For a city that has won a World Series and three Super Bowls since 2015, soccer has been dominating recent headlines in Kansas City.

The city’s soccer stakeholders have invested more than $620 million building amateur and professional soccer venues in the last 15 years, including the Kansas City Current’s 2-year-old, $125 million CPKC Stadium, the world’s first women’s professional sports stadium. The market will host six FIFA World Cup 2026 matches (including a quarterfinal) and is home to four base camps, tied with Northern New Jersey for the most of any North American city.

Sporting KC owns No Other Pub in Kansas City’s Power & Light District, making it the country’s only major league team with such an asset. And 10,000 visitors are expected in town for the 2027 United Soccer Coaches Convention.

Outside of soccer, T-Mobile Center has become the de facto home of Big 12 basketball postseason tournaments. When the contracts expire in 2031, the city will have hosted a combined 51 men’s and women’s basketball tournaments. 

The city’s diverse recent résumé also includes the NFL Draft; USA Gymnastics Championships; NCAA Division I field hockey, soccer, volleyball, basketball and wrestling postseason tournaments; TKO Takeover, a five-night weekend at T-Mobile Center that included a 10-team PBR event, a UFC bout and WWE’s “Monday Night Raw”; and April’s National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics National Convention.

Home Base: Bigelow Cos.; Crawford Architects; Dimensional Innovations; Generator Studio; Hallmark; HNTB; HOK; Manica Architecture; Pendulum Studio; Populous; United Soccer Coaches (since 1941), the world’s largest coaches organization.

Coming Soon: The $375 million American Royal complex, with two indoor arenas, is expected to be finished by 2029 near Kansas Speedway and Sporting KC’s stadium, adjacent to the Chiefs’ under-development $3 billion domed stadium and entertainment district that aims to open in 2031. The Royals and Hallmark last month unveiled a $1.9 billion downtown stadium as part of a $3 billion, 85-acre development.

The Kansas City Sports Commission and Foundation was named Sports Commission of the Year in April by the Sports Events & Tourism Association (Sports ETA), among cities with populations of more than 500,000.

Key Number: The new $1.5 billion terminal at Kansas City International Airport opened in 2023, representing the largest single infrastructure project in the city’s history. 

Previous Rankings

2023: #16

2024 Event Hosting: #13

2025 Soccer: #6