Sporting KC
The Sporting KC vs Messi Game should Move to Arrowhead
Sporting Kansas City host Inter Miami in 2024 and there are numerous reasons why the game should be moved to Arrowhead.
Last week, Sporting Kansas City and the rest of the teams of Major League Soccer announced their 2024 regular season schedules. One of the headlines for many teams around the league, including Sporting KC, was that they get to host Lionel Messi and Inter Miami CF.
As of today, SportingKC.com says that game will be held in Children’s Mercy Park. However, let us make the case why it should be moved to Arrowhead Stadium.
Big Caveats
First, we have to address some potential issues. While Arrowhead is set to be a 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup host venue, as well as a 2024 Copa America venue, I’m not actually sure they can fit a regulation size soccer pitch as of right now.
I’m going to assume that is being worked on and it’ll be resolved. The Sporting KC versus Inter Messi Miami game is relatively early in the season on April 13th but I’m confident they will get it done!
The other issue is Sporting KC and their ownership group doesn’t control Arrowhead and there would undoubtedly be some cost associated with that. However, the gained revenue should far outweigh that.
Venue Comparisons
For anyone who remembers the Kansas City Wizards days, Arrowhead can be cavernous when you aren’t able to fill all the seats. I don’t think that’ll be a problem with Messi is coming to town.
Children’s Mercy Park
Capacity: 18,467 (21,650 with standing room only)
Arrowhead Stadium
Capacity: 76,416
The record attendance at a Sporting KC/Kansas City Wizards game is 52,342. That was in 2010 when SKC hosted Manchester United.
Arguments Against this Move
Before we get to why the game should be moved to Arrowhead, we should address the naysayers. There was a thoughtful discussion in the comments on this very site, that I don’t want to just brush aside. I think they make some valid points, but I’m here to shoot them down.
It’s Just a Cash Grab
There is no doubt moving the game to Arrowhead would be seen by some as a cash grab. And to an extent, that is obviously true. There are some MLS teams that made more money last year on their single game they hosted when Messi came to town than they made on all their other ticket sales all year.
However, if the game remains at CMP, it’ll just make the scalpers rich. The primary ticket market will go up, but the secondary ticket market will likely skyrocket. As of right now, there is no “tickets” button next to that game as I imagine all the details are still being worked out on how you get tickets to that game.
I’d personally like to see the money go back into the team, and if the team makes more money off the sales, they’ll have less of an excuse to not spend huge on their next Designated Player, for example.
Why Cater to Messi Fans?
Opening up 50,000+ more tickets just means more Messi fans.
That is obviously true. There will be some fans that come to the stadium just to see Messi. And if/when he subs out, some of them may leave too.
My counter argument is simple. Don’t you think that’ll still happen with less seats? Many season ticket members have already planned to sell their tickets to the Inter Miami game to subsidize the rest of their season ticket costs. That will mean there will be plenty of pink jerseys in the stadium, and not the St. Louis City wet dog food pink that crossed the state in hoards last year.
The Messi fans are coming regardless.
Homefield Advantage Will be Lost
This is a tough one to push back against. However, I think there is the potential that this happens no matter what. As mentioned above, the Messi fans are coming. Some of them will surely be Messi and Sporting KC fans. But a lot of them will be in either CMP or Arrowhead, meaning less straight up SKC fans.
My counter argument would be two-pronged. First, more Kansas Citians will be in the doors (and probably more out of town folks too) and they have city pride. They may cheer for Messi, but they’ll also cheer for their club. We are the Soccer Capital after all.
Second, think back to the Manchester United game. People undoubtedly came for the visitors, but the Wizards won them over when they upset the English giants.
Come for Messi, become a Sporting Kansas City fan!
Arguments For this Move
These are simple.
More People Can Go
Yes, some of those extra folks will be rooting for the wrong team/player. But it will give many more people a chance to see one of, if not the, greatest players to ever play our game.
In my life, most of the people I know don’t care about soccer. However, they know I care and were already acutely aware that Messi is coming to town. Just the fact that others were bringing up soccer to me, instead of the other way around, shows this moment is capturing non-soccer fans attention. Maybe they’ll become soccer fans.
More People = More New SKC Fans
If you get more people in the door, there is no doubt in my mind new Sporting KC fans will be made (assuming SKC don’t embarrass themselves in this game). It’ll be a chance for Sporting KC to capture the attention of so many more eyeballs.
I can already picture Jake Davis standing over a downed Messi, just like Matt Besler over Cristiano Ronaldo at the World Cup.
What a picture. Cristiano Ronaldo frustrated with… Matt Besler 😭 pic.twitter.com/yD7vGflU46
— james (@hazebrew_) February 12, 2022
JFD! JFD! JFD!
