Kansas City

Getting there

Arrowhead sits off I-70 about ten minutes east of downtown, in the Truman Sports Complex it shares with Kauffman Stadium. You can see it from the highway. You cannot walk to it from anywhere you'd want to stay. That is the whole Kansas City transit story in one sentence, and the tournament is going to stress-test it.

Flying in: Kansas City International (MCI) is the only airport. The new single-terminal rebuild finally opened in 2023 and it's a real airport now, not the 1972 time capsule it used to be. From DFW you have nonstops on American and Southwest all day. Budget an hour to get from the airport to downtown — it's about 20 miles and the RideKC 229 bus takes a while, so most visitors will rideshare or rent.

Getting to the stadium: RideKC is running a dedicated stadium service on the six KC match days (June 16–July 11), $15 per rider per game, starting about three hours before kickoff and running until two hours after. Separately, seven regular routes get extended hours (some until 2 a.m.) from June 7 to July 11, and the "Legends Loop" between downtown, Westport, and the Legends entertainment district on the Kansas side runs extended World Cup hours of roughly 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. on event days. There is no light rail to Arrowhead. There will not be light rail to Arrowhead. Plan for the match-day bus, rideshare (surge will be real), or a generous friend with a pickup truck.

Base yourself: Stay downtown, in the Crossroads, or in Westport if you can find a room — all three are on the KC Streetcar line, which is free, runs every 15 minutes, and is getting bumped to World Cup frequency. The streetcar only covers downtown, but downtown is where you'll spend most non-match hours.

The fan zone

The FIFA Fan Festival Kansas City is on the south lawn of the National WWI Museum and Memorial — a setting no other host city can touch. The Liberty Memorial tower rises behind the main stage, the skyline sits across the way, and a 45-by-25-foot video board anchors the venue. Capacity is 25,000. General admission is free but requires an advance pass. Premium Garden ($55) and Legacy Lounge ($225) upgrades exist if you want a seat and a shorter beer line.

The festival runs at least 18 days across June and July — all Kansas City match days, every USMNT match day, and July 4, which also happens to be America's 250th birthday. Between matches, the museum itself is open; duck inside for an hour and you'll come out a little quieter than you went in.

Where to watch without tickets

• Kelly's Westport Inn (500 Westport Rd) — Oldest building in Kansas City, oldest bar habits to match. Westport's anchor. On a USMNT or Mexico match day it spills onto Pennsylvania Avenue and stays spilled until close.
• The Levee (Westport, 16 W 43rd St) — Neighborhood-bar energy with enough TVs to follow three matches at once. The locals' choice when Kelly's is a crush.
• McCoy's Public House (4057 Pennsylvania Ave) — Brewpub a block off the Westport strip. Better food than most soccer bars, which matters when you're watching back-to-back group games.
• O'Dowd's Little Dublin (4742 Pennsylvania Ave) — Country Club Plaza Irish pub, covered patio, Premier League regulars who will watch anything with a ball. Civilized crowd, proper pint.
• No Other Pub (1370 Grand Blvd) — Sprint Center-adjacent, Power & Light District, owned by the Cordish/Sporting KC folks. Big screens, big patio, big everything. Lean into it for a marquee evening match.
• Lew's Grill & Bar (7539 Wornall Rd) — Waldo, south of the Plaza. Dive-adjacent and proudly so. If you want to watch a 6 a.m. match with locals who already knew the score, this is the room.

Sporting KC's supporters group, The Cauldron, has shaped KC soccer culture for 15 years — if you see people in blue scarves gathered anywhere pre-match, follow them. They usually know where the singing is.

Eat & drink

Kansas City BBQ is not a suggestion, it's a tax. Pay it.

Joe's Kansas City (3002 W 47th Ave, Kansas City, KS) is the one to do first. It's in a gas station on the Kansas side. Order the Z-Man. Stand in line. Don't argue. Arthur Bryant's (1727 Brooklyn Ave) is the ur-joint, the one Calvin Trillin made famous — rougher edges, burnt ends and a pile of fries, exactly as it should be. Gates BBQ has multiple locations and the staff will shout "Hi, may I help you?" the moment you walk in; order Z-sauce on anything. Q39 (Midtown, 1000 W 39th St) is the modern-competition-BBQ version, sliceable, a little polished, still excellent.

Beyond smoke: Stroud's (5410 NE Oak Ridge Dr) for pan-fried chicken and cinnamon rolls in a roadhouse that feels like it hasn't changed since 1977. Bluestem and The Golden Ox for a Kansas City strip done right. Jarocho in the West Bottoms for serious Mexican seafood. Happy Gillis for breakfast in Columbus Park.

Things to do

• Negro Leagues Baseball Museum + American Jazz Museum (1616 E 18th St) — 18th & Vine is essential. Go for the ballplayer stories; stay for a jazz set at the Blue Room or the Mutual Musicians Foundation.
• Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art — free, Caravaggio to a Shuttlecocks lawn sculpture garden. Two hours, minimum.
• National WWI Museum — you're already there for the fan zone. Go in. World-class.
• Country Club Plaza — 1922 Spanish-architecture shopping district. Walk it at dusk.
• Day trip: Lawrence, Kansas — 45 minutes west, a real college town, Mass Street is worth an afternoon.

Match-day logistics at Arrowhead

The stadium is branded "Kansas City Stadium" for the tournament, not Arrowhead or GEHA Field — FIFA's neutral-stadium rule. Same building. Capacity around 76,000.

Kansas City hosts six matches: four group games (June 16, 20, 25, 27), a Round of 32 (July 3), and a quarterfinal on July 11. The first match at Arrowhead is Argentina vs. Algeria on June 16, which is going to be a loud, red-blue, drum-heavy night — Argentine fans travel as hard as any in the world, and they're walking into the loudest stadium on the continent. Parking exists at the Truman Sports Complex but will be limited and expensive; RideKC World Cup shuttles are free or near-free and drop closer to the gates than most lots. Clear bag policy, cashless. Get there two hours early — FIFA security is slower than an NFL gate.

The big question hanging over the tournament: what happens when a Chiefs crowd's decibel habits meet a World Cup atmosphere? We're about to find out.