This afternoon the U.S. World Cup bid committee announced the list of 18 cities that would be submitted as a part of the bid to host the 2018/2022 World Cup.
According to U.S. Soccer Federation president Sunil Gulati, the final list of cities average a stadium capacity of around 78,000, with the possibility of 5,000,000 World Cup tickets available for either a 2018 or 2022 tournament. That would be 33 percent bigger than in 1994, when fewer games were played.
Here's the list of cities:
Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Diego, Seattle, Tampa and Washington, D.C.
It's not guaranteed that every city would host a match, as the FIFA requirements stipulated that up to 18 cities could be submitted, but 9-12 stadiums would likely be used. Chicago, Detroit, Orlando and San Francisco were among those that did not make the final cut.
What do you think of the final list? Where should the first/last games be held? Disappointed to see Chicago or Orlando miss out?
Share your thoughts below.
I agree that San Diego as a city is fairly high on the list, but Qualcomm will be pretty old by the time the world cup rolls around. In addition to being old it will also be on the small side so as a stadium its below average. If the Chargers get a new stadium between now and when the Stadium sites are finalized (a couple years away) I think SD rockets towards the top of the list.
And I feel the same about your city of fountains or whatever it is. Indianapolis/Chicago would have made a better pair than the selection of Kansas City. Who would want to go there?
I am scratching my head over the Chicago selection as well. I was at the Soldier Field Honduras game this summer and it was a wonderful atmosphere.
Some people are upset the the Bay Area was left out. In my opinion the Oakland Coliseum would’ve been the most likely place in the Bay area to host games (largest and “nicest” stadium). So I was just showing that from a pure capacity standpoint the Bay area had no chance and as you say its a craphole which certainly isn’t going to help. The other California cities also have old stadiums but at least those options have decent to large capacities which is why LA and San Diego survived while SF did not.
Indy fits all the criteria to host. It does not matter if they have never kicked a ball around that city, it will be in the final 12.
Stadium capacity and FAN ZONES near the stadium are the primary concerns of FIFA. $$$$$’s are what drives the selection process. Sunil stated that each stadium could have a capacity upwards of 78,000
Philadelphia has its entire sports complex in 1 spot accessible from highways and mass transit. Boston will be cut because Foxboro is in the middle of nowhere and has no place for fans to congregate.
Tampa has large swaths of land around its stadium. Orlando is a better city than Tampa and will have a new stadium but it has capacity issues and no Fan Zone opportunities. Unless Miami is going to upgrade its stadium, it will be cut. That place is worn out and dated.
Stop thinking with such ignorance. The driving issues are:
Money – capacity
Money – fan zones
Money – luxury suites
and more MONEY
The stadiums will fill up no matter where they are, but where do they make the most money?
Houston BABY! cant wait go back to my old stompin grounds. sorry Chi-town.
WTF??!!??!!??!! NO CHICAGO?????
The F’ING THIRD BIGGEST CITY IN THE COUNTRY???
An insult to the country, not only to Chicagoans… I have a feeling this will be changed…
Get Baltimore out and switch it with Chicago… As a New Jerseyan, having 5 stadiums nearby is cool and all, but it’s a half hour drive from my house to the Meadowlands and a half hour drive from M&T to FedEx … Is that saying that if there was a stadium in my small suburb, my town would be considered??? obviously not, but you know what i mean…
Geographically I would’ve chosen the bay area over san diego, but that’s a distant second on my list of concerns…
C’mon Chicagoans, fight for your city
i find it hard to believe Chicago didn’t make the cut. Really unbelievable! Major city, MLS city, Soldier field. What is the deal?
yeah, no Chicago is bizarre. I mean Tampa, but not Chicago?
I’m guessing that Indy was selected because it has a strong track record of hosting big sporting events — multiple Final Fours, the Indy 500, and the U.S. Grand Prix to name the most prominent. The city also has a state-of-the-art stadium that will host the Super Bowl in 2012. It has a walkable, vibrant downtown area with tons of hotel space that is tailor-made for Indy’s convention business. That being said, I am surprised that Chicago wasn’t selected as well.
