Ingram's August 2022

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Missouri Sports: The emerging soccer capital of America is . . . Missouri? Who knew?

T here is a good argument to be made that the Show-Me State is indeed demonstrating a power flex with the growing appeal and influence in the sport that—by a wide margin—draws more fans than any other. On four continents—Europe, South America, Africa, and Asia—the sport draws from a combined fan base of 3.5 billion people, with 250 million active players (professional and amateur/recreational). This year, Missouri upped its game by earning designation as a host city for the FIFA 2026 World Cup series, with Kansas City beating out far larger U.S. sites for an honor that officials call, appropriately, game-changing. “Using past World Cups as a measure ment, having about six games here would have an economic impact of about $620mil- lion, more than doubling that of the pro jected $260million impact that a Super Bowl would bring,” said Kathy Nelson, whose org- anization spearheaded the drive to win

KC Street Car The World Cup news is just the latest in a generation-long series of developments that have raised the profile of soccer in the Midwest broadly and in KC specifically. Beginning with the purchase of the Kansas City Comets by the founding partners of Cerner Corp. nearly 20 years ago, soccer infrastructure began a serious facelift. In 2011, the pro franchise rebranded fromtheComets toSportingKansasCity and opened what is now Children’s Mercy Park still regarded a decade later as one of the best fan-experience venues in the U.S. Under development, just a few blocks east of that stadium is the $75 million National Training and Coaching Development Center, plan- World Cup host status. “The KC area would host tens of thousands of international visitors, and the broadcast viewing audience would total around 1 billion worldwide.” “We’ve never seen anything like this and will never see anything like this again,” Nelson said in the run-up to the announcement.

ned as a locus of player and coaching development. US Soccer has agreed to a 20 year lease firmly cementing the Kansas City area among America’s soccer elites. St. Louis City SC starts play in 2023 as a newMajor League Soccer expansion fran- chise. It will be at home in Centene Stadium, a 22,500-seat, $457.8 million project now under construction. Women’s socccer, aswell, is taking off, with the Kansas City Current starting out in the National Women’s Soccer

League in the 2021 season. It will play in a $117 million soc- cer-specific riverfront stadium Downtown. The ‘Other’ Football While soccer continues to build its fan base, Missouri already can lay claim to preeminence in American football, thanks to the Kansas City Chiefs.

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