TJ Davis
Washingtonspirit.com
The Spirit will be calling Audi Field home for four games during the 2020 NWSL season as the club splits time between the Maryland SoccerPlex, Segra Field and Audi Field.
Completed on July 14, 2018, the Buzzard Point venue located in Washington, D.C has a capacity of 20,000 with 1,500 club seats and 31 suites. In addition to D.C. United and Spirit home games, Audi Field also hosts cultural events, community activities, and concerts.
The state-of-the-art facility has 500,000 total square feet of mixed-use retail and residential space on site, making it a 365-day destination for fans and D.C. residents alike.
Audi Field is highly accessible, providing Spirit fans with many different ways to reach the stadium on game day including metro, bus, bicycle and different ride-sharing services. Additionally, the Spirit will be providing transport from the Maryland SoccerPlex to Audi Field for all fixtures played there in 2020.
At Audi Field in 2019, the Spirit took home three points on August 24 against the Orlando Pride after Crystal Thomas’s snatch-and-grab score and Ashley Hatch’s bullet header. In the Spirit’s second game at Audi on September 14, Chloe Logarzo’s dramatic strike was the highlight of a 2-2 draw against Vlatko Andonovski and Reign FC.
Over the course of those two games, the Washington Spirit averaged an attendance of 18,644 and set a new club-record in attendance with a crowd of 19,871, more than double their previous record for attendance of 7,976.
The Spirit are planning to move all of their home games to Audi Field in the future. Spirit Owner Steve Baldwin said this on the Spirit at Audi Field: “The shared objective of the Washington Spirit and D.C. United is for us to play all of our matches at Audi Field, but we are both committed to making the transition to Audi when we know attendance there is enduring.”
(Photos by Xavier Dussaq)
