World Cup 2026 at Arrowhead?

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AlkaliAxel
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Re: World Cup 2026 at Arrowhead?

Post by AlkaliAxel »

GRID wrote: Mon Jul 12, 2021 1:51 pm
AlkaliAxel wrote: Mon Jul 12, 2021 1:38 pm I'm not sure about hotels, but on that graphic someone posted a while back, KC had more hotels than Denver.
Would be nice if 4 light was also a hotel.
If 4 Light is a hotel, it'll be ready by summer of 2026. So we could theoretically count on that helping the loads that summer.
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Re: World Cup 2026 at Arrowhead?

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KC 2026 just presented to media downtown. 10-12 cities will host in the US. KC will at least be home base for teams if not also hosting games at Arrowhead. KN said that so far FIFA likes the KC location and flight times to Mexico and Canadian host cities which have already been selected.

KC 2026 working with airport to answer questions or wants of FIFA’s

“When I look at our (soccer) facilities, I feel bad for other bidders.” Kathy Nelson
Last edited by normalthings on Mon Jul 12, 2021 2:41 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: World Cup 2026 at Arrowhead?

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GRID wrote: Mon Jul 12, 2021 1:51 pm
AlkaliAxel wrote: Mon Jul 12, 2021 1:38 pm I'm not sure about hotels, but on that graphic someone posted a while back, KC had more hotels than Denver.
No way. KC may have more "rooms". KC is at an interstate crossroads so it has a lot of low end suburban hotels. But Denver has way more higher end hotels. Loews has helped some, but the KC Westin may not stay a Westin much longer and KC doesn't even have a top tier Hyatt or Marriott and many other flags like W, four seasons, omni etc.

Would be nice if 4 light was also a hotel.

And the hotels by the stadiums have really tanked. Adams mark is closed and deteriorating. The Drury Inn has been changed to some lower chain. Really wish the city and county would clean up the truman sport complex area.
Westin & Sheraton are higher tier Marriotts now. 4 Light will have a W hotel if Cordish renderings are to be believed and plans haven’t changed
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Re: World Cup 2026 at Arrowhead?

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I stay at KC hotels all the time. Have stayed in all the downtown hotels. Last week, I was at Sheraton Crown Center and Hotel Phillips. We stay at Westin Crown Center all the time and have stayed at all the new ones including Loews.

The Westin in KC is worn out. Unless they do a major reno, that property won't stay a Westin. The Sheraton Crown Center is okay for a Sheraton. The new beds are really nice. But the hotel itself is really worn down and it shows. It also lacks top tier amenities. It's not a top tier hotel property anymore. A mid to top tier Marriot would be a JW or something higher.

KC's hotels are okay and it has some great ones like the Crossroads. But most are worn out and outside of Loews and maybe Intercontinental and a couple small plaza hotels, KC doesn't have a lot of high end hotels. Mainly because KC doesn't have a lot of corporations and biz travelers to support them, especially downtown.
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Re: World Cup 2026 at Arrowhead?

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normalthings wrote: Mon Jul 12, 2021 2:09 pm KC 2026 just presented to media downtown. 10-12 cities will host in the US. KC will at least be home base for teams if not also hosting games at Arrowhead. FIFA likes the KC location and flight times to Mexico and Canadian host cities which have already been selected.

KC 2026 working with airport to answer questions or wants of FIFA’s
This sounds verrrrry exciting. Any links you have for it? Finally something going our damn way with this bid that is liked and not criticized.
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Re: World Cup 2026 at Arrowhead?

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GRID wrote: Mon Jul 12, 2021 2:23 pm I stay at KC hotels all the time. Have stayed in all the downtown hotels. Last week, I was at Sheraton Crown Center and Hotel Phillips. We stay at Westin Crown Center all the time and have stayed at all the new ones including Loews.

The Westin in KC is worn out. Unless they do a major reno, that property won't stay a Westin. The Sheraton Crown Center is okay for a Sheraton. The new beds are really nice. But the hotel itself is really worn down and it shows. It also lacks top tier amenities. It's not a top tier hotel property anymore. A mid to top tier Marriot would be a JW or something higher.

