The Cosmos have called ten stadia and two arenas home since the club’s inception in 1971.
Although Yankee Stadium in the Bronx was home for the Cosmos’ inaugural season in 1971, the club’s home debut was made at Hofstra: an exhibition on April 28 against the Eastern College Coaches Association Senior All-Stars. The Cosmos were scheduled to play their 12 regular season matches at Yankee Stadium, but the baseball tenants reserved the right to veto any game due to weather just hours before kickoff. Six games were postponed.
One 1971 game was moved to Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City, NJ. It was a 3-1 win over the Dallas Tornado that opened a doubleheader capped by Bologna v. West Ham United, and which drew a crowd of 9,000. That game in Jersey City attracted the second-largest home crowd that year, after 19,739 showed up in the Bronx for a match against the Rochester Lancers. But that also was a doubleheader. It included a friendly between Deportivo Cali and Santos that featured future Cosmos talisman Pelé as the star attraction.
Since Yankee Stadium had proven less than hospitable that inaugural season, when the Cosmos played their first home playoff game on Sept. 5, they opted to host at Hofstra.
Hofstra served as home for NASL games in 1972 and 1973, and it would also serve as the Cosmos’ training ground from 1972 through 1976. Since the size of Hofstra Stadium at the time wasn’t large enough to accommodate the club’s long-term ambitions, club owner Warner Communications tried unsuccessfully to secure the Singer Bowl in Flushing Meadows as a soccer stadium and concert venue. When that fell through, the club decided to renovate Downing Stadium on Randall’s Island—or Drowning Stadium on Vandal’s Island as it was called—in the East River. The Cosmos played there in 1974 and 1975.
After two seasons at Downing, the Cosmos went back to the Bronx for the 1976 NASL regular season at Yankee Stadium. It was unavailable for the playoffs that year, however, so Shea Stadium was home for a day on Aug. 17.
In 1977, the Cosmos moved west of the Hudson River into Giants Stadium at the sparkling new Meadowlands Sports Complex in East Rutherford, NJ. The Cosmos also made Giants Stadium their full-time training facility, leaving Hofstra, where they had trained since 1972. Although some in the organization feared playing at a venue that couldn’t be accessed by train, when 77,691 fans gathered to witness the Aug. 14, 1977 playoff game against the Fort Lauderdale Strikers—setting an NASL attendance record—the arrival of Cosmos Country was confirmed. For 70 consecutive home games of NASL play, the Cosmos drew crowds of 30,000 or more. The streak ran from 1977 to 1981.
In addition to Giants Stadium, Meadowlands Arena served as home for the 1981-82 indoor season. Skipping a year before returning indoors, the Cosmos split their 1983-84 indoor games
between Brendan Byrne Arena and Madison Square Garden. Although arenas in upstate New York and Connecticut were considered for the 1984-85 Major Indoor Soccer League season, the club remained at the Meadowlands for its last indoor campaign.
The last league match played in New Jersey was at the Meadowlands Arena on Feb. 19, 1985. The Cosmos broke a five-game losing streak with a 10-6 win over the Kansas City Comets with four goals from Mark Liveric and a hat trick from Angelo DiBernardo, along with goals from Dragan Vujović, Robert Meschbach and legendary Brazilian defender Carlos Alberto.
Although the club planned 15-18 friendly matches for 1985 at Giants Stadium, only three were played. The last was a 2-1 loss to Lazio on June 16 that ended in a rain-drenched brawl.
A Cosmos Reunion match was held at Giants Stadium on July 21, 1991. A crowd of 31,871 supporters turned out to watch two squads of 52 Cosmos alumni compete in a doubleheader. The Cosmos lost 5-0 to a squad of Italian masters and played to a 0-0 draw against a similarly composed Brazilian select side.
The New York Cosmos’ return to competitive play at Shuart Stadium on the campus of Hofstra University in Hempstead, NY, on Aug. 3, 2013 was truly a homecoming. It marked a return to the site of so much of the club’s early history, and to the only one of its prior outdoor home stadia still standing. Before moving to the Meadowlands in 1977, the Cosmos used Hofstra as their training facility. But in 2013-2019, Mitchel Athletic Complex in nearby Uniondale, NY, was used for that purpose. When the Cosmos claimed their seventh title in 2015 with a win over the Ottawa Fury at Shuart—the same venue at which they won their first back in 1972—a fantasy was fulfilled for long-time Cosmos supporters.
The nostalgia trip in Hempstead was a stopgap measure, though. Before the “Reboot” kicked off, the Cosmos submitted a proposal to the Empire State Development Corp. on Jan. 11, 2013 for a 25,000-seat soccer stadium at Elmont Town Crossings near Belmont, which straddled Queens and Nassau counties. The proposal sent a surge of optimism throughout Cosmos Country, where fans were desperate for the club to have a soccer-specific stadium where it was the primary tenant. Nassau County served as a home base for much of the second NASL era, but other stadia were needed to host Cosmos home matches in 2013-2020.
Belson Stadium on the campus of St. John’s University in Queens was the site of the Cosmos successful NASL title defense and eighth league championship on Nov. 13, 2016. Indy Eleven were defeated on penalty kicks. Belson also served as home for U.S. Open Cup matches in 2014 and 2015. The Cosmos defeated the Brooklyn Italians, 2-0, in the third round on May 28, 2014, and returned to Belson on May 27, 2015, for another third-round win, 3-0, over the Jersey Express.
Weeks after the NASL final at Belson, the Empire State Development Corp. on Dec. 9, 2016, rejected the Cosmos’ stadium proposal for Belmont. What looked for a time to be a done deal wound up a dream deferred, creating a nightmare scenario for a club suddenly in crisis.
Back in 2015, MCU Park in Brooklyn became the seventh stadium to host the Cosmos, with a 1-0 regular season win over Ottawa on May 2 and a 2-1 playoff win over the Strikers on Nov. 7. The latter set up the 2015 NASL final at Hofstra on Nov. 15th, that thrilling 3-2 victory over
Ottawa that clinched the club’s seventh championship. The Cosmos then began the search anew for a home of their own, calling the Coney Island stadium home for 2017. That was the last season played before the NASL’s second division sanction was denied, forcing the league to suspend operations.
Columbia University’s Rocco B. Commisso Soccer Stadium in Manhattan hosted several Cosmos B NPSL matches and a friendly against St. Pauli on May 23, 2019. Other NPSL matches were played across the street from Shuart at Hofstra University Soccer Stadium and at Mitchel Athletic Complex, where the ghost-game, closed-door NISA matches were staged before team operations were suspended after the fall 2020 season.
With the news that the Cosmos will resume team operations and compete in USL League One beginning in 2026 at Hinchliffe Stadium in Paterson, NJ, for the first time in the club’s history the Cosmos will not be merely tenants. At long last, the club has a home of its own—at a stadium with a rich legacy of its own—in the heart of Cosmos Country