I am from Indy (although haven’t lived there in a long while) and was surprised a lot as well…
However, reflecting on its inclusion, there are a lot of positives that from a FIFA/WC-hosting perspective, make sense:
– one of the US’s newest sports staduium w/ “FIFA-compliant” seating capacity, what is viewed by many in the NFL as some of the premier team dressing/locker rooms, significant suite availability (2 levels of), custom-made and ample media space, state-of-the-art retractable roof, high tech screens, wide hallways (lined with concessions) with huge ceilings, etc.
– strong travel infrastructure: has one of the US’s most modern and passenger-friendly airports (opened within the past year) and the city is at the crossroads of the US’s main East-West highway (US 70) and a major North-South highway (US 65). Thus, as is the case during the WC, fans will typically be based in one city (or close to that city) where “their team” is playing its group games, but then travel by air or car/bus to other cities. Indy is networked across the country’s airport network and is an easy drive (or commute) to/from Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Columbus, etc.
– significant hotel capacity in the downtown area: Indy (believe it or not) is a major city for hosting exhibitions and convestions (Comic-Con, etc.). Yes, Chicago has a reputation as a “convention”-hub, but Indianapolis has a similar amount of hotel/dining/food & beverage logistics/infrastructure.
– experience hosting major sporting events: the Indy 500 (~500,000 people attending in 1 day) and the Brickyard 400 (supposedly Nascar’s highest attended event) are obvious, but the US version of F-1 was hosted in Indianapolis (until F-1 teams scored an own goal), the NCCA basketball finals were hosted something like 3 or 4 times in the 1990s in Indianapolis, the SuperBowl will be hosted there in 2012, Colts, Pacers (& the 2000 NBA finals), the Pan American games, etc.
– compact downtown with a number of parks, shopping, restaurants all located within the city (vs. spread out in suburbia).
– Major corporations (Lilly, Wellpoint, Simon REIT, etc) that tend to throw $$$-funding behind the city’s civic and sports activities.
– and (this is a guess) a well-oiled organizing committee that has used sports to increase the city’s profile over the last decade or so. For example, a number of US Olympic federations were targeted and moved their HQs to Indy (such as swimming/diving, track & field, rowing, cycling, etc.), the NCAA is HQ’d in Indy, etc. On this note, from what I have read, the Chicago group was focused on its (unfortunately failed) Olympic bid and may not have put forward an attractive or complete enough effort when it came down to pitching the city as a WC2018/2022 host city to the USSF…
Anyway, forgive just a few thoughts… Please forgive the verbose musings…
Chicago = no under the table envelope for Sunil and the gang due to ethical bid group.
No Chicago, but Indianapolis? WTF!
I hope Denver gets selected if US wins a bid. I’d maybe buy tickets to every game at Invesco
Does anyone besides me think this is the result of FIFA’s decision to do World Cup bids on an 8 year schedule?
Maybe certain countries…nudge nudge (Australia)…will need time to get up to date, but the U.S.? We could host it tomorrow.
And, as far as picking the cities 8 years out…we build new stadiums every year.
I have to think that we can be picked to host and not tied to KC if a better suitor pops up in the next 8 years.
Barack, of course, will only be President through 2016 😉 I’m sure he’ll support it all the way.
I doubt politics will come into it. The President will support the bid even with the exclusion of (our) hometown Chicago.
Since the bid is for 2018 or 2022, I would imagine that it’s more of a representation, and that cities with a new stadium in the next 10 years could get back on the list.
“Bad bid?” That article cited “olympic fatigue,” whatever that means.
Third largest U.S. city, a lakefront crown jewel, represents the right time zone.
Their bid only had to be one sentence.
Big Chil, you being honest or sarcastic? LOL
Well something tells me airlines would be glad to adjus their flight schedules for a month if it meant crazy profits for them?
What do you guys think?
I guarantee you Southwest is salibating at the prospect of flights between their headquarters of Dallas to Houston, LA, Phoenix, Seattle, Miami, Tampa, all of the northeast cities and Nashville, hell if United gives up some power they can fly into ATL by then. Plus Southwest goes to Alabama I think only a few hours away from Atl.
Chicago should be there but it has some serious faults with the smallest stadium, no roof to counter the summer weather and no immedeate Big city close to them?
