After the San Francisco Unicorns made a splash in Oakland and took a major step toward a true home field, another MLC team is hot on their heels.
The Washington Freedom, fresh off landing with a thud in the 2025 grand final, have their stadium site picked out on what is known locally as the “Gateway Property” on the banks of the Monocacy River in Frederick, Maryland, a city of about 85,000 people 45 miles north of Washington, D.C. and 50 miles northwest of Baltimore. Most people have seen at least one layout of the plan, but the Freedom submitted multiple different versions to the City of Frederick for zoning. Behold!
The team is proposing a facility with a capacity of 10,000, with 5,000 seats and greenspace for 5,000 people in the vein of New Zealand’s Hagley Oval (i.e. lawn chairs strongly encouraged and we’ll see about coolers). It could be expanded to up to 25,000 in the event of truly massive games, like, say, an India tour. They are proposing a park around it and as little asphalt as possible, and they have worked to get out in front of potential issues. They have gotten a tentative thumbs-up from the nearby airport (and also from the FAA) on the proposed spots for the stadium lights, and are also working with a local archaeology firm to preserve any historical resources on the site. (Frederick has been a major waypoint since European settlement began and saw combat and occupation during the Civil War.) The land is currently occupied by a driving range.
To achieve their ultimate goal, the Freedom need a very specific portion of the Gateway Property rezoned from General Commercial to Institutional Floating Zone, and are willing to pony up $1.5 million for road improvements in addition to funding the construction of the stadium entirely with their own money: something that’s not all that common with these matters and becomes a frequent point of resistance among the public in any community (which is a valid response and, frankly, the correct one). The zoning change is the linchpin of the process: with private funding on private land, a stadium is a go at that point, whatever it ends up looking like.
That rezoning was given a favorable recommendation by unanimous vote of the Frederick Planning Commission last week on Tuesday night with a few small amendments, moving it onto the Frederick City Council on Thursday, where it was given its first reading and scheduled for a City Council workshop coming up tomorrow at 3:30.
"I think our team is well aware of the intense public interest in this project and fully appreciate the concerns that have been raised," said Bruce Dean, a local attorney specializing in land use and real estate who had two clients in front of the Planning Commission that night. "I have been practicing land use law in this city for over 40 years now, and this is my first sports venue. So I get it, it's very different from typical development that [Planning Commissioners] see, it's very different from typical development the public sees, and it's very different from development that I work on."
A favorable recommendation at this early stage of the process was never really in doubt, and the Freedom’s representatives haven’t raised any objections to amendments and stipulations added by the city, but they still had to wait a while to get that recommendation.
The Planning Commission meeting lasted over five hours, three and a half of which were related to Washington’s pitch - public comment and team response took up almost all of the final two hours of the night. At the City Council meeting on Thursday, public comment on the stadium alone lasted nearly an hour of the roughly 1:45 runtime.
"We welcome your comments and we really welcome working with [the public]," said Washington GM Rohit Anand. "If there is an impression that we haven't been engaging, we certainly have, and we will continue to engage with everyone as we go through the process."
Well, “engaging” is definitely a word for the public response.
Almost all of the public comment both nights was in opposition. That’s not surprising given that these sorts of issues tend to galvanize opponents far more than supporters, and the opponents played all the NIMBY hits, scrolling by like one of those compilation CD commercials from the 90s:
There Will Be Lights! And Noise!What About The Traffic?I Found A Technicality (That Can Be Addressed In Five Minutes)This Will Force Me To Look At People I Don’t Know SometimesHow Dare There Be Cars On Our Roads!What About The Traffic? (Reprise)And the timeless classic, This Is A Good Idea, Just Not Here
Two CDs $26.99, two cassettes $21.99! Rush shipping is available!
That’s not to say some of the issues raised aren’t valid concerns about the stadium project instead of laments for the state of American transit infrastructure.
