Screw Las Vegas and their one bone thrown to soccer with that whole “MLS Cup 2015″ thing. This is how you do stadium renderings in a modern America that is fully embracing the footy. “Go big or go home” as the saying goes. The New York Cosmos are going big. Like $400 million stadium complex big. Like 25,000 seats big. Like “we don’t need no stinkin’ MLS because we’re the god damned New York Cosmos” big.

The stadium proposal is part of an open submission process for the site, an unused space adjacent to Belmont Park, home of the Belmont Stakes thoroughbred race. So it’s not quite a done deal, but the renderings released by the revived Cosmos (before they’ve ever played a game as an actual team) make it newsworthy. The site that this stadium would occupy is less than 10 miles from the Flushing Meadows location at which MLS is attempting to build a team for a planned New York City franchise.

Click on the images to make them big. So you can see the detail, like the concerned look on that one girl’s face as she walks through the concourse. I think maybe her dog ran away and she’s getting the bad news.

An Applebee’s AND a Coldstone Creamery? Sweet.

So far, this is just a plan. And as we’ve seen with stadium proposals in the past, plans mean nothing until shovels are in the ground. It’s always fun to look at pretty pictures and imagine the possibilities, though. 25,000 people to watch the New York Cosmos in NASL? It’ll be just like the glory days! Except for that whole “second division with no promotion to the first division possible” thing.

Give it up to CEO Seamus O’Brien and the Cosmos for knowing how to make a proper splash. Boy, things are going to be awkward when O’Brien and Don Garber end up at the same cocktail party. Which you know they will.

For the full Cosmos stadium design experience, go here.