Next big sports show in St. Joseph? World Cup fans coming to KC next summer
As the curtain closed on the Missouri Western portion of training camp for the Chiefs, St. Joseph is thinking about the next big attraction. It also involves the Chiefs, but only indirectly.
St. Joseph wants to roll out the welcome mat for the world’s soccer fans next summer.
Six games of the 2026 FIFA World Cup will be played at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium next June and July — it will be known as Kansas City Stadium during the competition — and multiple base camps are expected to bring hundreds of thousands of international fans to the Midwest.
St. Joseph, some 55 miles north of Kansas City, says it has plenty to offer for the biggest sports tourism event ever in the region.
“We think visitors will be interested in American history, hidden gems and road trips, and St. Joe fits that bill completely,” said Cindy Sue Daffron, executive director of the Pony Express National Museum in St. Joseph.
Other cities within a short drive of Kansas City are thinking the same way, said Pam Kramer, CEO of KC2026, which oversees host city duties. Not only will Arrowhead be home to games and fans of the participating teams, Kansas City and Lawrence are expected to be the site of as many as three base camps.
Those will serve as training headquarters for teams and a base for the fans that follow the squad throughout its stay in the tournament.
Some 650,000 fans are expected to visit the area for the World Cup and they all won’t stay in Kansas City. With 55,000 hotel rooms in a 2 1/2-hour radius of KC, a fan’s base of operations could be in St. Joseph and other cities away from the center.
“We’ll have 26 days between the first and last match in Kansas City, and FIFA tells us the average length of a visit is about 10 days,” Kramer said. “People will be looking for things to do in between games.”
In Kansas City ... and elsewhere.
Watch parties for other World Cup games figure to be a big attraction. Festivals that are already scheduled could find added visitors among soccer fans.
“We’ve thought about that,” Daffron said. “In St. Joe, if you arrived at 10 o’clock, where could you go for a couple of hours? Where can you eat lunch, then spend the afternoon? What can we offer?”
St. Joseph will promote its historical roots as a frontier town. Besides the Pony Express, which started here in 1860, the city of 72,000 features a Jesse James home and the Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art among other attractions.
“We’re very interested in whoever Kansas City gets to host,” St. Joseph mayor John Josendale said. “People are infatuated with the Wild West. We look forward to bringing them here and having that as part of their adventure.”
For 15 of the past 16 years, St. Joseph has received a burst of activity with Chiefs training camp. But the World Cup figures to be different. Fans don’t usually stay several nights to watch the Chiefs practice. Daffron at the Pony Express Museum said some of their best days in the summer are when practice gets rained out and fans seek another activity.
None of the 16 host cities in the U.S., Mexico and Canada will know who is playing where until the 48-team draw expected to be held on Dec. 5 in Las Vegas. Base camp teams will be known shortly after that.
Several nations, including power England, have been in contact with Kansas City and toured facilities.