Not to mention, if Sporting KC play the beautiful soccer they are capable of, who wouldn’t want to come back and watch that? Plus, even though it’ll be in a much different venue, soccer matches are just different. 90 minutes of singing and chanting. It’s going to bring in new fans of the game, and hopefully the team.
It’ll Keep Costs Down
As of the time of this story publishing, single match tickets weren’t officially on sale yet for this game. However, the resale prices had ballooned to north of $400 per seat on the limited seats somehow out there. That will obviously come back down to earth, but it’ll still be very expensive to see Sporting KC or Messi on April 13th.
I know #SportingKC versus Miami tickets aren't on sale yet officially, but some of these resale prices are just wild. pic.twitter.com/vTIYTaE25e
— Chad Smith (@PlayFor90) December 27, 2023
If costs come down, it’ll make it more palatable for regular people to get out to the game. People who are much more like you and I. And it won’t force season ticket members into feeling like they need to sell their tickets to recoup some of their costs.
It will make this SKC/Miami/Messi thing a shared moment in time that tens of thousands more of us can say, “I was there.”
Shout out to my wife for Tweeting the idea right after the schedule came out.
Can Sporting KC do us a favor and play the Inter-Miami game at Arrowhead. That way the tickets aren't stupid expensive and more people can see Messi. Feels like a win for everyone. If someone can get this tweet to SKC/Chiefs owners that'd be great, lol. #SportingKC
— For the Glory KC Podcast (@FortheGloryKC) December 19, 2023
Minnesota United Defeat Sporting KC 3-0 in Preseason
New Sporting KC Kit Numbers Unveiled
Sporting KC Sign 15-Year-Old Zamir Loyo Reynaga
Trying to Set a Sporting KC Depth Chart
Across State Lines: Thommy Signs with LA Galaxy
What is the Minimum Sporting KC Needs to do to be Roster Compliant
Malik Tillman heads goal class, Robinson struggles: USMNT Tracker pre-FIFA World Cup 2026
Another Week Passes Without a Sporting KC Signing
Sporting KC Add Two Defenders in Meyer and Reid
I feel for the people who argued the against – and they aren’t wrong exactly. But this is quite likely a one time event. I think I’m for it. Let’s just fill it up with SKCians(?)! Sportings(?) Blue Crew(?)
Hard disagree on all counts.
I can see the argument that prices will be high anyway, so why not hamstring the scalpers and have more of the inevitable gouging go to the team? But honestly I’m not convinced we’d see any noticeable improvement/reinvestment in the team anyway, rather than it just vanishing into general revenue, so I’m not sure I care where the stupid-money ticket profits go. Do you really think we’ll see a better DP signing, lower concession prices, or any other direct fan benefit because SKC pocketed revenue from a Messi one-off?
As for “more people can go / might become SKC fans”…not convinced of the correlation here. Never been to Arrowhead but soccer generally doesn’t translate well in cavernous NFL stadiums. Will it really be fun for casuals if the game is hard to see or hear? What if Messi doesn’t play, or only plays a little (a pretty reasonable possibility)? It’ll be a great atmosphere when the casuals abandon the stadium. Even if it’s a good atmosphere, it doesn’t tell casuals much about what a normal SKC matchday is like.
Really, your pro argument is based on a lot of ifs. IF the home team plays well…IF Messi actually plays…IF the atmosphere in a cavernous stadium is compelling to casual fans (will the “singing and chanting” really carry to most of the crowd?)…IF 50-70,000+ people will pay Messi prices or IF costs come down…IF significant numbers of casual attendees become meaningful SKC fans (do you have any evidence that 2010 achieved this vs. being a one-off?). Absent a significant amount of these ifs going right, you have a potentially embarrassing or at least damp squib of an “event”.
As opposed to playing it as a normal home game where core SKC supporters (those who didn’t sell out) get to create the strongest possible home-field advantage and atmosphere. Why coddle the rule-breaking team that already has the league and its partners bending over backward to help them succeed? Make that team feel the intensity of a proper MLS home atmosphere. For comparison, I’m sure they could have sold a lot more tickets to the home playoff match against STL by hosting it at Arrowhead, but why would we have wanted that? Why would we have wanted unlimited STL fans in the seats just so we could expose more people to playoff soccer? The joy was beating the pants off them in our own building, regardless of whether some STL fans got tickets.
Hosting Messiami is not an opportunity for public service, it’s an MLS home game that SKC should focus on winning rather than creating spectacle. If Miami wants KC money, they can schedule a friendly here sometime in the off-season like they’re already doing all over the globe in their arrogant way. I have no interest in rolling out the red carpet to accommodate their celebrity reality show.