A 100-year floodplain cuts through most of the site and, as-is, would flood the pitch square and potentially do catastrophic damage to a playing surface. Simply grading the field in such a way to totally prevent flooding passes that strain farther downriver, and there is a neighborhood either side of the Monocacy immediately downriver from the stadium site… including one in a low-lying area where losing that floodplain north of them could affect up to a dozen homes. Part of the reason the team doesn’t want a lot of concrete and asphalt (like, say, for parking lots) is specifically to avoid a situation where whatever work they have to do oj the site doesn’t exacerbate that anymore than necessary, but that will be little comfort to the folks on River View Court that might have to buy flood insurance once the stadium is built if they didn’t have to already.
The parking plan will also need some creativity: the current proposal calls for extremely limited on-site parking, which is a tough sell given that Frederick is remote from the rest of the DC metro and extremely car-dependent. Ticketing and towing people parking on residential streets is straightforward enough, but finding a place for all those cars to actually park could prove thorny. In an effort to allay concerns, the Freedom have explored off-site parking arrangements with the nearby National Guard armory for possible parking, but people would have to cross a busy highway to get to the facility, and then cross back at night. They have also explored Frederick’s fairgrounds to the tune of some 4,000 spaces, using shuttle buses to spread out potential congestion to areas already built to accommodate it. The Francis Scott Key Mall, the train station nearby, and even Harry Grove Stadium, where the Frederick Keys play, were all mentioned as places they could park cars and shuttle fans to the Frederick Oval. (The Keys being cool with that is very optimistic.)
Those are tentative sites, though; understandably, no deals have been reached because there is no venue yet. The team repeatedly mentioned the possibility of hosting other events like high school graduations there (one that came up multiple times), but those things almost always require significant on-site parking in cities like Frederick, something that makes the team look detached from the way a community like this functions. Or most American communities, for that matter.
They also propose cutting down on out-of-town traffic by establishing a regional shuttle network, busing people in from Leesburg (26 miles), Bethesda (37 miles), Tysons (44 miles), and… Baltimore?! The Baltimore that’s like an hour away?!
That is… huh.
The idea of shuttling fans in from significant distances on any kind of bus - city, charter, or party - is extremely far-fetched. Imagine being on one of those buses if it rains. You’re stuck until they call the game and bring the buses around to take you back; if you drive, at least you can hit a drive-thru on the way home or improvise and make the most of a night where play looks unlikely. The Freedom could find far better uses for the money that effort will cost, like improving the on-site facilities at the margins or filling an outdoor pool with chocolate pudding or just lighting it on fire. At least then you’d have a fire.
When I first heard about a possible stadium in Frederick several months ago, I was unconvinced that it was in the best interests of any of the involved parties, not least of all the Freedom. If it goes through, I have zero doubt that Sanjay Govil will spend the money to build a fine facility, but the plans for the stadium itself feel much more sound than the plans for actually getting people there. Logistics matter, and the proposals the Freedom have put forward for the logistics of something as basic as attending a game at this facility feel like they haven’t gotten past the spitballing phase.
The thinking may be that a remote stadium is better than no stadium at all, but that might not hold true in practice. It’s not as simple as “If you build it, they will come” when it’s a brand-new sport for most Americans and 15-20 miles farther out from the heart of the city than most of the suburbs Major League Soccer built in 20-ish years ago. It’s far enough away from DC that calling them the Washington Freedom kinda feels like false advertising.
But nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? This also presents an opportunity in a city this size, where cricket has a chance to become Frederick’s thing, something that makes it stand out in the regional sporting landscape among its peers as Minor League Baseball gradually recedes from the area around DC, leaving Woodbridge’s stadium empty and Frederick’s with a summer collegiate team. Contrast that with having 15 of the 50 or so best cricketers in the world lacing up the pads on any given night, and it feels like a real opportunity to turn people onto a sport they’ve probably never seen in person before or even thought much about. These are the kinds of communities cricket will need to reach eventually anyway to take serious root in the US, so might as well get started now.
For that to succeed, though, the Freedom have to convince the people of Frederick that they’re serious about Frederick as a home and not just a means to an end. Getting shovels in the ground may end up being the easy part.