Patrick Mahomes traded soccer for football on Saturday when he and wife Brittany headed to the Kansas City Currents’ stadium opener on the first day of the NWSL season.
Built at a cost of nearly $120 million on the banks of the Missouri River, with the downtown skyline just to the south, CPKC Stadium represents one of the few facilities in the world designed specifically for use by female athletes.
The 11,000-seat stadium, almost entirely privately financed, was christened Saturday when the Current play the Portland Thorns. It wasn’t long before the first goal either, with Current’s Vanessa DiBernardo scoring after 22 minutes.
Mahomes and his wife, a college soccer player, were front and center at the ribbon cutting ceremony along with current Chairman and CEO Chris Long, Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas and NWSL Commissioner Jessica Berman.
The pair then entered the stadium and onto the pitch as the thousands of fans in attendance cheered them on.
Patrick Mahomes and wife Brittany went to the opening of the Kansas City Currents stadium
Chris Long high-fives Mahomes as Brittany and Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas look on
The couple posted a selfie of them on their way to the game on Instagram and added ‘KC Baby’
They went down to the field to check it out before the game started
Most of the 14 NWSL teams in the league rent stadiums or, if owned by a Major League Soccer club, play in venues built for the men.
But the vision of Current’s ownership group, led by Chris and Angie Long and including investors like Chiefs quarterback Mahomes and Brittany, was to build their own facilities.
They began with an $18 million purpose-built training facility, then turned their attention to the stadium, where they could control standards, schedules and, most importantly, revenue.
The predecessor to the Current, known as FC Kansas City before it folded in 2017, at various times played in a high school soccer stadium, a college soccer stadium and the practice field of MLS club Sporting KC.
When the club reformed as the current one in 2021, it began playing in a minor league ballpark before moving a few blocks over to Children’s Mercy Park, one of the jewels of MLS, but a stadium that nonetheless belonged entirely and altogether another.
Season tickets have been sold out for months, and demand for single-game seats is strong enough that some fans are already wondering when the stadium will expand. It is designed so that seats can be added in the future.
Still, the construction of CPKC Stadium—the naming rights were sold to the Canadian Pacific Kansas City railroad—has not been without detractors.
The 11,000-seat stadium will be christened on Saturday when they play the Portland Thorns
Season tickets have been sold out for months, and demand for single-game seats is high
Still, the construction of CPKC Stadium has not been without its critics amid traffic
Some are concerned about property values and traffic congestion, others a lack of parking; the club recently said spots would cost $50 per game, and many fans took to social media to express their outrage.
The club hopes that many will use carpooling options and public transport to alleviate the parking problems.
The timing also couldn’t be better in Kansas City, where a golden age sports are in progress.
The Royals, who won the World Series in 2015, plan to build a new downtown stadium by 2028 as part of a more than $2 billion public-private partnership.
The Chiefs are coming off back-to-back Super Bowl titles, will try to become the first team in NFL history to three-peat this coming season, and are targeting an $800m renovation of their own at Arrowhead Stadium.
Sporting KC remains a popular draw, as do several minor league teams in the area, while the NCAA wrestling championships and Big 12 basketball tournaments will soon take place at the nearby T-Mobile Center.