Yeah we lost Chi town and this could of done wonders for the Fire who need to pull their attendance numbers since such a big market has to bring in more fans but maybe they’ll embrace the game and learn from it?
We still have the #1, 2, 4 and 5 biggest cities in the US involved in NY, LA, HOU & Dallas.
Yep.
Baltimore, Indianapolis, Nashville and Tampa but no Chicago?!?!
I would be very interested to hear the reasoning behind this. I would also like to know how the USSF thinks this will look in anyway ‘good’ to the committee that will ultimately decide this as Chicago is the home of the USSF. It’d be like England not playing any games in Manchester. I can only think it is the horrid Mistake by the Lake that has done them in. ‘New’ Soldiers Field sucks and really should have been razed and totally rebuilt to something larger than the tiny box it is now.
One final note, the few comments about wanting large Hispanic populations: Chicago has a very large Hispanic population however, as someone else pointed out, this is the World Cup. People I know who have no interest in soccer 3.5 years get completely wrapped up in soccer for the World Cup it markets itself.
BURN.
If it was about the stadium then Beaver Stadium would have been picked. 110,000 people can fit in that b@#$
Well, they’re gonna have to, flightwise, lol.
How do you screw up this bid? “We have a world class cosmopolitan city with direct flights to just about everywhere and a 61,500 seat stadium.”
Aaron, I’m with you that Chicago being the connecting hub it is despite O’Hare’s horrible set up, and with so much Culture, diversity and sight seeing possibilites that I thought Chicago would be a lock for the World Cup, specially since they opened it last time 16 years ago.
But there are some factors as to why they didn’t get it, the Olympics Bid failure probably plays a bigger part than we’re willing to accept, a lot of Chicago residents said they didn’t want to spend all this money on International events when there are so many problems within the city.
Soldier Field while great, modern and historic is very small, and the fact that the humidity and heat of the summer are always very high in the midwest and stuff makes it also another point against them.
Phoenix, Houston, Dallas, Indy and even KC are offering State of the Art facilities with not only media and fan accomdations of the best luxury and regular levels but also controled climates, with Retractable or sliding roofs those places have amazing advantages in terms of venue and of the one big complain they had in 94, the other was the distance teams had to travel in order to play games as they moved along the tournament.
This probably hurts Chicago with Boston, DC, NY, Philly all being near each other, then you got the 2-Step in Texas which Tampa& Miami as well as not too far from KC and the south spots in Atlanta and Nashville, it makes it harder for Chicago being in it’s lonesome.
LA has Phoenix less than hour away by plane if I’m not mistaken, Seattle about 3 hours away and Starbucks town being the most obvious Soccer loving town in all of the US right now, can you say US national stadium?
San Diego also hurts Chicago with their weather, bigger stadium and proximity to LA&Phoenix, hell there’s a 2 or 3 hour train to SD from LA and there’s suppsed to be a bullet train that would get you there in about 2 hours or less? Could get to Seattle pretty quick with that train too! Not sure if it goes all the way to Washington thru Oregon but sure makes it easier don’t you think?
Yeah.
yeah kansas got lucky but st. louis was just a worm hole
Aaron will you also tell Imo’s about Chad’s remark as well? St. Louis would have been a bid city if not for Imo’s crappy pizza.
I’m from the Bay. You have to admit, the Bay has no decent stadiums that are accessible to a large contingent. Candlestick Park? That stadium is s@#$ The Oakland Coliseum? Even worse. Memorial Stadium at UC Berkeley? Gorgeous but accessible only to student (in the middle of a residential area). The only viable option would have been Stanford Stadium.
Excluding Chicago could actually hurt our bid. Foreign travelers to Indy and KC?
So Soldier Field is the smallest. 61,500. What other country has this problem that a 60,000 capacity stadium is the smallest in contention?
It’d just be a better ticket to get.
Yeah, the 45 min hassle in lines is a lot less than a layover + connecting flight.
Me too.
Dude…what does Milton Keynes, Bristol, and Plymouth have over any of the cities on our list? It’s not asinine…if it comes out that Chicago officials decided not to sign the FIFA paperwork, is that the fault of our World Cup Committee?
Yep.
