This deserves a smile: FIFA and Airbnb give 75 KC kids free tickets to a match Williams
Kansas City Councilwoman Rayna Parks-Shaw had the same thoughts as me when I learned how much it would cost for a ticket to a World Cup match in Kansas City: “That’s way too expensive for the average family here to afford.”
I have to say it made me a little sad to think that world-class soccer, the biggest sporting event in the world, would be in Kansas City, and for many kids, sitting in the stadium amid the ruckus fun the games are known for would be out of reach. Access denied. You know, the same old story of pricing out the poor — and in this case, even those on the downside of the middle class.
Then on Wednesday, I found out the world is not that cold, and it truly made me so happy to know that the have-nots were not going to be ignored this time.
Thanks to a partnership between Airbnb and FIFA, 75 Kansas City students got tickets to attend one of the five remaining World Cup matches being held at the Kansas City Stadium (usually called Arrowhead). FIFA, which is the Federation of International Football Associations, worked with Parks-Shaw, Kansas City Public Schools and the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Kansas City to get this done.
Teresa Hernandez, a 17-year-old student-athlete at Lincoln College Preparatory Academy, is one of the high school soccer players lucky enough to have been chosen from a free school raffle to go to a game. The minute she heard she had won, “I called my mom,” Teresa said, as a broad smile spread across her face.
Teresa grew up playing soccer, and told me that one of her dad’s biggest dreams has always been to go to a World Cup game. He won’t be accompanying Teresa on this once-in-a-lifetime experience, “but he is so happy for me,” she said. “I get to live his dream.”
The money came from Airbnb, but Jonathan Buckner, the public policy manager for the global marketplace for vacation housing, declined to say how much the company put into the Kansas City program. But he did tell me that Airbnb and FIFA have done or have planned similar community-lifting events in other World Cup host cities this year.
Airbnb donations
The ticket giveaway is on top of the $100,000 grant Airbnb invested early on in the Kansas City Open Doors program, allowing small businesses to fill vacant storefronts as a revitalization effort in parts of our city before and during the World Cup.
In the ticket giveaway, which by the way, really made me smile too, KCPS gave 30 tickets to six district soccer coaches at Northeast High, Central High, Southeast High, East High, Paseo Academy of Fine and Performing Arts and Lincoln. The coaches each chose four athletes, two from the boys team and two from the girls team. Other tickets were doled out to children who attend the Boys and Girls Club.
“I wanted to ensure that my kids get an opportunity to be a part of this,” said Jennifer Collier, KCPS superintendent. She said getting a chance to be in the stadium watching world-class soccer can inspire a young person to do great things, things they may have thought were beyond their reach.
“It’s more than just tickets to a soccer match,” Collier said. “It reminds our students that they belong on big stages.”
I agree. A child can’t aspire to something they have never seen or something they have seen but wrongly believed they don’t deserve, could never reach or can’t even conjure a dream about.
“An experience like this can be life-changing,” said Jason Roth, president and chief executive officer at Boys and Girls Club of Greater Kansas City. “It’s something that these young people will remember for the rest of their lives … something that will build self-confidence.”
Yeah, most of the average Kansas City residents won’t be attending a World Cup game. For some, it will be by choice. For others, it’s all about affordability. Many may be left longing and just get as close as a watch party or Fan Fest.
World Cup prices
Kansas City is not alone with soaring ticket prices. Most tickets are anywhere from $900 to as high as $19,000 each on Ticketmaster for VIP seating.
According to a poll done in May by Ipsos, a global multinational market research firm, 59% of Americans and 76% of World Cup viewers say the overall cost of attending a World Cup game is too expensive for the average American.
The Travel, a digital publication providing insight into global travel, estimated that the average American family would need to spend more than two months’ discretionary income to afford even a single match, and that’s if they bought the cheapest tickets available.
Without question, having the World Cup played in your backyard is a once-in-a-generation moment for Kansas City, so I’m absolutely thrilled to see that some kids, who, if not for the kindness of strangers and the awareness of difference makers, would not ever have had the opportunity to cheer inside a stadium at the biggest soccer tournament on the globe. And they will be a part of history attending the 2026 event expanded to 48 teams, and officially the largest ever.
This story was originally published June 18, 2026 at 9:24 AM.
