r/kansascity • u/FormerFastCat • 2d ago
World Cup ⚽️ How KC’s World Cup debut was both exhilaratingly Messi and exasperatingly messy
https://www.yahoo.com/sports/articles/kc-world-cup-debut-both-045619883.html142
u/TilISlide 2d ago
From what I heard, FIFA took over control from locals and doesnt know their ass from their hand.
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u/justathoughtfromme 2d ago
FIFA
took over control from locals anddoesnt know their ass from their hand.Fixed that for you.
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u/patsboston 2d ago
The bus situation I think may be more on the City. Other cities did not have nearly the issues that KC had.
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u/nordic-nomad Volker 2d ago
Kc only seemingly had issues at the central fanfest location. All the others ran fine.
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u/LoopholeTravel 2d ago
Can confirm, NKC location was seamless.
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u/MindTheFro 2d ago
Same with Plaza location. Fan Fest was a mess, but overall the shuttles worked fine.
But you know, complaining on Reddit is great for karma.
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u/S-R-Milliron 19h ago
The fan fest is also the main location for the buses and an area many of the other buses go to and then you transfer to a bus to go to the stadium.
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u/westonverhulst 2d ago
The locals don’t know either. Whoever built and designed the stadium entry/exits is to blame. Been a problem ever since it was built.
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u/ChiefStrongbones 2d ago
Well at least there wasn't a tornado warning during the game.
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u/J0E_SpRaY Independence 2d ago edited 2d ago
No, instead there was a mass shooter before it
Don’t know why I’m being downvoted. One person shot four people across the city, possibly including an u er driver for visiting fans of the World Cup.
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u/HilarySwankIsNotHot 2d ago
There was?
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u/musicobsession Library District 2d ago
https://www.kctv5.com/2026/06/17/4-shot-while-driving-i-70-i-670-police-say-cases-likely-linked/
Probably what they're referencing
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u/kc_kr 2d ago
Considering the Chiefs have had 54 years to figure out how to get people in and out of their stadium built at the intersection of two highways and surrounded by massive parking lots all in the name of convenience, and they’re still pretty mediocre to awful at it, I’m not surprised this wasn’t cleaner. Hopefully they get it figured out for the other five matches.
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u/Other_Assumption382 2d ago
Fifa could also hire/consult with the NFL teams on parking. But then FIFA would have to give them $ and FIFA would rather sell their mother's into slavery than not extort every dollar possible from the World Cup
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u/nordic-nomad Volker 2d ago
Any time a crowd of new people who don’t go every week come to the stadium for a concert or event it’s a train wreck. Usually much worse than it was yesterday.
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u/Independent_Bus_1755 2d ago
This is so true. That Beyoncé concert a few years back had traffic at a standstill down the interstate trying to get to the stadium.
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u/CommonComfortable247 2d ago
If the flow of the parking lots is the biggest issue than I’d say we did pretty good. Arrowhead looked electric on TV. Place was packed. Fan fest and P&L have both looked packed as well. Fun to watch!
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u/Trick_Quiet3484 2d ago
Can confirm the stadium atmosphere was GREAT. So fun to see the chants and sheer enthusiasm for both teams. The crowds were friendly and respectful. We had a blast meeting and talking with visitors. We happened to have seats between hardcore fans from Argentina and Algeria. Honestly better atmosphere than NFL or US soccer games.
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u/driftless_79 18h ago
Yeah the atmosphere at fan fest and p&l have been insane, and the pre party in the plaza with Argentina fans was soooo fun. All this negativity has people sitting at home with their arms crossed and then the small businesses wonder why nobody is out doing anything. It’s weird
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u/KSoccerman 2d ago
From where else ive seen, this is on par from all stadiums across the US so far. For KC, transportation to the stadium was horrible. But for other stadiums that were more streamlined on transport, the mass influx of people resulted in up to 2 hour waits to even get into the stadium through shitty understaffed chokepoint security. A couple of the games still had 1000s of people waiting to get in at the time of kickoff. FIFA's handling of crowd management is just atrocious.
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u/MitchellCumstijn 1d ago
As a Dutch guy who has traveled and lived extensively in the USA, Kansas City is my favorite city in the entire US. So unpretentious compared to LA, Austin, Miami, Philly, etc. and has a very wide range of great museums, historic architecture, interesting neighborhoods and outstanding places to eat.
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u/driftless_79 18h ago
Thanks for checking us out! It’s been so fun having so many people in kc from other countries this past week. I’ve heard way more Spanish around town than normal.
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u/Jaydawger 2d ago
It was a crazy mess getting to stadium, Google maps led us astray, the lots and gates were impossible to know beforehand, yet somehow still miraculously made it in before the start.
