Be Ready – Tuesday’s Weather Looks Rough

This coming Tuesday, Sporting Kansas City kicks off the 2025 season against Inter Miami CF in the CONCACAF Champions Cup at Children’s Mercy Park. Along with integrating new players and the start of the league season on Saturday, the game poses its own issues for both teams as the weather on Tuesday in Kansas City is definitely going to play a factor in the game.

The National Weather Service currently shows the temperature for the 7pm kick off being just 5°F with the wind chill temperature dipping down into the negative at -12°F. Along with the expected cold, a storm system moving into the area forecasts a chance of snow around kickoff, but snow is more likely earlier in the day on Tuesday. It’ll make for a cold, snowing night in the Midwest.

For MLS purposes the game wouldn’t be the coldest game ever for MLS teams, though it would be close. The current record was set in Colorado in 2018 when the Colorado Rapids met Toronto FC in a CONCACAF Champions League Round of 16 match up at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park on February 20th of that year. That game ended 2-0 to TFC with 2,673 people in attendance. It would become a record low temperature for a game in Kansas City as the current record for that is the 2013 MLS Cup game between Sporting and Real Salt Lake, the temperature on that day was 22°F.

For Kansas City sports fans in general the temperature may bring back memories of the Kansas City Chiefs run to Super Bowl LVIII when the Chiefs played the Miami Dolphins at Arrowhead Stadium where the temperature was -4°F with a wind chill down to -27°F. In the days after the game there were plenty of stories coming out about exposure, hypothermia, and frost bite that occurred for fans at the game. Soccer fans may also remember the World Cup qualifier between the USA and Honduras at Allianz Field in St. Paul, Minnesota where the temperature was 5°F, and two players for Honduras were substituted at half time due to the extreme weather.

The forecast for the game has led many fans to ask for and hope for postponement or moving of the game. None of those games mentioned above were moved due to the temperature on the day, and that includes two games that are run by the same organization (CONCACAF) that is in charge of Tuesday’s game in KC. The fact that there’s precedent for other games in the same competition as Tuesday’s CONCACAF Champions Cup game being played in similar conditions would seem to make a move unlikely. The difference between the forecast for Tuesday and all of the previously stated games, including the Colorado vs Toronto CCL game though, is the forecasted precipitation that day ahead of the kick off.

Even if there was a moving or postponement of the game to later in the week, the temperature in Kansas City is not forecasted to get warmer until the weekend when both Sporting and Inter will be playing in the opening weekend of the MLS season. Fans have wondered why CONCACAF didn’t just try to flip the fixtures and have this week’s game in Miami with the return leg in KC next week when temperatures are expected to be more moderate. At this late stage though moving the fixtures around causes more logistical issues for both teams and CONCACAF.

It’s not impossible that the game wouldn’t be moved to a different day to avoid the anticipated snow, but history has shown that CONCACAF hasn’t moved other games for similar temperatures.

For soccer fans though, it may finally answer the question: “can Leonel Messi do it on a cold, snowy night in Kansas City?”

If you are going on Tuesday, make sure to bundle up, bring your blankets, bring your cardboard to stand on, bring your hand warmers, and stay safe on the roads.