Messi to MLS is all about the money. MLS are modeling themselves not on the tradition of leagues that have been around for 100+ years but on the new tradition of super leagues and blood, er, oil money or private equity owning teams. That said, I think they should have the game at swope park and give away tickets for free.
There was an interesting thread on one of the Tweets about this story yesterday that kept going to smaller and smaller stadiums until I offered up Nate Bukaty’s backyard which is painted like a soccer field at times (check out his viral Instagram/Twitter posts).
Haha! I don’t do any socials but I support Bukatys backyard as a venue for this match!
Messi played 6 out of 12 MLS games last year (this excludes cups and friendlies).
3 of those were played on the road. Charlotte, LAFC, and NYRB.
NYRB kept the game at Red Bull Arena. Attendance 26,276 (sell out)
LAFC kept the game at BMO Stadium. Attendance was 22,921 (sell out)
Charlotte played at their terrible NFL stadium. Attendance was 66,101 (8,000 short of a sell out).
Nobody else seems to be moving venues to accommodate Messi. Why the fuck should we?
But the biggest issue with your logic is that people will become SKC fans. First, if they’re only coming for Messi, they’re not suddenly going to become SKC fans. The ManU game was different because that was people who were invested in a foreign team and probably downplayed the quality of their local club. In contrast, people coming to see Messi are fans of Messi and most likely already know about SKC.
Moreover, we haven’t seen that growth with ANY of the big name players to come to the league. Beckham, Zlatan, Henry, etc. didn’t create more fans for SKC. Nobody came to CMP to watch Zlatan play and then suddenly became a SKC fan. Same when Bale came with LAFC. Those people came to watch Bale and then went back to ignoring SKC or already being fans.
Finally, a HUGE part of what makes SKC special is the home atmosphere. Admittedly the gameday atmosphere has dropped in quality, but what sucked me and a number people in was a rabid fanbase at home with the Cauldron bumping and no bad seats. Stripping that away to go to Arrowhead does absolutely nothing to promote the special atmosphere of CMP and won’t convert anyone. It’s an entirely different event. I went to the Wizards v. ManU match at Arrowhead and it didn’t do anything to converting me to watch more MLS. Attending my first match at (then) Livestrong is what hooked me.
Playing at Arrowhead also means the pitch is likely going to be too small. As it stands, seats have to be removed from Arrowhead to make an appropriate pitch size for the World Cup. Seats will be removed after the 2024 NFL season, reinstalled, and then removed again for the WC. Playing at Arrowhead for Messi means either we’re playing on a tiny pitch that isn’t meeting regulations, or would require some herculean renovations in a very short time.
That dovetails into the cost. SKC would have to pay for that renovation. They’d have to pay to operate Arrowhead and they’d have to pay some form of rent or lease. Can you guarantee that the amount raised is really worth it? Ticket prices are going to sky rocket at CMP because there’s limited availability and a lot of demand. What do you think a nose bleed at Arrowhead will go for? Enough to make all the costs worth it? What about all the irritation of your fans? You know… the STMs who are already mad at management for the ownership group seemingly selling them out to make more $$$?
SKC’s job is to win matches and trophies. It isn’t to placate a bunch of Leo Messi fans who most likely don’t even root for Miami and won’t become MLS fans. Keep the game at CMP where it belongs. Beckham played SKC 5x. Of the three games he played in Kansas City, he played at CAB twice and CMP once. Messi is objectively a better player than Beckham, but Beckham’s move to MLS was functionally equivalent. It was ground breaking and he was a MASSIVE name. We made him play at a minor league baseball stadium.
There’s exactly one right answer to the question: should we move the game to Arrowhead? The answer is absolutely fucking not.
^^^^^WHAT HE SAID^^^^^^^^^^
Plus, I don’t want the team to make more money to cover Sheltons contract. You eat that money ownership, bad.
Shelton’s contract would be covered but the salary cap that comes from the league money. DP contracts over the base amount comes from the owners.
Yeah, don’t care how the most complex system in all of sports works. That’s part of the reason people don’t care about mls. I’ve been a fan since the league started but still get informed about how the finance works.
Signing terrible players to multiple years doesn’t work if winning is the goal. Running our starting 11 into the ground year after year doesn’t work. I don’t need to ever understand the finance rules. The league will never compete on the world stage. It’s turning into a cash grab circus. No US player development, our teams are all turning into foreign development teams. There is no cap in soccer unless you go to mls. The global market for players has no cap.
Eventually even the biggest leagues have a top 5 who are almost always top of table. Get rid of the dumb finance rules. Miami and LA ignore the rules, why even have them? Confusing to advanced fans, impossible to the casual fan.
