KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Under a pearl gray winter sky, with white specks fluttering and dirt-splashed snow swept onto black asphalt and brown grass, motorists crossing the Missouri River encounter a welcoming burst of teal.
On the ice-crusted waterfront, a stadium glowing with greenish-blue seats nears completion. A dark green blanket warms the Bermuda and rye grass blend. A roof protects three sides of stands. The video board stretching along the river end is operational. Thirteen suites are being polished.
Sports venues open all the time. This one is different.
On March 16, the Kansas City Current will christen $117 million, 11,500-capacity CPKC Stadium — the first complex built by a National Women’s Soccer League team and one of the few in the world constructed for female athletes.
“Every time I drive by, I make sure I’m in the lane [on the bridge] closest, so I could take a good look at it,” rookie midfielder Claire Hutton said.
After renting baseball and MLS facilities, the Current will no longer share space with other teams or arrange its schedule around other leagues. The club, whose owners include Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, has the only set of keys.
Advertisement
“I don’t think that there is a more important investment that is being made anywhere for the future of our game,” NWSL Commissioner Jessica Berman said in November.
The 13 other NWSL teams rent stadiums or, because they are owned by MLS organizations, share a venue built for the men’s circuit. Women’s soccer teams around the world are in similar situations, often relegated to secondary fields. Most WNBA teams pay rent and contend with scheduling conflicts.
“I absolutely love it because we are number one,” midfielder Lo’eau LaBonta said. “It’s all about us.”
The Current’s predecessor, FC Kansas City (2013-17), played at a high school football stadium in Overland Park, Kan., then a college soccer stadium, then the training facility of MLS’s Sporting Kansas City. Revenue was scarce, and standards were low. Despite fielding a two-time champion, FCKC averaged less than 3,000 fans over five seasons.
Advertisement
It was at that final location, at Sporting KC’s Swope Soccer Village in 2017, that LaBonta once received a red card early in the second half of a match. There wasn’t a locker room to return to — just a common area where players stored belongings.
“You have to first walk through a parking lot,” she said. “I’m like: ‘Do I go in that building? Do I sit up in the press box?’”
She wandered to the bathroom and eventually the common room.
“I have never felt so alone in not knowing what to do,” she said.
FCKC dissolved after the 2017 season. When the NWSL returned to Kansas City in 2021, home games were played in the ballpark of Kansas City’s American Association baseball team, the Monarchs. For the past two seasons, the Current rented Children’s Mercy Park, the 18,467-seat home to Sporting KC. Attendance last year averaged 11,353, fifth in the league.
Advertisement
The Current’s motivation in building a stadium was economic and cultural.
By owning the venue, the Current will control revenue streams, which include a 10-year naming-rights deal with the CPKC rail network and several sponsors. The team has not shared financial details, but co-owner Chris Long said the Current’s financial health will improve by at least $20 million over last season.
The other reason was to set a benchmark for women’s sports.
“When we announced [the project], people were saying: ‘You are crazy. You should be playing at the men’s stadium. You’re wasting money,’” Long said. “To us, that makes no sense. There’s no reason elite women’s athletes shouldn’t also have a place of their own [where] they’re the anchor tenant. It’s going to send a message: ‘Look how amazing an opportunity this is to really put women’s athletics where it should be.’”
Advertisement
The new stadium sits in Berkley Riverfront Park, adjacent to the Christopher S. Bond Bridge, which carries interstate traffic into and out of the downtown district. Once a dumping ground for construction debris, the strip has become ripe for mixed-use development.
There is an apartment complex, where residents are concerned about parking issues on gamedays. A boutique hotel is nearing completion, and a streetcar stop is scheduled to open next year. The Current also controls land adjacent to the stadium. On the stadium grounds, a separate building houses the club shop.
The team signed a 50-year lease with Port KC, a state-created agency that administers the waterfront. The stadium project is privately financed, except for a $5.5 million tax credit from the state of Missouri, which the team requested, primarily for infrastructure improvements, after initial cost projections of $70 million swelled by 67 percent.
Advertisement
Long’s wife, Angie, is also an owner. Veterans of the financial industry, they led the effort to return women’s pro soccer to the city. They were joined by Brittany Mahomes, wife of the NFL superstar. She played Division III soccer at the University of Texas at Tyler and spent one season playing professionally in Iceland.
A year ago, Patrick Mahomes joined the ownership group, an addition that raised the club’s profile. (It didn’t hurt that he attends games and wears team gear.) He also owns stakes in the Kansas City Royals and Sporting KC.
Less than a year after launching the team, the Longs announced plans for the stadium.
“In women’s sports, there’s such a big opportunity to showcase what it could look like,” Chris Long said. “Yeah, we really wanted this to be a showcase.”
Before breaking ground, the Current was the first NWSL team to open its own training facility — an $18 million, privately financed project seven miles from the stadium site.
Advertisement
Construction on the stadium began in fall 2022. The design allows for expanding capacity to 20,000. “I have no doubt the game is going in that direction,” Chris Long said.
In the regular season last year, San Diego averaged 20,718 fans per game, followed by Los Angeles-based Angel City (19,756) and Portland (18,918). Launched in 2013, the NWSL had an average attendance of 10,432 in 2023, the highest in its history and a 32 percent increase from 2022.
Bolstered by the new stadium, the Current has sold out season tickets for this season’s 13 regular season home matches. (Two thousand tickets for each match were set aside for single-game sales and other packages.)
The addition of the training facility and the promise of the stadium have caught the attention of players around the league.
When she signed with the Current as a free agent last winter, Brazilian star Debinha said: “All of this made me want to be part of it. … I’m very happy not only for Kansas City but also for women’s football.”
LaBonta said the facilities have become a major factor in recruiting players.
Advertisement
“You would never think [players] would want to come to Kansas City. We don’t have the beach. We don’t have mountains,” she said. “You would think [Debinha] would want to be in Orlando or San Diego. No, she wanted to come here because she wanted to be a part of history.”
The stadium also will host lacrosse, rugby, college and high school sports, community events and concerts. The priority, though, will remain women’s soccer.
“We are the first, but we don’t want to be the last,” said Hutton, the 18-year-old newcomer. “We want to use this facility to draw fans in, to encourage and inspire other clubs and other sponsors now to do the same as us.”
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7uK3SoaCnn6Sku7G70q1lnKedZMCxu9GtqmhqYGeBcHyRaGdqZ5uWu7St0maaoqypYrC2vtGepa1lnprEbr%2FTmpuirZ1k