There’s a Lot of Chatter About Philly’s World Cup Bid

Next Thursday, FIFA will announce the host cities for the 2026 World Cup in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

The committee who put together Philadelphia’s bid is inviting everybody to a watch party at LOVE Park when the reveal is broadcasted:

PHILLY ARE YOU READY? 😬

Join us in @LOVEParkPhilly ❤️ on June 16th for a watch party, when we find out who will be selected as #FIFA World Cup 2026 host cities! #TheBidIsOn

More info about the event ➡️ https://t.co/d1tOCpuyXr. pic.twitter.com/gSz3gvKKtp

— Philadelphia Soccer 2026 (@phlsoccer2026) June 9, 2022

I hadn’t heard anything about this for some time, then all of a sudden this week, a blitz of various emails and organizations really pushing this thing. Hmm… that’s interesting!

Common logic would say that you wouldn’t go crazy with a party if you didn’t think you had a good chance of winning. The Green Party didn’t exactly book Madison Square Garden when they put Jill Stein and that other guy up against Trump, Hillary, and Gary Johnson in 2016.

But there’s been a lot of smoke with this bid, and where there is smoke there is usually fire! Big flames! Fan ’em. Eastern Pennsylvania Youth Soccer emailed the above party invite to everybody. Local fan groups are being contacted and asked to attend. The source who gave me a couple of Union stories this year (Carranza, the COVID stuff), is convinced this thing is happening, so take that for what it’s worth.

For some background here, there are going to be 16 sites for games. Canada is going with Edmonton, Toronto, and Vancouver, while Mexico chose Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Monterrey. The United States currently has 16 cities bidding for ten spots, which are:

• Philly: Lincoln Financial Field
• LA: Rose Bowl/SoFi
• NY/NY: MetLife
• Dallas: Jerry World
• Kansas City: Arrowhead
• Denver: Mile High
• Houston: NRG
• Washington/Baltimore: M&T Bank Stadium
• Atlanta: Mercedes-Benz
• Nashville: Nissan Stadium
• Seattle: Lumen Field
• Bay Area: Levi’s
• Boston: Gillette
• Cincy: Paul Brown
• Miami: Hard Rock
• Orlando: Camping World

Washington, Orlando, Boston, Dallas, LA, San Fran, and NY/NJ hosted in 1994, and you figure New York and Los Angeles are shoe-ins. But what I would do is scrap those other cities that already hosted and give the other eight bids to Philly, Kansas City (great soccer town), Houston, Atlanta, Nashville, Seattle, Miami, and either Cincy or Denver.

It just seems inconceivable that Florida would get two venues, and doing all four of Philly/Boston/NY/Washington seems like northeast overkill, though travel is easy up and down that corridor. They can play the semifinals and final in LA and New York, but these other markets are quality and show a lot of support for their relatively new MLS teams, so that’s how I’d do it. Gillette can piss off. Terrible venue in the middle of nowhere.

Anyway, if we’re setting odds on Philly winning its bid, we’re in the -350 range right now with the line moving towards -500. That’s my guess.

ALSO –

forgot to mention the TV thing:

@Kevin_Kinkead Your article on #WorldCup2022 in Philly misses a huge point…. Comcast owns Telemundo, which is broadcasting the Cup in Spanish. It also is a main broadcast outlet for soccer in the US. They will expect shots of their HQ from the Linc during WC broadcasts.

— Loopy (@jonatheber) June 9, 2022

Also, I’ll leave this here if you want a laugh:

Now official: DC and Baltimore have merged their 2026 World Cup venue bids. If the bid is selected by FIFA, Baltimore would host matches and DC would stage a massive fan festival on National Mall. (DC’s hopes of being selected on its own had dimmed because of FedEx Field.)

— Steven Goff (@SoccerInsider) April 21, 2022

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