World Cup 2026 at Arrowhead?

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Re: World Cup 2026 at Arrowhead?

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The final selection was supposed to have kicked off in March with a bid training meeting. I’m not sure what the timeline is now.
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Re: World Cup 2026 at Arrowhead?

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FIFA beginning site selection talks/visits.
FIFA and U.S. Soccer on Tuesday will conduct virtual workshops with the 17 U.S. cities each vying to be one of 10 venues for the tournament, which will be held jointly with Mexico and Canada.
...
After the workshop, FIFA will have individual meetings with U.S. soccer and the host city candidates over the next three to four weeks.
...
FIFA had planned to pick the host cities in the spring of 2021, but that’s been pushed back because of the pandemic. Until FIFA knows when it can make inspection visits to each city, it can’t say when the 10 host sites will be chosen.
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Re: World Cup 2026 at Arrowhead?

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Re: World Cup 2026 at Arrowhead?

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I wish we could vote on it!
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Re: World Cup 2026 at Arrowhead?

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Exert from the FIFA description of KC released today:

“In the Heart of It All”, Kansas City is a passionate football city that has a successful Major League Soccer (MLS) club with more than USD 30 million invested in football-specific infrastructure, with another USD 500 million planned over the next five years. The city has a rich history of successful professional football teams, from the Kansas City Spurs of the North American Soccer League to the Comets and Attack of indoor football to the current-day MLS Sporting Kansas City. Nicknamed “the Wizards”, Sporting Kansas City was one of ten founding cities to launch MLS in 1996 as part of the legacy of the 1994 FIFA World Cup USA™.

Kansas city is home to the newly opened USD 75 million National Football Training and Coaching Development Center. Sporting Kansas City’s Children’s Mercy Park has achieved international acclaim with over 150 awards. It has hosted multiple FIFA World Cup™ Qualifying matches, Concacaf Gold Cups (2011, 2015), men’s and women’s Concacaf Olympic qualifiers, the 2013 MLS All-Star game, and the 2013 MLS Cup Final. Arrowhead Stadium, which holds the record for World’s Loudest Stadium, has hosted numerous international exhibitions. All of this development will further grow the game with the city already ranking among the top five in the nation in youth football participation per capita, with more than 75,000 participants under the age of 15 and another 120,000 participants of all ages. Kansas City has professional teams in three major sports: Sporting Kansas City (MLS), Kansas City Chiefs (NFL) and the Kansas City Royals (MLB), and regularly hosts major professional and collegiate events, including the 2012 MLB All-Star Game, the 2014 and 2015 MLB World Series, multiple NCAA Men’s and Women’s Division I basketball tournaments."


Sporting KC Announcement

"We presented a strong, cohesive vision that demonstrates Kansas City's experience hosting major sporting events as well as our ability to unite an entire region around those events," says Kathy Nelson, President & CEO of the Kansas City Sports Commission. "Kansas City has demonstrated a strong commitment to growing the game of soccer and hosting World Cup matches in 2026 would allow us to cement our legacy as the Soccer Capital of America."
The KC2026 Bid Committee is comprised of representatives from the state and local levels in both Kansas and Missouri, as well as The Kansas City Sports Commission, Sporting KC, the Kansas City Chiefs, VisitKC, the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce, United Soccer Coaches and Heartland Soccer Association."
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Re: World Cup 2026 at Arrowhead?

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Nov 13, January, March: large deliverables on human rights, venues, and transportation.

April - May: Site visits by FIFA

10-12 final cities from 17
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Re: World Cup 2026 at Arrowhead?

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normalthings wrote: Sun Nov 01, 2020 9:05 pm Nov 13, January, March: large deliverables on human rights, venues, and transportation.

April - May: Site visits by FIFA

10-12 final cities from 17
I'm excited we've got this far and this will be months and months or work for myself and others. I'll let the group know how site visits go in regards to the ones I'll be a part of. I hope to get a good reading from the FIFA group when they're here.
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Re: World Cup 2026 at Arrowhead?

