasional ticket buyer, it's having an open transparent relationship where it's a very real club environment."

With New York having a mix of soccer fans from around the world, some can be reluctant to watch American soccer leagues due to the quality of play being considered poor in comparison to Europe. But Stover was of the belief that the Cosmos on-field product may surpass expectations. "There are people that are tremendously passionate about [English second division] Championship or League 2 level clubs, and the quality of the play in the Championship is roughly equivalent to what we're going to see at Hofstra...if you're a passionate soccer fan, you're going to see good soccer. You're going to see attacking soccer, [head coach Giovanni Savarese] is not going to roll out a typical 4-4-2, play Route 1 and kick long balls. We're going to play with possession, and not useless possession, and so far we've done a good job of signing players that should play attractive soccer."

While the team doesn't yet have anything to announce regarding transportation options to help get fans from NYC to Hempstead—LIRR remains the best option—discussions are ongoing. "It's one of the things we're working on with pub partners. So if you're in Manhattan or Queens or Brooklyn, we're reaching out to local pubs to create a relationship where possibly there's a bus service. We're also looking at doing shuttle buses for free from the [LIRR] station in Hempstead."

While the NASL has no league-wide TV agreement, the Cosmos are also working to ensure that fans will have a chance to watch games even if they can't make the trip to Long Island. "[TV] negotiations are going well. I think we're going to have a good option when we get to our season....on the Internet, at the very least we will have streaming, but I think we're going to be able to do a little bit better than that."

One catch worth noting: Hofstra campus policies prevent the Cosmos from directly selling alcohol from the concession stands at Shuart Stadium. But Stover pointed to an exception that may be welcome news to the thirsty fan. "If you are a club seat holder or a suite holder, you have access to a private lounge. In those areas, alcohol is part of your ticket. So if you buy a club seat for us, for example, that's $95 a game, and included in your ticket price is food and beverage including alcohol. That's a pretty good value when you add it all up."

In the end, the Cosmos front office is so focused on appealing to area soccer fans that they will forego the usual sports ticket sales methods. "What's most important to us is that we're attracting passionate soccer fans. To that end, we're less focused on group sales. We will ultimately do that, because groups do bring in kids that play soccer and they do care about it, but our focus certainly right now is on finding passionate soccer fans that are from the New York metropolitan area that want to be associated with a club that they can be proud of, and that will help create that game day environment."

The Cosmos kick off their first season in nearly 30 years on August 3rd, when they take on the Fort Lauderdale Strikers.

New Training Facility in Nassau County

The Cosmos started the week by announcing a tentative agreement with Nassau County to create their training ground. The team plans to invest $400,000 to convert a dry dirt lot at Mitchel Field into a grass soccer pitch and sign a 10 year rental agreement. The field would be available for public use when the Cosmos aren't using it. While the deal still awaits County Legislature approval, the renovations would only require a two month turnaround.

The Cosmos would benefit from some of the facilities already at Mitchel Field that are under utilized. "They have this facility right next to it, that was built for the Goodwill Games," Stover told Gothamist. "It gets used, they do tournaments and things. It's roughly equivalent to the locker room corridor at a stadium. Four full-sized locker rooms, four coaches locker rooms, training rooms, storage space, on and on. But they don't really use it much during the week if at all."

One interesting detail is that the Cosmos training routine will not solely exist at the new ground. Stover explained: "We need a grass field. Soccer players prefer to train on grass fields. But our home matches [at Hofstra] are on turf, so it wouldn't make sense to train all week on grass and then play on turf. We wouldn't have any kind of home field advantage...I think we'll probably spend 75% of our time on that field, but we'll probably spend a day or two each week on a turf field when we're playing a turf game that weekend, whether it's home or on the road."

Stover also indicated that whatever the result of the Belmont stadium plan, the team has options regarding future training facilities. "We're optimistic that Belmont will go through, and if we end up staying at Mitchel Field, it's just 10 miles down the road, so it's not inconvenient in any way. If we have to look for another site, there's flexibility with our Mitchel Field lease. I think it's going to work extremely well in the short term, but we're set up to use it long term if needed to be."

Open Tryouts In All Five Boroughs

Could the next Pele be hiding undiscovered in New York City? The Cosmos certainly hope so, as the team prepares to hold five open tryouts across the city over the coming month.

In speaking with the team website, coach Giovanni Savarese outlined what they were looking for out of the participants: "I would say most importantly, we are looking for players that have good character and that are good teammates as well as players that are passionate about soccer and understand the importance of playing for the New York Cosmos. On the technical side, we are looking for players that are comfortable with the ball and that are dynamic. It is important that players also have the versatility to play in a number of different positions."

The team is expecting 80 participants per tryout. From each borough's tryout, the team plans to select one player, who will join the team at a pre-season training session for a further look.

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