The 2020–21 New York Cosmos season was the new Cosmos' sixth season of professional play and first playing in the National Independent Soccer Association. Including the previous franchise, it was the 20th season of a club entitled New York Cosmos playing professional soccer in the New York metropolitan area. New York finished 3rd in the Eastern Conference during the NISA Fall Season before failing to advance out of the group stage of the Fall Championship. Prior to the Spring Season, the team announced it would be going on hiatus. Background In the Cosmos final season in the North American Soccer League, the team earned a 10–15–7 combined regular season record and qualified for the playoffs as a fourth seed. In the Soccer Bowl playoffs, the Cosmos defeated Spring and Fall regular season champion Miami FC in the semifinals via penalty kick shootout. On November 12, 2017, the team lost to the San Francisco Deltas, 2–0, in Soccer Bowl 2017. Following the USSF's decision to deny the NASL division 2 sanctioning and the subsequent cancelation of the 2018 season, the Cosmos organization moved players and staff to the New York Cosmos B. This reserve team had already been playing within the semi-professional National Premier Soccer League, which was governed by the United States Adult Soccer Association, and had won its national title during its inaugural season in 2015. For the next two seasons using a mix of first team and reserve players, Cosmos B, playing games at both Mitchel Athletic Complex and Rocco B. Commisso Soccer Stadium, finished the regular season first in the North Atlantic Conference and won the conference playoff championship both times. In 2019, the team qualified for the NPSL National Championship but fell to fellow NASL cast-off Miami FC, 3–1, at Mitchell. The team also qualified for both the 2018 and 2019 U.S. Open Cup tournaments, the former being through special permission, and reached the Play-In and Second Rounds in each respectively. In 2019, the team attempted to rejoin the professional ranks within the NPSL's proposed professional league along with ten other teams. However, this never came to be and the originally titled "Founder's Cup," set to be a precursor tournament to the league, was renamed to the NPSL Member's Cup with the Cosmos first team taking part along with five others including Chattanooga FC and Detroit City FC. The Cosmos finished second in the competition behind