RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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See the full story · 1 sourcesA general view of the inside of GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium as Lionel Messi of Argentina celebrates scoring his team's first goal with teammates during the FIFA World Cup match between Argentina and Algeria on June 16, 2026. (Photo by Sebastian Widmann - FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images)
FIFA via Getty Images
The NFL has typically rewarded Super Bowls to cities building new stadiums — even if it’s a smaller, midwestern city like Minneapolis, which hosted the 2018 game at U.S. Bank Stadium.
But even though the Kansas City Chiefs will be playing in a glitzy, $3 billion dome in 2031, owner Clark Hunt acknowledged the difficulty in landing a Super Bowl because six other teams are also slated to have new stadiums by then.
Kansas City’s hosting of the World Cup, though, bolstered the city’s chances.
“Not only did we pull it off, we dominated,” Chiefs president Mark Donovan said. “That puts us on a different level now.”
In addition to being the only Midwest city to host a World Cup match in 2026, Kansas City is also the smallest United States city to ever host a World Cup match.
An impressive 413,169 fans attended matches at Kansas City Stadium — the renaming of GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium, which FIFA insisted upon for branding and sponsorship reasons. Whatever one wants to call the venue, it averaged 68,862 per match.
More than 400,000 attended the FIFA Fan Festival in downtown Kansas City, Mo., and that festival was a good comparison to the interactive Super Bowl Experience, which each Super Bowl host city puts on.
The day after Super Bowl Sunday is typically the busiest in an airport’s history, but more than 1.1 million inbound and outbound passengers went through Kansas City International Airport in June, representing the most people since the airport’s new terminal opened in 2023.
“Years of planning and collaboration made this moment possible,” Pam Kramer, CEO of Kansas City’s World Cup committee, said in a press release . “The way this community came together exceeded every expectation, and I couldn’t be more proud of what we accomplished.”
Kansas City also hosted four nations’ base camps during the World Cup. Algeria was at the University of Kansas, Argentina was at the Sporting KC Performance Center, England was at Swope Soccer Village and the Netherlands was at the KC Current Training Center.
As part of the latter country’s celebration, more than 36,000 people filled downtown Kansas City during the Netherlands’ fan walk, creating a sea of orange .
Four years before hosting the World Cup, Kansas City hosted the NFL Draft, and Chiefs executives helped convince NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to let Kansas City have that opportunity by explaining that the city was not going to get a Super Bowl so it should at least get a draft.
But now the calculus has changed.
“The World Cup gave us another opportunity to show how special this region is,” Donovan said, “and how capable this city and region is to host events.”
The Chiefs have talked to the NFL about hosting the Super Bowl in 2033, 2034 and 2035.
They also spoke to the NCAA last week about their desire to host an upcoming Final Four.
“We are aggressively pursuing Final Fours,” Donovan said. “We’re going to be early bidders on most things.”
The Super Bowl is the ultimate prize.
When the Chiefs last played in one — Super Bowl LIX at New Orleans’ Caesars Superdome — it generated $1.25 billion for the state of Louisiana .
Kansas City still has its work cut out because the Buffalo Bills, Tennessee Titans, Jacksonville Jaguars, Cleveland Browns, Washington Commanders and Denver Broncos are slated to have new stadiums by 2031 and likely covet the big game as well.
But how adeptly it hosted the World Cup only can help.
“I’m really proud that we were able to pull that off,” Donovan said, “and what that means for our future.”
This article was originally published on Forbes.com
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