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DColeKC wrote: Wed Nov 11, 2020 12:25 pm
normalthings wrote: Sun Nov 01, 2020 9:05 pm Nov 13, January, March: large deliverables on human rights, venues, and transportation.

April - May: Site visits by FIFA

10-12 final cities from 17
I'm excited we've got this far and this will be months and months or work for myself and others. I'll let the group know how site visits go in regards to the ones I'll be a part of. I hope to get a good reading from the FIFA group when they're here.
Are we advertising streetcar and streetcar expansion at all? Public Transit was a big part of the Cincinnati proposal (including far fetched extensions that will never happen) but wasn't really mentioned in ours as far as I remember.
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Re: World Cup 2026 at Arrowhead?

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The streetcar expansion doesn't really reduce a negative, it doesn't give better access to hotels from the stadium.

The Cincinnati stadium however is downtown so theirs could help
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Re: World Cup 2026 at Arrowhead?

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flyingember wrote: Wed Nov 11, 2020 3:03 pm The streetcar expansion doesn't really reduce a negative, it doesn't give better access to hotels from the stadium.

The Cincinnati stadium however is downtown so theirs could help
FIFA cares a lot about fan zones too. Connecting the plaza wouldn’t be considered nothing.
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Re: World Cup 2026 at Arrowhead?

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WoodDraw wrote: Wed Nov 11, 2020 3:11 pm
flyingember wrote: Wed Nov 11, 2020 3:03 pm The streetcar expansion doesn't really reduce a negative, it doesn't give better access to hotels from the stadium.

The Cincinnati stadium however is downtown so theirs could help
FIFA cares a lot about fan zones too. Connecting the plaza wouldn’t be considered anything.
Streetcar connects almost all of the region's large & high-quality hotels with the fan zones at Nelson Atkins and Liberty Memorial. It could also make it easier to move people to set shuttle stops. For example, guests downtown and on the Plaza could take the streetcar to Midtown Market Place where they get on a shuttle bus to the stadium.
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Re: World Cup 2026 at Arrowhead?

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normalthings wrote: Thu Nov 12, 2020 1:30 am
WoodDraw wrote: Wed Nov 11, 2020 3:11 pm
flyingember wrote: Wed Nov 11, 2020 3:03 pm The streetcar expansion doesn't really reduce a negative, it doesn't give better access to hotels from the stadium.

The Cincinnati stadium however is downtown so theirs could help
FIFA cares a lot about fan zones too. Connecting the plaza wouldn’t be considered anything.
Streetcar connects almost all of the region's large & high-quality hotels with the fan zones at Nelson Atkins and Liberty Memorial. It could also make it easier to move people to set shuttle stops. For example, guests downtown and on the Plaza could take the streetcar to Midtown Market Place where they get on a shuttle bus to the stadium.
This isn't realistic. At 15 minute frequencies the train can hold 600 people per hour. Even tripling the number of trains that's 1800 per hour.

The stadium holding 76,000 means it would take 42 hours to move everyone to a shuttle or to a fan zone by train. Even with only 10% taking the train that's 4 hours.

In terms of raw capacity the only realistic plan is to have shuttles straight to the stadium from the hotels.

There also couldn't be just one fan zone. There isn't room for tens of thousands of people downtown at once. The royals and chiefs events were about 3x that and it paralyzed downtown for hours before and required the use of every bus in the city and then some to move people.

Every major hotel should serve as a fan zone plus outside locations across the city with two major ones at the plaza and downtown
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Re: World Cup 2026 at Arrowhead?

