KSHB 41 reporter Tod Palmer covers sports activities enterprise and jap Jackson County, together with Independence. Share your story idea with Tod.
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When the world’s soccer-playing nations convene for the 76th annual FIFA Congress subsequent month in Vancouver, the 2031 Women’s World Cup ought to be awarded to the U.S. as a part of a joint bid with Mexico, Costa Rica and Jamaica.
Without a competing bid, it’s thought of a formality that the CONCACAF-led bid will transfer ahead — and which may result in extra World Cup video games in Kansas City.
“I think that would be amazing,” Megan Garcia stated. “For a city that has embraced women’s sports and the Kansas City Current so tightly, we would love to see other women’s sports, other countries, come here to work with us.”
Garcia was among the many tons of of people that gathered Wednesday at Union Station for the second annual KC Current Kickoff Luncheon, sponsored by the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce.
“Kansas City understands something powerful,” Chamber CEO Joe Reardon stated. “Women’s professional sports are not a side story. They are an economic driver and a competitive advantage for our region.”
Kansas City is certainly one of 14 U.S. cities included in the 2031 Bid Book as a attainable host metropolis for the ladies’s event in 5 years.
“We’re proving a lot just with World Cup 2026, but I think the entire Kansas City region is electrified by the fact that we’re a world leader in women’s professional soccer,” Reardon stated. “There’s no doubt about it. I think FIFA saw that when they did the visit for ‘26 and we’re pretty bullish about trying to attract the events, like the Women’s World Cup, here, because of the great assets that we have.”
Six different cities chosen to host FIFA World Cup 26 video games — Seattle, Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta and New York/New Jersey — are also a part of the 2031 bid together with San Diego, Denver, Minneapolis, Nashville, Washington D.C., Charlotte and Orlando.
Kathy Nelson, who serves as president and CEO of each Visit KC and the Kansas City Sports Commission, is bullish about Kansas City’s possibilities, too.
“We’ve had great conversations, even at a state level, about what does this mean, and I think what’s great is the Chiefs, the Royals, Sporting KC, the KC Current — everyone’s like, how do we get this done?” Nelson stated. “We’re all learning even more and more with the World Cup in 26 and how to work together.”
But there’s a small complication that would affect Kansas City’s hopes.
Uncertainty surrounding points at Nissan Stadium in Nashville, which might be changed in 2027, helped sink the Music City’s bid.
The Chiefs introduced plans to desert GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium, which can host six video games in the upcoming Men’s World Cup, in January 2031 and construct a brand new stadium in Kansas. Could that sink the City of Fountains hopes in 5 years?
Nelson doesn’t suppose so.
“We have the current Arrowhead that we can use, then potentially a new Arrowhead, so we’re really in a really great spot,” Nelson stated. “We have some documents that are due in April then the big part we do later this year. But we’re very much in conversation with US Soccer, we’re in conversations, of course, with the county, with the city, and then with the Chiefs.”
During the 2023 Women’s World Cup, there have been three stadiums used through the group stage with seating capacities below 19,000, so it’s attainable Sporting KC’s Sporting Park or the Current’s CPKC Stadium, which can have expanded by 2031, may additionally host video games.
“We are absolutely in partnership with the folks here in the city that are working on that bid,” Current President Raven Jemison stated. “We are in lockstep.”
The metropolis’s soccer infrastructure is as spectacular as wherever in the U.S.
“We are a mecca of venues here, so those stadiums certainly are in play, maybe for a group-stage game,” Nelson stated. “All of those stadiums are being submitted in the next week or two. But there’s an opportunity there for a lot of different activity across the city.”
That nearly definitely would come with ladies’s base camps as properly.
Four groups, together with three of the highest seven in the FIFA Men’s World Ranking, picked Kansas City for the boys’s tourney — No. 2 Argentina, No. 4 England, No. 7 Netherlands and No. 28 Algeria.
The hope is to repeat that feat and be the Base Camp Capital of the 2031 Women’s World Cup, too.
“The Kansas City area has always embraced women’s sports and tried to elevate them,” Garcia stated. “We continue to do that with Kansas City Current and, worldwide, I’ve seen a huge change in that we’re seeing more and more women’s sports getting the recognition and the TV airtime that they deserve. … I’m ecstatic about this World Cup … but I’m hopeful to see the women’s, too.”
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