The 2017 New York Cosmos season will be the new Cosmos' fifth season of existence, playing in the new North American Soccer League. Including the previous franchise, this is the 19th season of a club entitled New York Cosmos playing professional soccer in the New York metropolitan area.

The 2016 season saw the Cosmos achieve a league-best 20-5-7 combined regular season record. In the Soccer Bowl playoffs, the Cosmos defeated Rayo OKC in the semifinals before beating Indy Eleven in penalty kicks in Soccer Bowl 2016 on November 13, 2016. It was the franchise's sixth division two honor. Including the previous franchise, it was the Cosmos' eighth Soccer Bowl title.

Following that successful 2016 Championship run, the Cosmos and the league faced serious questions on survival. In the week after the championship game, league officials and team owners met in Atlanta for a crisis meeting on November 29. Two franchises (Ottawa Fury FC and Tampa Bay Rowdies) had already made plans to leave for the USL. The Cosmos had already started laying off front office staff and entered furlough on other staff and club members.

On December 14, Cosmos chairman Seamus O'Brien publicly announced that the Cosmos will not field a team in 2017. The USSF still had not made a decision on the divisional status of the NASL or USL. The announcement and talks had been delayed several times, and O'Brien felt that the Cosmos could not play in a Division 3 sanctioned league. By this time the Cosmos had released all of their players and coaching staff from their contracts and left a skeleton crew to operate the front office.

The following players signed with other teams prior to the announcement of the Cosmos returning for 2017. (Danny Szetela had signed with the NASL expansion San Francisco Deltas but returned to the Cosmos.)

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