Kansas City's chance of being a 2026 World Cup host? Opinions vary widely
Kansas City hopes to get good news in 2020.
That's the earliest that we will know which cities in the United States, Mexico and Canada will host games in the 2026 World Cup. The United Bid of the three countries last week won the right to host the tournament, and there are 23 cities in the running.
Arrowhead Stadium is on the list of potential American sites, and Kansas City has a couple of things working in its favor. There is a Major League Soccer team, and Pinnacle, Sporting Kansas City's training center, could play host to as many as four national teams.
The other U.S. cities in the running are Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Cincinnati, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville, New York/New Jersey, Orlando, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C.
Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey are the Mexican candidates, while Edmonton, Toronto and Montreal are the Canadian contenders.
Only 16 cities will make the final cut. What are Kansas City’s chances? There are various opinions. Here is what people around the country are saying:
Henry Bushnell of Yahoo Sports ranked Kansas City 13th among the 17 U.S. cities. He broke down each city into one of three groups: the locks, the favorites and the contenders. Arrowhead Stadium is in the latter category.
“KC has a tight-knit, passionate MLS community. But does it have the international flavor and the grandiosity to host World Cup games?” Bushnell wrote.
Only Denver, Nashville, Cincinnati and Baltimore are listed behind Kansas City in Bushnell's list.
Andrew Joseph of USA Today thinks Kansas City is just about a lock.
"Kansas City’s central location, stadium capacity and soccer culture make it a likely host. I can’t see the Midwest getting shut out of a World Cup site, especially when the U.S. Soccer National Training Center is in Kansas City," Joseph wrote.
Steven Goff of the Washington Post, however, doesn’t like Kansas City’s chances. He ranked all 23 cities, and KC was ahead of only Cincinnati and listed in the long shots.
“Arrowhead Stadium is appealing,” Goff wrote, “but there are too many superior choices.”
NBC Sports' Joe Prince-Wright had two outlooks for which cities would be chosen and Kansas City made the cut in both.
ESPN's Jeff Carlisle and Armando Neria believe Kansas City will make the cut.
"With Chicago out of the running, a city in the country's heartland will be needed, and the Kansas City Chiefs' Arrowhead Stadium fits the bill," they wrote.
This story was originally published June 21, 2018 at 1:41 PM with the headline "Kansas City's chance of being a 2026 World Cup host? Opinions vary widely."