NYC's ballfields are booked solid: permits up 48% in a decade, and only 5% of fields have lights

Finding an open field in a New York City park has become its own competitive sport. The Parks Department permitted 48% more daily reservations for organized sports on public athletic fields in 2025 than a decade earlier, according to permit data obtained and analyzed by The City Reporter and the data site The Pudding.

The numbers

• 223,860 permitted field reservations were issued in 2025, a record after a pandemic dip in 2020.
• Nearly 1,850 organizations held permits, about 310 more than in 2015.
• About 75% of permitted reservations each year since COVID went to youth sports, compared with roughly 55% a decade ago.
• Just 5% of the city's roughly 5,850 active athletic facilities have lights, according to Parks data cited by the outlet.

Who is squeezed

The crunch cuts every way. In Murray Hill, parents said their kids were moved off the St. Vartan Park field each evening by permit holders after the playground there closed for renovation. In East Williamsburg, a 55-and-over softball league that has played at Sternberg Park for decades lost one of its weeknight permits last year. Teenagers at Brooklyn Bridge Park's Pier 5 posted a video asking Mayor Zohran Mamdani to keep one field open at all times, and the Harlem Jets youth football program says it practices on Randall's Island because Harlem fields are taken, The City Reporter reported.

Even large leagues struggle. Tarek Pertew, who runs NYC Footy, the city's largest adult recreational soccer league, called permitting "the single most frustrating aspect of this job" and wrote to Parks in an April letter asking for temporary lighting and more adult access, noting that soccer draws far more permit applications than baseball and softball. Parks changed its rules in 2024 to give nonprofits priority; youth groups already come first.

Ken Conyers, the department's director of citywide athletic permits, told the outlet Parks keeps refining scheduling so fields are used "fairly and efficiently." Parks Commissioner Tricia Shimamura said, "In the long term, we need more fields and more lights."

Where to play late at night

The city's NYC Open Play pilot keeps one soccer field in each borough lit for free pickup games from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. every night in October and November, then again from April through September 2027, the Mayor's Office announced on Oct. 5. Parks normally issues permits for lit fields only until 10 p.m., Gothamist reported.

• Bronx: Soundview Park
• Brooklyn: Calvert Vaux Park
• Manhattan: Harlem River Park
• Queens: Astoria Park
• Staten Island: Fairview Park

Play is for adults 18 and older, set up as 7-on-7 and run on site by NYC Footy; players sign a waiver at nycopenplay.com and can drop in or book a field. During the summer World Cup pilot, 4,531 people played in 696 bookings, and Calvert Vaux Park was the busiest site with 1,448 players, the city said.