Sounder At Heart: Seattle’s Hosting Was Never A Sure Thing
One potentially good thing about the United States failing to win the right to host the 2022 World Cup is that we are saved from an almost equally ridiculous process where the bid committee actually picks the host cities.
Lest we forget that as of today, there were still 18 U.S. cities in the running to host matches and probably less than half of those were going to be allowed to do so.
If the U.S. had won, we’d have been subjected to another round of infighting. Instead of nationalities finding new ways to insult each other, we’d learn new and wonderful ways to make fun of places like Atlanta or Indianapolis while pumping up the qualities of Seattle or Los Angeles. Just as supporters of the American bid quickly picked up enemies just by virtue of their superiority, you can bet some U.S. city would have emerged as the equivalent.
I would not have been at all surprised if Seattle became the host city other grew to hate.
As one of Sounder at Heart’s newest contributors points out, the Emerald City’s status as biggest MLS drawer might not have meant much.
World Cup games in Seattle were never the slam dunk many of us assumed it would be. It was never a guarantee the USA would win the bid, and it was never a guarantee that if we did Seattle would be a host city.
As a Seattle resident myself, I would have obviously been happy to see the World Cup come to my hometown. But there were some obvious tripping points: Neither of the potential stadiums currently have natural grass, the city is relatively remote and there were lots of other cities making very strong cases.
It’s of little consolation, but at least we don’t have to listen to this particular brand of sniping for a few more years.
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