KC's hotels are okay and it has some great ones like the Crossroads. But most are worn out and outside of Loews and maybe Intercontinental and a couple small plaza hotels, KC doesn't have a lot of high end hotels. Mainly because KC doesn't have a lot of corporations and biz travelers to support them, especially downtown.
I absolutely agree that renovation and new construction is needed. I more so saying Weston should be an upper tier hotel in the line up (if maintained properly). Nashville has been adding some great 400-600 room upper tier hotels around their convention center. Would like to see us do similar.

Grand Hyatt and Four Seasons would in my mind be a great adds to our hotel scene. I like W but we need to diversify away from Marriott.
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Re: World Cup 2026 at Arrowhead?

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Yeah, KC could really use a Grand Hyatt and Four Seasons, but KC doesn't even have a Hyatt Regency or JW Marriott.

I don't know what it takes to upgrade KC's existing hotel properties. So many of KC's hotels are dated. Staying at the Lowes is quite refreshing compared to most of KC's hotels. Hotel Philips is also is pretty bad shape FYI.

The old Hyatt tower is such a waste. That structure should be so much more than what it is.
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Re: World Cup 2026 at Arrowhead?

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Some friends just stayed at the Fontaine and i was surprised to hear them say it was just a typical hotel with a nice rooftop pool.
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Re: World Cup 2026 at Arrowhead?

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AlkaliAxel wrote: Mon Jul 12, 2021 1:38 pm I do think the streetcar helps in terms of, by 2026, you could stay anywhere down by Plaza and make it to a shuttle in downtown to the stadium for free. A part of the World Cup bid is they also acknowledge that thousands will come into KC just to be there, if we have games. That's where I think the streetcar also comes in handy.

I'm not sure about hotels, but on that graphic someone posted a while back, KC had more hotels than Denver.
the hotels are scattered across four counties. It's why busses would work so well. There's really not that many hotels from river market to plaza compared to the city as a whole. Stop thinking downtown and think multiple county planning in scale. It's the scale of event that could get people who will always vote no to change their mind about regional transit as a topic. HOV lanes, bus lanes on city streets, transit centers, accessibility to transit in terms of development patterns

There's no reason to shuttle from the plaza to downtown to a different shuttle when you can have an express bus travel down Blue Parkway to Eastwood to 435 and travel much quicker.

The best system would designate certain roads as nonstop express roads and everyone uses them. A big hotel would use their own shuttle all day too and follow the same route.

There would likely be priority routes for hospitals too. Maybe it's not a major reason, but being six miles by air from a pediatric trauma center has to be a positive. It's one of 35 in the whole country. I didn't look but I bet every city still in the running has one, which goes to show the type of amenities that is important to have available for a major world event.

It feels like KC isn't that far from punching far above our weight on more events since we have a lot of basics in place.
We aren't an Olympic caliber city, but if we get the World Cup it could turn the tide on hosting more events.
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Re: World Cup 2026 at Arrowhead?

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World Cup should be the catalyst to construct the hotels and parks needed to be a top choice convention city in 2027+
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Re: World Cup 2026 at Arrowhead?

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Well of course. If you host a World Cup here and do it succesfully...who can then ever doubt our ability to do "x". That's always been the knock- some boomer whines about "KC can't do this! We can't have these things!" should go to rest.

Big one could be the Super Bowl. It's now been bumped back to mid-February with the new schedule. Which really should be high-40's-low 50's on average most years here, so we should be able to host with an outdoor stadium with that weather. NY was allowed to do it in 2013 and they're even colder. I think we're juuust south enough to pull it off now with an outdoor venue in mid-Feb. Getting the World Cup should show we can do it.
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Re: World Cup 2026 at Arrowhead?

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GRID wrote: Mon Jul 12, 2021 2:53 pm Hotel Philips is also is pretty bad shape FYI.
I thought it had been renovated recently? I mean the renovation is hideous but it seemed pretty extensive
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Re: World Cup 2026 at Arrowhead?

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AlkaliAxel wrote: Mon Jul 12, 2021 4:13 pm Well of course. If you host a World Cup here and do it succesfully...who can then ever doubt our ability to do "x". That's always been the knock- some boomer whines about "KC can't do this! We can't have these things!" should go to rest.

Big one could be the Super Bowl. It's now been bumped back to mid-February with the new schedule. Which really should be high-40's-low 50's on average most years here, so we should be able to host with an outdoor stadium with that weather. NY was allowed to do it in 2013 and they're even colder. I think we're juuust south enough to pull it off now with an outdoor venue in mid-Feb. Getting the World Cup should show we can do it.
KC was awarded the super bowl not long ago but citizens complained that there would be too much traffic and activity.
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Re: World Cup 2026 at Arrowhead?

