{"id":2428186,"date":"2026-05-22T15:33:34","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T15:33:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2428186"},"modified":"2026-05-22T15:33:34","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T15:33:34","slug":"chiefs-royals-sporting-help-fund-world-cup-in-kansas-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/chiefs-royals-sporting-help-fund-world-cup-in-kansas-city\/","title":{"rendered":"Chiefs, Royals, Sporting help fund World Cup in Kansas City"},"content":{"rendered":"

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To help with financial aspects of organizing the 2026 World Cup in each town, FIFA started a Host City Supporters program.<\/p>\n

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The Sports Business Journal said this allows organizing groups to \u201ccover the costs of hosting the event<\/a> through the sale of local sponsorships. Each city can designate up to 10 companies who don\u2019t compete with any of FIFA\u2019s official partners as supporters. These brands are able to use city-specific marks to promote their support for the event and are expected to have a presence at fan festivals within the local market.\u201d<\/p>\n

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For the KC2026 organizers, those companies are Black & Veatch, Hallmark, JE Dunn Construction, Populous, Purina PetCare and the University of Kansas Health System.<\/p>\n

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KC2026 on Friday announced three more Host City Supporters that have or will provide financial support: the Chiefs, Royals and Sporting Kansas City.<\/p>\n

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Those three sports franchises already were playing a role in the World Cup before getting the special designation. Sporting KC is opening its training facilities to Argentina and England, while six matches will be played at the Chiefs\u2019 home, GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium.<\/p>\n

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And the Royals are welcoming fans to use the World Cup bus system<\/a> to attend games.<\/p>\n

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KC2026 president Pam Kramer spoke earlier this year about the Royals\u2019 support.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe Royals are a great partner of ours, not only from a planning standpoint, but from a financial standpoint,\u201d Kramer said. \u201cThey\u2019re a supporter of ours. We really appreciate their support and partnership. … I think they will have an opportunity to show lots of new fans what an experience is like, particularly with rivals like the Cardinals playing (in KC). What better experience for people who may not understand baseball to have that to be at the K for those games. So working very closely with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Sporting Kansas City played host to a number of visiting soccer delegations that were trying to determine where to have their base camp.<\/p>\n

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Four chose the Kansas City area: Argentina (Sporting KC\u2019s training facility), the Netherlands (KC Current facilities), England (Swope Soccer Village) and Algeria (Rock Chalk Park in Lawrence).<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe have been a driving force in the planning for FIFA World Cup 2026 since 2017 when Kansas City was first preparing the bid,\u201d Jake Reid, President and CEO of Sporting Kansas City, said in a news release. \u201cNow that the moment is here, we are thrilled to continue our partnership with KC2026 to show the world why we are the Soccer Capital of America.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Reid is also the Vice President of the KC2026 Board of Directors.<\/p>\n

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Kramer said the partnership with the Royals, Sporting KC and the Chiefs will help make the World Cup a success in Kansas City.<\/p>\n

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\u201cAn important reason Kansas City was selected as a host city is our deeply rooted sports culture and the passion of our fans,\u201d Kramer said in a news release. \u201cThe Chiefs, Royals and Sporting KC are globally recognized organizations that represent the pride, energy and community spirit of our region.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe are especially grateful to Clark Hunt, John Sherman and Cliff Illig for their longstanding support of Kansas City\u2019s FIFA World Cup 2026 efforts and for the leadership they continue to provide through their organizations.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Related Stories from Kansas City Star<\/h5>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Pete Grathoff<\/a><\/p>\n

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The Kansas City Star<\/span><\/p>\n

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From covering the World Series to the World Cup, Pete Grathoff has done a little bit of everything since joining The Kansas City Star in 1997. <\/span>\n <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.kansascity.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To help with financial aspects of organizing the 2026 World Cup in each town, FIFA started a Host City Supporters program. The Sports Business Journal said this allows organizing groups to \u201ccover the costs of hosting the event through the sale of local sponsorships. Each city can designate up to 10 companies who don\u2019t compete […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2403766,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2428186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Kansas-City-Royals-fans-upset-with-team-over-streaming-deal.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2428186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2428186"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2428186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2428187,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2428186\/revisions\/2428187"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2403766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2428186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2428186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2428186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}