D.C.’s Vacant Stadium Dilemma

Back in June, international soccer star Wayne Rooney joined a ribbon-cutting opening for a suite of new multipurpose recreation fields in Washington, D.C. He was an awfully big get for the event, given that these fields won’t be used by D.C. United, his (soon-to-be-former) team, or any other professional sports outfit. The Fields at RFK Campus is a venue for locals and amateurs, available for league play and pickup games.

For more than 20 years, D.C. United played at Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium, but the soccer team moved across town, to Audi Field in southwest D.C., in 2018. The Washington Nationals also called RFK home for its first three seasons in D.C. after the franchise moved from Montreal in 2005. Those aren’t even the only professional baseball and soccer teams that have held the fort at RFK, which is best known anyway for its three decades of service as the rumbly home of D.C.’s pro football franchise, which played its last game there in 1996. The city’s NFL games are now played at a built-to-order stadium in suburban Maryland.