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normalthings wrote: Mon Jul 12, 2021 5:04 pm
AlkaliAxel wrote: Mon Jul 12, 2021 4:13 pm Well of course. If you host a World Cup here and do it succesfully...who can then ever doubt our ability to do "x". That's always been the knock- some boomer whines about "KC can't do this! We can't have these things!" should go to rest.

Big one could be the Super Bowl. It's now been bumped back to mid-February with the new schedule. Which really should be high-40's-low 50's on average most years here, so we should be able to host with an outdoor stadium with that weather. NY was allowed to do it in 2013 and they're even colder. I think we're juuust south enough to pull it off now with an outdoor venue in mid-Feb. Getting the World Cup should show we can do it.
KC was awarded the super bowl not long ago but citizens complained that there would be too much traffic and activity.
I'd be shocked people would complain about that. Are we sure or was this anecdotal, like people saying "nobody wanted a new airport" and then 75% of the people said they wanted it
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Re: World Cup 2026 at Arrowhead?

Post by normalthings »

AlkaliAxel wrote: Mon Jul 12, 2021 5:26 pm
normalthings wrote: Mon Jul 12, 2021 5:04 pm
AlkaliAxel wrote: Mon Jul 12, 2021 4:13 pm Well of course. If you host a World Cup here and do it succesfully...who can then ever doubt our ability to do "x". That's always been the knock- some boomer whines about "KC can't do this! We can't have these things!" should go to rest.

Big one could be the Super Bowl. It's now been bumped back to mid-February with the new schedule. Which really should be high-40's-low 50's on average most years here, so we should be able to host with an outdoor stadium with that weather. NY was allowed to do it in 2013 and they're even colder. I think we're juuust south enough to pull it off now with an outdoor venue in mid-Feb. Getting the World Cup should show we can do it.
KC was awarded the super bowl not long ago but citizens complained that there would be too much traffic and activity.
I'd be shocked people would complain about that. Are we sure or was this anecdotal, like people saying "nobody wanted a new airport" and then 75% of the people said they wanted it
Its one piece of why it was canceled but there was a an effort by some organized groups to get it cancelled. Wikipedia says the KC Chamber of Commerce fought against hosting it
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Re: World Cup 2026 at Arrowhead?

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I’d be willing to bet if they did a vote on “Should we allow a Super Bowl here” even with both sides pitching their messages, the “Yes” vote would win. Sounds eerily like the streetcar and airport type vote where people overthought it because of a few loud groups.
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Re: World Cup 2026 at Arrowhead?

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Ftr, I don’t think anyone overthought those votes. At least no one involved.

I’m not too sure what normalthings is referring to here. There was the promise of the super bowl if the taxpayers built a roof over arrowhead but it was voted down. That was just people sick of spending so much money on shit. Give rich teams millions of dollars or they’ll move the team is never an easy campaign to run either.
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Re: World Cup 2026 at Arrowhead?

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This is a link to the Star's interview with the people in charge of KC's bid for the world cup. I don't know if its pay walled.

Pretty much nothing new here except maybe that they are confident we will AT LEAST be the home base for four teams during the tournament and are more than hopeful that we will host a group stage (probably those same four teams simply play their group stage here?). But, its tough to tell if they are just being optimistic about the group stage.... but man, that would be amazing.
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Re: World Cup 2026 at Arrowhead?

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I guess the other thing of note they mentioned is that they expect host city finalization to be announced in Q1 of 2022
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Re: World Cup 2026 at Arrowhead?

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kboish wrote: Tue Jul 13, 2021 9:07 am This is a link to the Star's interview with the people in charge of KC's bid for the world cup. I don't know if its pay walled.

Pretty much nothing new here except maybe that they are confident we will AT LEAST be the home base for four teams during the tournament and are more than hopeful that we will host a group stage (probably those same four teams simply play their group stage here?). But, its tough to tell if they are just being optimistic about the group stage.... but man, that would be amazing.
I saw them say that KC will atleast be a training base for some teams. Honestly I could care less about that. If we don’t host games, then the rest is for nothing. I assume most would agree.
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