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flyingember wrote: Thu Nov 12, 2020 9:34 am
normalthings wrote: Thu Nov 12, 2020 1:30 am
WoodDraw wrote: Wed Nov 11, 2020 3:11 pm

FIFA cares a lot about fan zones too. Connecting the plaza wouldn’t be considered anything.
Streetcar connects almost all of the region's large & high-quality hotels with the fan zones at Nelson Atkins and Liberty Memorial. It could also make it easier to move people to set shuttle stops. For example, guests downtown and on the Plaza could take the streetcar to Midtown Market Place where they get on a shuttle bus to the stadium.
This isn't realistic. At 15 minute frequencies the train can hold 600 people per hour. Even tripling the number of trains that's 1800 per hour.

The stadium holding 76,000 means it would take 42 hours to move everyone to a shuttle or to a fan zone by train. Even with only 10% taking the train that's 4 hours.

In terms of raw capacity the only realistic plan is to have shuttles straight to the stadium from the hotels.

There also couldn't be just one fan zone. There isn't room for tens of thousands of people downtown at once. The royals and chiefs events were about 3x that and it paralyzed downtown for hours before and required the use of every bus in the city and then some to move people.

Every major hotel should serve as a fan zone plus outside locations across the city with two major ones at the plaza and downtown
You can read the proposal to see what they are proposing now in regards to those things. Liberty Memorial and Nelson Atkins will be the 2 fan zones.
If we win, we may just have to deal with a clogged downtown. NFL Draft fan experience should have similar attendance so we will have 2023 for practice.

IIRC, Streetcars can hold around 180+ if you squeeze (which we used to do often). 180 passengers every 5 minutes is 4,320 an hour. I think 2-3 hours is a reasonable amount of time to arrive early to a big game. That brings us up to about 13,000 passengers moved. Sure you can't move everyone, but you can move many of the people staying at the small and mid-sized hotels in the central corridor.
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Re: World Cup 2026 at Arrowhead?

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Your numbers are horribly unrealistic

First, 60/5 * 180 = 2160. You doubled the real number.

Second, every five minutes is also more trains than the system is planning to own vehicles for. It runs 4 of 6 right now and plans to buy six more for ten minute headways. No amount of math can turn owning 12 vehicles into five minute headways

Third, that's about 1/8 of the hotel capacity downtown at three people per room. It makes no sense to use two methods and make people change transportation modes when there could be shuttles from a dozen locations downtown.
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Re: World Cup 2026 at Arrowhead?

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flyingember wrote: Fri Nov 13, 2020 3:21 pm Your numbers are horribly unrealistic

First, 60/5 * 180 = 2160. You doubled the real number.

Second, every five minutes is also more trains than the system is planning to own vehicles for. It runs 4 of 6 right now and plans to buy six more for ten minute headways. No amount of math can turn owning 12 vehicles into five minute headways

Third, that's about 1/8 of the hotel capacity downtown at three people per room. It makes no sense to use two methods and make people change transportation modes when there could be shuttles from a dozen locations downtown.
Trains from the north and south carry people. Multiply 2160 by 2. It is true that we currently plan on having 12 vehicles, but those contracts won’t be signed for what? A year? Additional cars could be rented from Cincinatti and other cities. Regardless, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that we would close Mainstreet to cars. That alone will speed up streetcar times significantly.

A 2 mode system is not any different then how we do the downtown airshow or Royals parade. Streetcar would serve as a collector funneling guests at Airbnb’s, midtown hotels, etc to central location (a) to be bussed to the stadium. Ofc it also connects the 2 fan zones with the biggest hotels in the region.

No road, bus, or train system in a normal city is designed to handle such a sudden extreme point load. After the London Olympics opening ceremony, I remember London radio stations marveling over how attendees were waiting on transit into the AM. Our existing mass transit won’t cover everyone. But it’s something that we can use, should use, and should advertise as one of many tools in our event hosting tool box.
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Re: World Cup 2026 at Arrowhead?

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You don’t double because each train doesn’t go by any given spot twice in 5 minutes, only one does.

A 5 minute headway works as if the trains are going in a circle. So half are NB and half are SB, give or take. So each direction has half the total capacity. After it unloads it goes back around the other direction and provides the other half of the capacity.



