What ‘Kansas City Spirit’ means as KC’s starring role as a World Cup host begins

Helllllo, world, especially all the teams and their fans playing and staying in Kansas City for the 2026 FIFA World Cup: Ahla bik. Bienvenidos. Bon bini. Merḥba bikum. Servus und herzlich willkommen. Welkom.

First things first: You may most reasonably assume “Kansas City Stadium” and the FIFA Fan Festival at the National WWI Museum and Memorial are in the state of Kansas. Or even in what seems to internationally be getting called the “City of Kansas.”

But that’s all in Kansas City … Missouri. Even though there’s also an adjacent Kansas City, Kansas, where Argentina is training as it’s staying in … Missouri.

Turns out there’s an actual explanation for how all that came to be. But maybe our own Jason Sudeikis — yes, “Ted Lasso” himself — put it best a couple years ago: “It’s confusing; stop asking questions.”

No matter how you put it, though, “Kansas City” really means the entire metro area that is the smallest among the 16 North American World Cup hosts.

The Curacao of the group, you might say, with underdog sensibilities … even as we’ll tell you with a wink we’ve been called the “Paris of the Plains” and the “City of Fountains.”

Partly because of our size, partly because this could be the most grandiose event to ever take place here and partly because many take seriously the idea of being in the heart of America, being a World Cup host city probably means more to Kansas City than it does most other U.S. sites.

That probably was evident from the wall-to-wall FIFA imagery at Kansas City International Airport, which by all indications is dressed up for the World Cup unlike any others in the United States.

And it almost certainly will be reflected in how you’re treated here: with sincere welcoming in a city that’s whimsical and sophisticated and artsy and BBQ-crazy (with too many favorites to even rank) and progressive — even if it’s not immune, alas, to the agonizing American dilemma and tragedy of gun violence.

With the still-new airport, recent extensions of the (free) KC Streetcar and such ingenious and unprecedented developments as the Kansas City Current creating the world’s first stadium purpose-built for a women’s professional sports team (and now a neighborhood around it), this is a place on the move literally and figuratively.

(That includes by way of thoroughfares we sometimes call by number first (like 40 Highway), which is unlike about anywhere else in the States. Why? Nobody knows.)

That resolve and resourcefulness has been an abiding mindset almost forever in Kansas City, which long has had more than its share of world-class institutions.

Those start with but hardly are limited to the solemn and powerful National WWI Museum; the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts (reminiscent of the Sydney Opera House); the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library & Museum, which chronicles one of the most consequential U.S. presidencies, and the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum illuminating our history through two of America’s most meaningful lenses: baseball and race.

Also world-class for much of the last decade are the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs, who went 50 years between Super Bowls before the advent of Patrick Mahomes led to playing in five out of six and winning three. That’s perhaps been amplified by something else now personal to Kansas City: the arrival on the scene a few years ago of Taylor Swift, the musical megastar approximately as well-known as Lionel Messi, and whose wedding to Travis Kelce is expected to be this summer.

We also have the KC Royals, who have won two championships and are currently led by the thrilling Bobby Witt Jr., an emerging face of Major League Baseball.

Kansas City has been basking in all of this with a sort of can-do pride that runs deep.

For a sense of from where that originated, let’s flash back to Kansas City in 1900: Just three months before the city was to host the Democratic National Convention, the new Convention Hall burned down.

But even as the hall was collapsing, The Star reported, Kansas City businessmen Walter Dickey and Uriah Epperson were soliciting pledges from onlookers to launch the rebuilding.

“We have suffered a great calamity,” Epperson said two days later. “But Kansas City spirit, Kansas City pluck and Kansas City money will restore Convention hall.”

And so it did, cementing a self-image.

Amid devastating flooding here a half-century later, that notion of The Kansas City Spirit inspired Hallmark founder Joyce Hall to ask famed artist Norman Rockwell to embody that image with a drawing that would “forever symbolize that something good in men’s hearts that makes them put service above self and accomplish the impossible.”

Which is about what some figured Kansas City’s chances of becoming a World Cup host were when the city bid …

Only for us to end up with six games, starting with defending champion Argentina taking on Algeria on June 20 and concluding with a quarterfinal on July 11.

Moreover, we ended up being the base camp hub for Argentina, England and The Netherlands, with Algeria set up in nearby Lawrence.

It all coalesced through a convergence of forces, from the historic influence of Chiefs founder and U.S. soccer pioneer Lamar Hunt to Sporting KC to the catalyzing glue of the Kansas City Sports Commission and boosted along the way by the KC Current’s vision.

Including tens of millions spent on youth soccer complexes, the region has invested some $700 million into soccer facilities in the last 15 years alone to help quantify our self-proclaimed status as the “Soccer Capital of America.”

As for those other KC nicknames?

“Paris of the Plains” goes back to the late 1920s in reference to some combination of our sprawling boulevard system, fountains and prohibition nightlife underscored by jazz. Speaking of which, more than a few local people have had a fine point when they’ve tended to say that “jazz may have been born in New Orleans, but it grew up in Kansas City.

When it comes to the “City of Fountains” part, well, for a while Kansas City boasted that it had more fountains than Rome. Over time, it became that we have “more working fountains than Rome.”

Now, well, it’s a lot: some 200 in the region, including about 40 in Kansas City proper.

And this much we do know: They’re part of our diverse character — along with a front-porch culture and refugee soccer programs and street art and cool-quirky places like The National Museum of Toys and Miniatures and The Rabbit hOle, an interactive children’s museum.

Among other distinctly Kansas City elements are the Crossroads Arts District, Crown Center, Country Club Plaza, Power & Light, the Rock Island Bridge, the River Market, the Overland Park Arboretum & Botanical Gardens and Westport.

All that and plenty more made the area such a trendy travel destination that it was among Travel + Leisure’s 50 Best Places to Travel in 2024 and Lonely Planet’s Best in Travel 2024 the same year.

Now, Kansas City has another honor to proclaim: being a World Cup host city.

Such overwhelming events can be unwieldy and messy, of course. Much of the legacy of this will hinge on how successfully it’s run. All of that remains to be seen.

But this much you can know: No place wanted this more, cares more about how it goes and wants visitors to enjoy it more.

So we’re grateful to have you and hope you have an amazing time here. No matter what you call it.

Vahe Gregorian

The Kansas City Star

816-234-4868

Vahe Gregorian has been a sports columnist for The Kansas City Star since 2013 after 25 years at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He has covered a wide spectrum of sports, including 10 Olympics. Vahe was an English major at the University of Pennsylvania and earned his master’s degree at Mizzou.