No World Cup For Denver

Coming as no surprise to many (including myself) Denver was not selected as a host city for World Cup 2026.  The closest city selected was Kansas City, along with Dallas and Houston.  Its been obvious for a while, IMO, that Denver didn't put on a full-court press to get the World Cup and it cost them.  There was no visible evidence of the bid in Denver, unlike most cities bidding, there was no excitement over the announcement, and in general it feels like it was a paper bid to make some people look good with nothing behind it to really land some games.  This feels like a pretty big missed opportunity by the city.

To be clear, KSE was not responsible for leading the bid (though they did donate a large sum to help the process) and when you look at other cities selected the current state of their MLS team obviously wasn't a factor.  It seems like other things like altitude and a rumored very poor FIFA visit last year is what cost us.  I'm sure the events during the Nations League finals last summer didn't help, but a good bid committee could have overcome those.

Now we just have to hope that some teams will want to use the Denver area as a training camp before the Cup or a home base during the competition.  Maybe we'll get an interesting friendly or two in the lead up.