ManU match is another sign of KC's ambition
Manchester United legend Ryan Giggs will lead the Red Devils into KC in July
First came the groundbreaking on a new stadium. Then came a
gaggle of offseason acquisitions. Now, Manchester United – the most popular
team in the world – is coming to Kansas City just two short weeks after the
World Cup final.
Talk about making major waves in a short period of time.
Presiding over the snowballing momentum in Kansas City is
Wizards President Robb Heineman, the man spearheading efforts to take Major
League Soccer from regional also-ran to main event.
And in a region previously deprived of world-class soccer,
nothing reinforces that commitment more than convincing the Red Devils to make
a preseason stop in the Midwest.
“I think this is kind of a dream come true for Kansas City,”
Heineman said.
After spending more than a decade on the periphery of public
consciousness, Heineman and the Wizards local ownership group have done
everything in their power to drum up interest in the team. Part of that vision
has always been to bring high-level foreign competition to an area of the
country that normally gets overlooked.
Chivas Guadalajara and Club America played in front of
almost 40,000 fans at Arrowhead last year, a record in Kansas City for a soccer
game, but Manchester United figures to blow that number out of the water.
In a little less than a week, the game has already generated
press from all over the Midwest. United’s worldwide popularity alone figures to
attract plenty of fans from nearby cities such as Omaha, St. Louis and Oklahoma
City as well as areas in between.
“We know a lot of the big clubs stay out of the Midwest
during the summer, and usually hit the coasts on their American tours,” veteran
Wizards defender Jimmy Conrad said. “To get someone of Manchester United’s
stature and magnitude is a big deal for everybody involved, the city of Kansas
City included.”
And as much as the Wizards stand to gain from the match, the
city itself will surely be the biggest winner if all goes as planned and the
match sells out.
In the short term, a packed house and vibrant crowd would
certainly help entice more elite clubs to Kansas City and the Midwest during
their preseason tours. But it’s the long-term ramifications that really excite
Heineman.
Kansas City and Arrowhead Stadium are in the running to host
World Cup games as part of the United States’ bid to host the tournament in
2018 or 2022, and a successful exhibition would only increase the chances of
the city being picked as a host.
And while the spotlight will be squarely focused on United,
the Wizards are hoping that the same fans who pack Arrowhead on July 25 will be
some of the same ones who help fill the team’s new stadium and support the side
in the years leading up to another World Cup on American soil.
And if the Wizards can wrestle the limelight away from the
Red Devils, even temporarily, and give a solid showing on the field, they will
give even more credibility to an already humming public relations campaign
preparing for the debut of the team’s new stadium.
“We still have a lot of Eurosnobs out there,” Conrad said.
“Fair enough, MLS is a young league, and we still have a lot of growing to do
on a lot of different levels. But if we can go out there and put on a good
performance against one of the best clubs in the world, that goes a long way to
starting to win casual fans over.”