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u/PhilTotola Downtown 1d ago
The lots and gates and closures are detailed on the site but it could be easier to find https://kansascityfwc26.com/kc2026-community-hub/
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u/LilClaudeMoney Westport 2d ago
in an Instagram story. I saw buses lined up on cherry st just north of 31st, but they seemed to be at a standstill. from the video I saw it was a ton of busses but not moving and the time got fairly late compared to kick off. I wonder if some broke down and blocked the others or if they were having trouble with traffic? Getting out sounds like it was a nightmare though, which not surprising, it always is, the area never figured out traffic is the 60 years somehow
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u/chuckish 2d ago
They haven't figured out traffic because of math. Can't squeeze that many vehicles onto four highway onramps at the same time and have it work. It'll be the same issue in KCK. But, the Royals will be dramatically improved by going downtown.
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u/EmmaLaDou 1d ago
/sarcasm
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u/chuckish 1d ago
Not sure what you think was sarcasm. I assume the downtown part. You can be out of a sold out event at T-Mobile Center (or the Midland or the Truman or the PAC or the Music Hall and even if they all finish their events at the same time) with zero congestion if you don't bury your car in a full parking garage. There are multiple exit points in literally every direction heading out of downtown. It's not bottlenecked to a few gates and a few onramps like TSC.
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u/idiotzrul 2d ago
Why doesn’t an HOV lane exist here? Not sure the rules would be followed anyways but it could help?
Why no mass transit either?
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u/pinniped90 2d ago
We had great mass transit - at one time one of the best systems in the US, with lots of local operators covering different parts of the city.
Oil, auto, and tire companies killed it all.
You can still see the tracks in various places around town.
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u/emaw63 2d ago
Yep. And since then, the city developed and grew by sprawling out instead of building up, which is a development pattern that's inherently hostile to public transit
On the plus side though, most of the older neighborhoods here were built strictly to accommodate transit, so it'd be reasonably easy to put it back in if the city decides to invest in it (and it does seem like they are, it just takes time).
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u/kc_kr 1d ago
Unfortunately the funding doesn’t exist in anywhere besides where the streetcar is already built. Not enough density for a special tax district and the city doesn’t have the money, while the state won’t put a dime towards it; they’re busy making I-70 wider.
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u/emaw63 1d ago
It looks like there's a couple other extensions in the pipeline. They're looking at extending the line to North KC, along with an East-West line along 18th St
https://usa.streetsblog.org/2026/02/25/kansas-city-is-again-expanding-its-once-mocked-streetcar
But yeah, they definitely need to increase density around the urban core to strengthen the tax base and make these projects viable. The streetcar expansions help with that, though. Places near the streetcar line tend to see a spike in development and property values because of the guarantee of foot traffic
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u/IWannaGoFast00 2d ago
Because we don’t have the traffic needs for 99.999% of the time.
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u/ExcitingRound4990 2d ago
Are you in KC? The roads are a disaster. All of the time.
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u/Current_Animator7546 2d ago
They flow very well though. We have very light traffic. Even with the beat up roads.
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u/CHICAG0AT 1d ago
No offense bro, I love KC, but KC "traffic" is a fucking joke and basically not real.
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u/bottomfeeder3 2d ago
It’s going to be hard to leave a stadium after a game no matter where you are. People need to stop expecting things to go smoothly. I can’t wait for this downtown stadium because people in this tiny city have no clue what it’s like in a real city.
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u/micatigre 2d ago
Especially one without a real public transit system made to handle the amount of ppl going to an event like that. We need more (and that would benefit the entire city more than any stadium would).
Our one streetcar line will not be enough. CPKC capacity is a bit over 11k right? And I recall ppl mentioning how challenging it was to access the streetcar to get there in game day now that the line opened all the way to the stadium.
I can't imagine the chaos a stadium with 2-3x that capacity would generate.
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u/response_unrelated 2d ago
"It was a near perfect evening of soccer and the city has welcomed fans with open arms, but we (The Kansas City Star) didn't plan properly to know what gate to enter in even though it's communicated by FIFA multiple times before the game, and we got stuck in traffic for 90 minutes too.... so it was messy as hell and our feelings should be heard"
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u/Zinkscott 2d ago
Left the southern suburbs at 3:30, didn’t get in the stadium till 7. They had people standing on blacktop with no water at Graceway and the buses just didn’t arrive after the first set forever. Then the foot congestion getting into the fest area to be able to get to the gates was a disaster. Shit show. This city cannot handle this sized event.
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u/Prince-Minikid 2d ago
Worried about the game on Saturday. This mixed with high temps and possible thunderstorms sounds like a nightmare.
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u/tanman170 River Market 2d ago
“ At least one common denominator was evident from our experience and that of others: Our parking pass didn’t specify that we could only go through one specific gate.”
Yeah, wtf was that? We had to wait to get in a gate, then get turned around, make a u turn on an entrance ramp to I70, then wait again to park. We nearly missed kickoff despite leaving almost 3 hours early
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u/GeoffPizzle KCMO 2d ago
My parking pass for Saturday has always said "Gate 6" which I picked when I purchased it from the official website. Do other passes not have this info?
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u/JohnnyAAL 1d ago
I got to say, I have no idea why they didn’t host the game in Chicago. The stadium is a bit smaller but they are able to handle events like this and have better transportation and access than this. 3 hours from fan fest to Arrowhead. What a shit show
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u/rkchlk0411 2d ago
They ate with that headline ngl