You do know nothing about transit systems are standardized, right? Assuming one could rent trains,
the trains have to be the right voltage, right track gauge, right length to fit the platform length and right width to not run into the platform or be too far away.

And you would have to find all this and a city willing to shut down part of their service. And I bet most cities with rail systems also are in the running and could have their own games at the same time.

The air show isn’t single timed entry, it’s constant entry throughout the day. Big difference in terms of access because you don’t have 100% of the people all showing up (wanting to) at the same time


With busses I-70 could hold everyone at once. 40 to a bus is 2000 busses. That’s 80,000 feet or a little less than ten miles in one lane. It’s 9.4 miles from the middle of downtown to the stadium. Done over 2 hours there’s plenty of road capacity to move everyone there by bus. With a dedicated lane with 20 minute one way that’s 333 busses needed. Start a little early to account for the return trip time in the mix. Many will be dropped off by private vehicles to the tune of thousands, The ATA owns 300 busses and private companies can bring more in. There’s a huge number of school busses available in any city. Using just busses would be very doable and wouldn’t overload the roads

Without the streetcar can move people much quicker because they could take multiple routes there and have even less road worries. We don’t want one central place, we want a bus pick up spot scattered across the city, not just along Main
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Re: World Cup 2026 at Arrowhead?

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Public Transportation Plan: FIFA requires free public transportation to the Venue on Game Day. FIFA
scored Kansas City lowest of all US cities in this category, however we believe the scoring was based on a
Euro-Centric view of requiring permanent rail transport. We have developed and can easily implement an
alternative to this philosophy, without building permanent t infrastructure, and still successfully achieve
FIFA’s goals. By working with the KCATA, local and industry experts, we will demonstrate our plan can
efficiently and cost effectively transport our visitors, locals, and event staff between the City Center, MCI,
Arrowhead Stadium and remote park & ride sites.
From the city council docket. Looks like the KC bid recieves just $100,000 per year from KCK, KCMO, Sporting KC, and Visit KC. Of course, no funding from Johnson County.

http://cityclerk.kcmo.org/liveweb/Docum ... BaEwT1Bcsv
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Re: World Cup 2026 at Arrowhead?

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Human Rights are their own section of 2026 bids. The thought is that cities in states with anti LGBTQ+ legislation are out of the running for WC host.

Kansas's bill is before the Governor but will be vetoed. Missouri's is in the early stages and would require a state-wide vote. WC and NCAA would be out of KC if they pass. The article reports that this law would apply to a total of 3 people in Kansas. Seems like these laws hurt the people against them the most (cities) with minimal surface impact to their backers (rural).
A consulting firm hired by FIFA, international soccer’s governing body, asked the committee lobbying for Kansas City to address concerns over Kansas and Missouri lacking legal protections against LGBTQ discrimination. She said the Kansas measure won’t help “mitigate their concerns.”


Tennessee has enacted legislation. Texas and Florida are well in the process of passing legislation. Georgia and Ohio are working on something as well.

I think 5-8 of the closest WC bid cities, including some of the overall best candidates, will have enacted anti-trans legislation by the time selections are made. It will be interesting to see if FIFA's newfound interest in human rights will apply to them or not.

https://www.kansascity.com/news/politic ... 16244.html

https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/26/us/tenne ... index.html

https://apnews.com/article/legislature- ... 7276744394
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Re: World Cup 2026 at Arrowhead?

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normalthings wrote: Thu Apr 15, 2021 8:44 am Seems like these laws hurt the people against them the most (cities) with minimal surface impact to their backers (rural).
This is basically the story of every piece of legislation out of Topeka and Jeff City the last decade or more. Super counterproductive, but makes great theater!
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Re: World Cup 2026 at Arrowhead?

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I always wonder if KC or STL could dominate state politics a bit more had the state capitals been closer to home or possibly in one of the cities.
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