How does Kansas City stack up against other cities bidding to host 2026 World Cup games?
North American sites for the 2026 FIFA World Cup will be announced on Thursday, ending years of bidding and speculation.
How about one more round of guessing the cities to be selected for the world’s largest sporting event, and how does Kansas City’s candidacy stack up?
To review: The 2026 World Cup will land in 16 cities across the United States, Mexico and Canada. The bulk of the games will be played in the U.S.
Three cities each in Mexico and Canada submitted bids, along with 16 in the U.S. If games are awarded to all the candidates in Mexico and Canada, 10 U.S. cities will be awarded games.
But there have been rumblings that one Canadian city, Edmonton, won’t be selected. If that’s the case, an additional U.S. city would be named, and that would seem to help Kansas City’s chances.
Several outlets — media and consulting and even a fan poll — sized up the bidding cities and assigned a ranking. Some listed the candidates in order, others by tiers. For this exercise, we used rankings were each site as assigned a number.
Simply, we added the rankings to come up with a consensus of opinion.
Five lists were used. Two, from Yahoo! Sports and NBCSports.com, were published in the past few days.
A consulting firm, 42Floors.com, analyzed seven metrics from the FIFA’s Guide to the Bidding Process and published the findings in February. The Sporting News ranked the cities in 2020. Both lists included Baltimore and Washington, D.C. separately. For this consensus, the cities were combined and given the higher spot of the two.
The fifth list is a fan poll from Worldsoccertalk.com. The poll was launched in May and remains active.
Here’s how the math played out:
1. New York/New Jersey (Met Life Stadium)
The top choice on all five lists, and that fact that Thursday’s announcement is originating from New York makes the City That never Sleeps the biggest lock. The only question: Is this where the final will be played? My guess is yes.
2. Los Angeles (Rose Bowl, SoFi Stadium)
Not a matter of if Los Angeles gets the call, but whether both stadiums would be used. The Rose Bowl played host to the 1994 final, the only time the United States has hosted the men’s World Cup.
3. Atlanta (Mercedes-Benz Stadium)
A fast-riser on the nation’s soccer scene, Atlanta has embraced MLS, has a beautiful stadium and knows the big-event game. The Olympics, Super Bowl, Final Four and College Football Playoff championship game have come through Atlanta. This could be a World Cup semifinal site.
4. Dallas/Fort Worth (AT&T Stadium)
Home of the world’s largest HDTV video board ... and the stadium’s nice, too. Massive and plush Jerry World offset the distance to downtown and being in the Central Time Zone helps.
5. Miami (Hard Rock Stadium)
Formula 1 cars raced around Hard Rock Stadium last month, and it would difficult to imagine a World Cup played in the U.S. without games in Miami and its excellent stadium.
6. San Francisco Bay Area (Levi’s Stadium)
San Francisco/San Jose/Santa Clara gives FIFA nearly everything it seeks: A modern stadium in Santa Clara that’s a short distance from San Jose, a history of hosting big soccer events in the area and an ideal climate.
7. Philadelphia (Lincoln Financial Field)
The U.S. will celebrate its 250th birthday on July 4, 2026. It seems unlikely FIFA will pass up the opportunity to place games where the nation declared independence.
8. Seattle (Lumen Field)
The city that gave us Amazon, Microsoft, Starbucks and grunge music is also crazy about its soccer. But uh-oh, where is the allegiance of Russell Wilson? A member of the Seattle’s bid executive committee, he now works in another bidding city, Denver.
9. Kansas City (Arrowhead Stadium)
No, we didn’t look for lists favorable to Kansas City. But KC was no lower than 12th on any list. The city has transformed itself into a soccer hotbed. The coasts call the region flyover country. The locals call it the nation’s heartland and the support of several Midwest states was a selling point.
10. Baltimore/Washington (M&T Bank Stadium)
Games in Baltimore, fan fests and most non-match activity in Washington, D.C. Originally, the cities bid separately, but combining was the right move. Washington’s stadium is among the NFL’s worst, Baltimore’s is among the best. And international fans will want to visit the nation’s capital.
11. Houston (NRG Stadium)
The retractable roof stadium is top notch and Houston supports international soccer events. It’s the nation’s fourth-largest city and Texas could join California as multi-city World Cup sites.
12. Denver (Empower Field at Mile High)
The summer climate is the best of any bidding U.S. city, and it doesn’t hurt to be the nation’s only site in the Mountain Time Zone. Could it come down to a middle of North America destination between Denver and Kansas City?
13 (tie). Cincinnati (Paul Brown Stadium)
Cincinnati ranks as one of the best walkability destinations with the stadium located downtown. Like Kansas City, it offers excellent fan fest space with a riverfront concert lawn.
13 (tie). Nashville (Nissan Stadium)
Great city and building its soccer credentials. But there could be a stadium issue. The NFL’s Titans have announced plans to build a new structure. Will it be ready by 2026? The city has offered to keep Nissan Stadium in play.
15. Boston (Gillette Stadium)
Boston presents a tricky case. As with several candidates, the NFL stadium isn’t located in the city. But Boston-to-Foxboro is a 30-mile haul and traffic can be maddening. The World Cup came here in 1994. Could FIFA take a pass on one of American’s most historic cities in 2026?
16. Orlando (Camping World Stadium)
Orlando was a 1994 World Cup site, and Camping World Stadium, one of the oldest among the bidding cities, is undergoing renovations. The theme parks remain appealing for fans when on non-game days.
This story was originally published June 14, 2022 at 9:34 AM with the headline "How does Kansas City stack up against other cities bidding to host 2026 World Cup games?."