NYC's Soccer Streets: 50 School Blocks Transformed Into World Cup Field Days

With one month to go before the opening match of the 2026 FIFA World Cup kicks off at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, New York City is taking the tournament to the streets — literally. On Monday, Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani announced the launch of Soccer Streets, a traveling series of field days visiting 50 public schools across the five boroughs through the final week of the academic year.

The initiative repurposes car-free blocks already operating under the city's Open Streets for Schools program, transforming them into day-long soccer pitches, art stations, and block-party celebrations. Students play pickup matches, run drills, and paint the flags of competing nations — a piece of the World Cup brought directly into the neighborhoods where they live.

"Soccer Streets takes that energy directly into our neighborhoods — closing streets to cars, opening them to play and making sure this celebration isn't reserved for people who can afford a ticket."

— Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani

How Soccer Streets Works

The activations are pop-up events, not permanent installations. Street Lab, a nonprofit that designs and runs programming in public spaces, leads each field day in partnership with the city. Chobani, the New York-based yogurt company whose CEO Hamdi Ulukaya has been a vocal champion of soccer in the United States, is the program's corporate sponsor.

Events take place either during school recess or after school hours, depending on the individual school's schedule and physical setup. The program has already been running since May 1 and will continue school by school through June 26, the last day of public school in New York City — just two weeks after the World Cup's opening match on June 11 and days before the first match at MetLife Stadium on June 13.

No two activations are identical. At each school, the street outside becomes a multi-use play space: youth soccer on improvised pitches, coaching-style drills led by Street Lab facilitators, and art stations where kids paint the flags and colors of the 48 nations competing this summer. The format is part field day, part block party, and part civic celebration.

Rooted in Open Streets, Scaled for the World Cup

Soccer Streets is an extension of NYC DOT's Open Streets for Schools program, which allows participating schools to close an adjacent street to vehicle traffic during school hours for recess, outdoor learning, and safer student pickup and drop-off. As of this spring, roughly 68 school streets operate under that program across the city — though not all are active every day of the week.

Street Lab was already embedded at several of those locations before this announcement, most notably at two Bronx schools, where World Cup-themed soccer activations had been piloted in the weeks leading up to the official launch. The Soccer Streets initiative effectively scales that pilot citywide, with dedicated programming at 50 schools rather than relying on each location to organize independently.

Schools not currently part of the Open Streets program can still apply for the 2026–27 school year — and those already in the program that want to host a Soccer Streets activation can reach out directly to Street Lab. City Hall has said participation is opt-in, not automatic.

"For so many schools, the street outside their door is the only outdoor space they have. Soccer Streets shows what's possible when we give that space back to kids — for play, for learning, for community."

— NYC DOT Commissioner Mike Flynn

The Accessibility Argument

The political framing behind Soccer Streets is clear and intentional. Tickets to World Cup matches at MetLife Stadium — already among the most expensive of any venue in the tournament — have remained out of reach for most New York City families. A stadium seat for a group-stage match has averaged well north of $300 on the secondary market, and transportation from Manhattan now runs $98 round-trip by rail or $20 by the sanctioned shuttle bus.

Mayor Mamdani has positioned Soccer Streets as part of a broader push to make the tournament feel like a city event, not just a stadium event. The same logic applies to the official fan zones — one per borough — that will allow residents to watch matches live on outdoor screens at no cost, including Fan Zone Queens at Louis Armstrong Stadium and the Telemundo Fan Village at Rockefeller Center.

Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels framed the initiative in educational terms: "Outdoor play and physical activity are essential to the whole child. Initiatives like this remind us that the street right outside a school door can be just as powerful a learning environment as the classrooms inside it."

World Cup Czar Maya Handa, the city official coordinating the broader portfolio of World Cup programming, echoed that framing: "Every borough will participate and every neighborhood should benefit from the World Cup coming to our city."

What This Means for Fans Visiting the City

If you are traveling to New York or New Jersey for a match this summer, Soccer Streets is worth knowing about — not because you will attend one, but because it reflects how the city is orienting its World Cup programming. The emphasis is on borough-level activation over Manhattan-centric spectacle, on free and open events over ticketed experiences.

For match day logistics and transit options to MetLife Stadium, see our complete guide to getting to MetLife Stadium from NYC. For neighborhood-by-neighborhood guides to where fans are gathering — from Astoria to Hoboken — visit our neighborhoods section. For a full calendar of free and low-cost World Cup events across the five boroughs, see our fan zones guide.