ICYMI: Davids Leads Discussion on Kansas City’s World Cup Preparations

Last week, Representative Sharice Davids hosted her fifth World Cup Community Conversation, bringing together local, state, regional, and federal officials alongside trade professionals and business experts. With the 2026 World Cup expected to generate more than $650 million for the Kansas City region, these conversations are key to ensuring the community is prepared to maximize this historic opportunity.

It is estimated that 6.8 million tourists visited World Cup host cities in 2018. To ensure these soccer fans, players, coaches, and workers can efficiently and safely travel between hotels, restaurants, small businesses, and stadiums, today’s discussion focused solely on hospitality needs of the region. Previous World Cup Community Conversations focused on transportation, public health and safety, small business, and impacts on everyday Kansans.

Davids’ World Cup Community Conversation made headlines across Kansas:

KMBC: Kansas City still has work to do before travel surge for World Cup in 2026

“Billions of tourism dollars are on the line as the U.S., including Kansas City, gets ready to host World Cup soccer next year.

To help the metro area get ready, U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, D-Kan., hosted her fifth community conversation.

Erik Hansen of the U.S. Travel Association made a special trip from Washington, D.C., to attend the gathering in Mission, Kansas, on Thursday.

[…]

‘We're concerned that there will be mistakes made to cut critical staff that are actually going to have a huge return on investment for the United States,’ Hansen said. ‘So, if there's a hiring freeze within the State Department, visa wait times go up, we could lose $19 billion just from visa delays alone. That's a huge missed opportunity for the country.’

The report notes the World Cup is part of what’s expected to be a historic travel surge. It includes the Ryder Cup golf competition this year, the U.S. 250th birthday celebration next year and the Olympics in 2028.

Davids said securing federal funding and adequate busing to get guests from Kansas City International Airport to their destinations during the World Cup are important priorities. An estimated 600,000 people are expected to come to Kansas City for the six games, including a semifinal.

‘Other much larger cities that are hosting this have built in mass transit that we just don't have here. And I know there's a transportation and infrastructure community set up, specifically, among stakeholders in the region to think about that,’ Davids said.

Johnson County Post: From hotels to transportation, JoCo’s World Cup preparations a ‘work in progress’

“Arranging enough transportation and lodging for the estimated 600,000 people who will visit Kansas City for the 2026 World Cup is a ‘work in progress,’ says U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids.

But after a meeting with local businesses and elected officials, she said she still feels confident the area will be ready by kickoff time roughly a year and a half from now.

[…]

Some big questions are whether the Kansas City area can get enough public transit to handle fans coming from the airport to Johnson County and other event locales, and whether there will be enough lodging for them when they get here.

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‘Right now I think we are in a place where people see it as an opportunity,’ she said. 

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Another concern is the future availability of federal funds for transportation, amid grant freezes and budget cutting that has happened over the past weeks with the Trump administration’s attempted freeze of federal funds.

‘I think that right now what we’re seeing from the administration is I hope temporary,’ she said, adding that she hopes bipartisan work in the House of Representatives will get some sticking points unstuck.

‘I can tell you right now I am doing everything I can to help figure out ways that we ensure the resources — whether it’s program dollars or grant dollars — that have already been included in budgets for municipalities, counties and our state actually do get released,’ to the Kansas City area, she said.”

Fox4: Travel expert says U.S. isn’t ready for big events like the World Cup

“There are less than 500 days before the FIFA World Cup kicks off in Kansas City, Missouri at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium in 2026.

Various community leaders met at the Sylvester Powell Jr. Community Center Thursday morning with Kansas Democratic Congresswoman Sharice Davids to discuss how they can plan for that event.

The meeting comes just a day after a new report by the U.S. Travel Association said that the U.S. is unprepared for the 40 million visitors expected to come to the U.S. over the next 10 years.

[…]

‘We’re not ready to welcome more than 40 million international visitors that are forecast to come to the United States,’ [Erik] Hansen said. ‘There’s a lot that the government needs to do to prepare, but the clock is ticking, and we’re almost behind.’

Davids said she hasn’t seen the report yet, but metro leaders are trying to address Visa, infrastructure, and safety issues in preparation for the matches.

‘I’m not surprised that we’re not in the place right now if the games happened this June,’ Davids said. ‘Of course we wouldn’t be ready, it’s more than a year out.’

The first of six World Cup matches Kansas City will host in June and July of 2026 is on June 16 of that year.”