Someone correct me if I’m wrong but if we do in fact end up hosting the World Cup in 2018 or 2022, that of these 18 cities (and 21 stadiums) NOT ALL OF THEM will be hosting games. I think the only thing FINAL about this list is that it will be the final list submitted to FIFA on May 14, 2010. I expect that if we do end up hosting the World Cup in 2018 or 2022 FIFA will whittle the stadium list down to 12 or so (maybe 14).
By comparison, Germany used 12 stadiums, South Africa is using 10, and Brazil will be using 12.
Ok, twice the size of Texas, via Wikipedia.
People…you have no idea why Chicago was left off of the list…each city had to sign forms between the stadium and governments of the city and states…maybe someone in one of these areas decided not to sign…I doubt USSF said F-Chicago…and remember this…the World Cup Committee would have decided on this list, so it is more than just USSF saying “these are the 18 cities”…you have people from MLS, Government officials, and business people who decided Chicago was not to be included in the 18…
As a Bay Area guy, the SF/Oakland snub pisses me off. Huge soccer hotbed, 3 large stadiums in Palo Alto (Stanford University), San Francisco and Oakland (although only Palo Alto and Oakland were in running), 3M plus people, a history of World Cup success (we hosted in ’94), large ethnic (Hispanic/Asian) population.
At the Chicago snub feels wrong as well. Grant Wahl speculated that this could impact Obama’s excitement to support the World Cup in the USA, since we just excluded his home town.
IVES – I’d love to hear you speculate on the politics of this short list. Why did some make it and some not? Come on – speculate! 🙂
I agree. I was hoping that this time the groups would stay regional. I.e. NE — Boston, NY, Philly, Midwest, Chicago, Indy, Ohio, etc. Makes it much easier for team & fan travel and still showcases our country.
South Africa’s groups are somewhat disparate, but we’re only dealing with a country the size of Texas, so… 😉
One would think Sunil would want an easy commute from his home, and office, to at least one game.
It ain’t.
I doubt that. Daley has been big on promoting his city, including the 1994 World Cup.
Well said. I shouldn’t have moved to Denver.
So happy Nashville made the list but it is amazing that both chitown or the bay area, especially sf, missed out. Easily two of the best cities in the country
Ridiculous to leave the SanFran/SanJose/Oakland/Sacramento area out – we have **two** teams in each of the top-3 major leagues (NFL, NBA, MLB), not to mention the Earthquakes, historically strong college soccer teams (Stanford, Cal, Santa Clara), at least FOUR US Soccer Development Academies, a large Hispanic population, a vibrant international community, millions of kids enrolled in youth soccer, GREAT tourist spots in the 100-mile radius, FOUR international airports, hotel space, partying locations, you name it…
Average stadium capacity of around 78,000?
OK, so they are, once again, talking about proposing the use of American Football stadiums. I’ll be amazed if FIFA doesn’t laugh us off at this point, but we’ll see, we’ll see.
Personally I don’t like it. It’s like hosting the Hockey World Championship in a country that only has curling rings large enough to handle all the fans.
Are you serious!!!! NO CHICAGO!!!?????
Well its brand new and still one of the smallest, if not the smallest, in the NFL. This is terrible news…
Chase I have not had the pleasure of going to Baltimore or DC area, but you really think they have enough hotels, car rentals and freeways to accomodate 2 WC stadiums so close by?
Not saying DC/Baltimore area is outright wrong for this, just saying it makes one wonder when Chicago, Orlando and San Francisco are not on the list?
To me with 4 cities in the northeast DC, NY, Boston, Philly that should be enough.
You got the 2 TX teams, LA, PHX and Seattle within 3 hours worth a plane ride of each other and then you have the sort of isolated cities like Miami&Tampa, KC, the Southen spots in Atlanta&Nashville, Denver which is very odd not sure why put them there, I know Soldier Field is hot and small but Denver? Not too big a city and their soccer fan base is very questionable, plus heat and Mile High altitude not cool!
Indy is a bit of a head scratcher too, small stadium but domed I guess and good option from Chicago?
Chicago missed out because they put in a bad bid. Nothing to do with stadium capacity.
The FIFA Host city agreement that cities must adhere to in order to host World Cup games is a very detailed and complex document. Obviously Chicago was busy with the Olympic bid.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2010/01/12/sports/sports-us-soccer-us.html