How big is Arrowhead? 5 facts about Kansas City Stadium ahead of FIFA World Cup
World Cup visitors, welcome to Arrowhead Stadium. Or, for this summer, Kansas City Stadium. We’ll explain that later.
The Kansas City Chiefs home turf will be the center stage of Kansas City for the next month during the FIFA World Cup. Six games are scheduled to be in KC, which include a quarterfinal matchup.
The World Cup adds onto the long list of events that have taken place in Arrowhead, a history that will come to a close in the near future. But some adjustments have also been made this summer due to the World Cup.
Here are some facts to know about the stadium before you visit this summer.
Historic football and music moments in Arrowhead
Arrowhead Stadium has hosted six AFC Championship games. All of them have occurred since Patrick Mahomes joined the Kansas City Chiefs in 2019 and have led to three Super Bowl wins out of five appearances.
The stadium is the third-oldest in the NFL. The Chiefs were originally the Dallas Texans, who played in the AFL from 1960 to 1962 before team owner Lamar Hunt Sr. moved the team to Kansas City.
Outside legendary football moments, some of the biggest artists of all time have performed at Arrowhead. One of those acts include The Jacksons, which was led by music icon Michael Jackson.
The group’s Victory Tour opened in Kansas City in the summer of 1984, selling out the stadium for three straight nights with 45,000 each night. This happened the same year he won a record eight Grammys in one night, and when he had his infamous Pepsi commercial incident.
Other legendary acts that have performed in the bowl include The Rolling Stones, Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Paul McCartney and more.
Arrowhead went through some changes this summer
In case you don’t know, you can’t play professional soccer on an NFL field without making some changes first. The Chiefs expanded the field’s size from the NFL regulation 120 yards long by 53 1/3 yards wide to the FIFA standard for the World Cup: 116 yards by 68 yards.
You’ll also notice that there won’t be “Arrowhead” and “GEHA Field” signage throughout the stadium. That’s because Arrowhead will be known as Kansas City Stadium throughout the tournament. Long story short, FIFA is strict when it comes to its branding. It was part of the deal to ensure Kansas City hosts World Cup games.
The preparations for the World Cup have been going on for two years at Arrowhead. Because of this, Kansas City has missed out on some high-profile music tours since 2024, which included The Weeknd, Kendrick Lamar, Coldplay and more.
World Cup games will have smaller capacity
Due to those stadium configurations, Arrowhead won’t have the same crowd that a Chiefs game would have. The stadium will be capped off at 71,958. For Chiefs games, it’s 76,416.
Arrowhead’s seating chart typically has three levels of seating, the 300 upper bowl, 200 suites and 100 lower bowl.
You won’t find much to do around Arrowhead
When you go to Arrowhead, don’t expect to have postgame celebrations near the stadium district. There isn’t one, unless you consider a gas station and Taco Bell a form of entertainment.
Despite the Royals and Chiefs stadiums being neighbors, there isn’t much happening around the Truman Sports Complex. This is part of the reason why both teams are moving in the future, as the Chiefs are planning to move to Kansas, while the Royals are working to move near the Crown Center.
The Chiefs are set to play in Kansas starting in 2031. The stadium will be built in Kansas City, Kansas, and will be surrounded by an entertainment district.
The drive from Arrowhead to downtown Kansas City is roughly 15 minutes. How much that will change during World Cup game day traffic? Only time will tell.
Arrowhead gets loud
We know the type of environment that soccer fans bring to matches, but can they match up to what Chiefs fans bring to games?
Arrowhead broke the Guinness World Record for the loudest NFL game in a Sept. 29, 2014, matchup between the Chiefs and the Patriots. The record was set at 124.2 decibels, in a game where the Chiefs blew out Tom Brady and the Patriots 41-14.
In a 2025 ESPN Poll, NFL players had Arrowhead as the hardest NFL stadium to play in, with one player saying the fans are “so loud, you can’t even hear yourself think at times.”
