City Council Business Session: KC 2026 World Cup Update (Oct 23, 2025)
City Council Business Session: KC 2026 World Cup Update (Oct 23, 2025)
On October 23, 2025, the City Council held a business session to review the approval of previous minutes and receive a comprehensive presentation from KC 2026 leadership regarding preparations for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. The meeting focused on organizational updates, small business engagement strategies, transportation logistics, and fan festival planning, with council members expressing concerns about equitable community representation, traffic management, and the clarity of communications for neighborhoods outside the central zone.
Consent Calendar
- Approval of Minutes: The council unanimously approved the minutes from the previous business session held on October 2nd via a motion, second, and unanimous "aye" vote.
Public Comments & Testimony
- No public comments were recorded during this business session.
Discussion Items
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KC 2026 Organizational Update: Pam Kramer, CEO of KC 2026, provided a status report, noting that 85% of private fundraising is complete and that the organization has secured two host city supporters with five more in contract stages. She highlighted the "KC Game Plan" small business readiness program, which has seen over 200 businesses complete assessments and 2,000 submit interest forms.
- Clarification on Draw & Scheduling: Kramer clarified that the December 5th final draw will determine team groups (specifically Groups E, F, and J matches for KC) but not the final match schedule immediately. The full schedule is expected to be known shortly after, with base camp locations confirmed by late January and publicly announced in April.
- Fan Festival: The official FIFA fan festival is confirmed for Kansas City, Missouri. Renders will be revealed at a press conference the following week. Kramer emphasized that this is the only official activation but encourages other jurisdictions to organize complementary events.
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Small Business Engagement: Council members raised concerns about "FOMO" (fear of missing out) and proprietary restrictions regarding watch parties. Kramer responded that a public viewing license portal will open in December and reiterated that toolkits and the upcoming small business playbook will be widely distributed to all interested stakeholders, including those outside the immediate hub.
- Councilman Rayo's Inquiry: Rayo noted that some small businesses fear missing opportunities by focusing solely on FIFA procurement rather than the broader visitor economy. Kramer confirmed the strategy focuses on distributing economic impact to the hundreds of thousands of expected visitors.
- Airbnb Experiences: Rayo asked about leveraging Airbnb Experiences to help local businesses. Kramer stated that KC 2026 remains neutral regarding specific sponsors but is working with Airbnb on community presentations and will promote curated experiences via the official app to direct traffic to diverse local offerings.
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Transportation & Traffic Management:
- Regional Connectivity: Lindsay Douglas, COO, detailed a plan for 15 regional pickup/drop-off points (KC Connect) serving the entire metro area, including South and North Kansas City, and Lawrence. These locations are expected to be announced before year-end after finalizing agreements with property owners and coordinating with KCATA and Johnson County Transit.
- Stadium Access: Council members, including Councilman Curls and French, expressed anxiety regarding post-Chiefs game congestion, specifically bottlenecks at the tunnel and Royal Way. Douglas confirmed that for World Cup matches, the tunnel and Royal Way will not be used for general vehicle/bus traffic unless in rare circumstances. Instead, Lot L will serve as a dedicated bus mall, and Lot O for rideshare, with Royal Way becoming a dedicated pedestrian path to prevent congestion.
- Streetcar & Transit: The council discussed integrating the streetcar into the plan. Douglas noted that the streetcar is an essential partner, with potential for increased capacity and reduced headways. Councilman Bone praised the collaboration with KCATA to integrate fixed-route services and leverage the tournament as a legacy opportunity to reshape regional transportation.
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Neighborhood Outreach & Communication:
- Councilwoman Boo and Councilman Rayo emphasized the need for timely communication with Community Improvement Districts (like Brookside and Waldo) and residents in areas further from the core. Kramer assured the council that over 230 presentations have been made to community groups and committed to direct follow-up with any groups feeling disconnected.
- Councilman Rayo specifically urged early engagement due to ongoing construction projects (e.g., North Point Development) requiring immediate traffic decisions.
Key Outcomes
- Traffic Safety Plan Confirmation: The council received verbal assurance that dedicated pedestrian paths (Royal Way) and segregated vehicle zones (Lot L for buses, Lot O for rideshare) will be established to mitigate congestion and safety risks, avoiding the bottlenecks experienced during previous large events.
- Transportation Node Timeline: The confirmation that the 15 regional connector points will be announced prior to the end of 2025 after finalizing property owner agreements.
- Communication Commitment: KC 2026 committed to a bi-monthly media briefing schedule starting the following week and to sharing surveys and toolkits to ensure all constituents, including those in the Northland and Southside, feel included in the planning process.
- Next Steps: The team will follow up with Council members (specifically French, Curls, and Rayo) with specific location data for the 15 regional transport nodes and further details on the travel demand management communication plan scheduled for December.
Meeting Transcript
Sessions, good to see everybody. I'm uh Quent Lucas, I guess the chair of this business session. Our first item is approval of minutes of business session of uh October 2nd. Oh, let's just say it this way. Is there a motion to approve the business session minutes for the previous business session? So moved. We're moving second. All in favor indicate by saying aye. Aye. All opposed. Motion passes. Our first item today. We are excited. World Cup 2026, KC 2026. Whoever wants to talk to us. The Queen of Cole County, Pam Kramer. I prefer Princess, but thank you, Mayor and Council, for having us. I'm Pam Kramer. I'm the CEO of KC 2026. Lindsay Douglas is our chief operating officer. So just a few slides, and really we want to leave time for questions that you have. Happy to provide updates on topics that may be of interest to you. So I won't spend a lot of time on this slide. You've all seen it. Just a recap of where we've been. The city, of course, uh signed the original contract and guarantee to FIFA. That contract was novated to us. We have a funding agreement with the city. And once that novation happened, we signed the host city rights agreement, which allowed us to go out and sell sponsorships. So a quick overview of the some of the core requirements. Safety and security, there are 18 uh areas of planning. We are coordinating with federal government, state government, local. I think 32 exercises have taken place. We have an RFP in the market right now for World Cup specific exercises. So you'll see more about that coming soon. Transportation, we're thinking about in two ways. One is that required transportation. So to and from fan festival to and from the matches, airport to downtown, but also working with partners to create a regional connectivity system for the length of the World Cup. The fan experience, the fan festival, human rights and sustainability, really focused on economic impact and making sure we're engaging local and small business. I'll share a little bit more about that in a minute. And then those facilities and venues, the stadium, the team based camp, the venue specific training sites. So you may have seen a few weeks ago, we have launched KC Game Plan, which is our small business engagement readiness program. So it is uh it was more than a hundred um entrepreneur support organizations and agencies helped us create this program. Some of the key uh available now items are all of our sourcing events, $15,000 and above are competitively sourced and advertised. That's really where small business plays. Um there's a readiness assessment that small businesses can complete on our website right now. More than 200 uh businesses have already completed that assessment. There is um training calendar and additional resources available. We are getting ready to launch our small business playbook. Um, and then we are working on some visitor forecast heat maps so that small businesses can help we can help small businesses understand where people will be, how they might be moving, um, what kinds of activities they'll be looking for.
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