I have always supported mls because I’m a US fan. I want the team to grow and compete in a WC. They’re all growing, but in Europe. Not much reason to even watch mls and pro refs award Miami the cup this upcoming season. Just an opinion, doesn’t make it correct.
I think you make some really good points and I do ultimately think this move won’t happen the more of the reactions I’ve read on here, Facebook, Twitter, etc.
One thing I’ll push back on is creating new fans. Messi isn’t like any of the other players you’ve mentioned. I think there is definitely a bigger pull from his fans. Look at how he and Ronaldo impact social media followings of the teams they play for (not to bring Cristiano back into the SKC universe).
You said the ManU game didn’t create new fans, but I don’t think we can really know that. You said yourself you were a fan later. It brought attention to this new ownership group and a team that was on the verge of rebranding. It made people aware of the Wizards and I’d say some kept following the team almost certainly. They went from putting a few thousand into Arrowhead, to selling out CMP after it was built just a few short years later.
The quality of play in MLS has skyrocketed. It’s not Top 5 in the world, but it’s WAY better than it was in 2010. This would bring awareness to that (unless, as KCOutsider points out, SKC lay an egg).
I have to admit to some naivety on this though, that I didn’t expect such a vitriol reaction to this idea.
I think they are turning me too, Chad. There are several IFs either way. I will admit that if I lived in KC and was able to be a season ticket holder or go to lots of games, I’d probably be pro CMP. As someone who tries to get to one game a year from out of town, the idea of Arrowhead appeals to me more, mostly for cost and availability reasons.
One thing that would really suck, as alluded to above, is if you pay $459 per ticket and Messi decides to sit out against SKC. My son goes to visit his mom in Charlotte over the summer. He was stoked because he thought he could talk her into a Inter Messi ticket. Game is during Copa.
Your proposal is coming from a well-meaning place, but it also involves undermining much of what makes SKC special, in service to a visiting team that many MLS fans have quickly learned to detest. I think a lot of SKC fans self-identify as something of a small-market, blue-collar, chip-on-the-shoulder, punching-above-our-weight club, the exact opposite of what Miami stands for. And the idea of setting aside our identity for a cheap spectacle that has a fair chance of failing just does not sit well. Especially when the fan base is already restless about a feeling that SKC under Jake Reid is becoming more soulless and corporate. This is totally something business major Reid would jump at, and the optics are just bad.
I actually just wrote a follow-up op-ed on this very subject.
That said, the whole ‘blue collar’ thing ties into what I wrote well. Because I think I just looked at it mainly from an accessibility thing. I want to see Messi play. I already get to see Sporting KC play.
Selfishly, I could see not being given a press credential for this one because so many people will want to cover the game. That would really bum me out considering the hours I pour into this for literally no money (but I do get access, so I’m not getting nothing for it).
I think you missed my analysis on why ManU can create fans where Messi doesn’t. There’s no competition for dollars and eyeballs between ManU and SKC. They basically never play at the same time and you functionally can’t have season tickets to both. There’s no crowding out effect. So that game serves to highlight the strength of the domestic league in hopes that premier league fans will realize the local team is worth watching.
That isn’t what happens when Messi comes to town. Messi fans stay Messi fans. They’re going to root for Miami while he’s there. Maybe they’ll stick with Miami. But there’s a nearly 0% chance that someone who is only coming to root Messi will convert to a SKC fan for a game at Arrowhead.
I’m not sure this is true. Messi fans want to watch Messi, sure. But is there not a chance there are Messi fans in and around the Kansas City area that just don’t pay attention to Sporting KC? Maybe they watched a Wizards or SKC game in the past and it wasn’t up to par. Now Sporting KC have a chance to impress them. Beat their idol.
I could see them still rooting for Messi/Miami in all other instances but getting on the bandwagon of Sporting KC otherwise. Whether it’s a packed CMP they see Messi play in or 50,000+ watch at Arrowhead.
If you love football/soccer and find some quality in your backyard, there has to be a chance you get converted.
Will it convert enough fans to justify the financial outlay and the loss of home field advantage? Or the bad will with STMs?
I can’t say. I’m not sure it’s knowable.
I ultimately don’t think it’s going to happen anyways, but it’s an interesting debate.
“Messi fans” is such a broad term though. Think of how many celebrities and athletes that have zero connection to soccer have come to see him play. People recognize and respect greatness and they’ll pay to see it, even if they don’t care about the sport. Those would be the people that I think Chad is talking about that could convert to being SKC fans if they like what they see. Probably doesn’t constitute moving to Arrowhead, but I think there is some value in that part of the argument.