- 1 hour ago
Seth and Sean talk with Chris Canetti (President of the Houston 2026 World Cup Bid Committee) about all things World Cup coming to Houston starting next week.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00the world cup is descending upon our city and many others and very very exciting times a week
00:05from today is when the fan fest begins june 11th june 14th will be the first game here
00:10in houston we're looking forward to all that and joining us right now on the texas mattress makers
00:15hotline is the man who is among many but among the most responsible for the world cup coming here
00:22he's the president of the houston 2026 uh world cup host committee and also the former president
00:29for over a decade of the houston dynamo and i like to refer to him as probably the only other
00:33hartford whalers fan in the great city of houston and he can feel right at home right now a little
00:40brass bonanza for our next guest chris kennedy good morning chris good morning sean very very nice to
00:46be uh welcomed with that song yes absolutely absolutely um so you can turn it down now ben
00:54for those who don't know that's the song that they played when the hartford whalers would score a goal
00:58which happened a lot more than people remember okay do they still play with the hurricanes they
01:02don't no they don't and the hurricanes are in the stanley cup final chris do you root for the
01:06hurricanes or do you root against the hurricanes i don't root for them or against them but once they
01:11left hartford they were no longer my team yes and i hate when they wear the whalers uniforms now i
01:16do
01:16too i do too a little titans action yes with the oilers yeah they do that they do that um
01:23so chris we
01:23did not bring you on to talk about the hartford whalers the world cup is coming to town man this
01:27is
01:27super exciting i guess for you personally um and we'll get into everything going on uh in ito and
01:33everything that's gone on to get to this stage here but just um i know it's been a long process
01:38like where are you emotionally with this whole thing right now with us being on the cusp of all
01:42these different countries descending on our city emotionally this is just exciting right now you
01:48know we're one week away and it's incredibly hard for me to comprehend and believe that i've been
01:53working on this project for seven and a half years started it back in january of 2019 when houston
01:59was bidding to be a host city and of course that process took about three and a half years and
02:04it
02:04was june of 22 when houston was awarded host city status so we've spent the last four years
02:09planning for this and it felt like we were just going to plan forever but here we are one week
02:14away
02:14the countdown is uh is on officially it's crazy yeah and as as people start coming into town for
02:22the event i guess uh what's the what's the biggest what's what's chief on your list of things to do
02:28this morning uh to get ready for something you it's like you've been planning a wedding for seven years
02:32and then now all of a sudden you actually have to do all this stuff what's uh what's the what's
02:36the
02:36biggest deal well seth everything's going on right now if you were over at uh reliance vm you would you
02:42would see just the you know it feels like thousands of people working getting the stadium ready and
02:49then if you're down in ito at the site of the fan festival same thing but um so much so
02:54everything's
02:54coming together all at once and it's everything's on track on target on budget on schedule so it feels
03:00real good and um it'll all be uh green light go one week from today yeah it's going to be
03:05exciting
03:05the fan fest starting one week from today how do you go about we're talking to chris kennedy who is
03:10the
03:11the president of the houston 2026 world cup host committee um how do you go about planning
03:17for something that's really never been done in houston i know we do big events as well as any other
03:23big city out there chris but something like this fan fest where you've got so many different nations
03:27involved and all these fan bases coming in from all over the world how do you go about planning just
03:33capacity security like what are the expectations for what the crowds are going to be like out there
03:38on any given day because you guys are going to be showing you know the fan fest is going to
03:43be
03:43they're going to have all the games on the big screens down there it's not just the u.s games
03:47not
03:47just the games here in houston yeah it was a real challenge uh sean to be honest with you to
03:52find a
03:52location um where we could be set up for such a long period of time because uh setting on may
03:591st the
03:59event starts in a week uh and this is a 39 day event that'll go from june 11th all the
04:05way through to
04:05july 19th to your point where we we will be showing all 104 matches of the world cup so it
04:11was it was hard to find a spot we had this vision for ito which is obviously an up-and
04:16-coming great
04:17neighborhood uh here in houston and we were literally building out a venue in uh what was
04:23empty warehouses streets uh green street promenades uh parking lots and it's it's amazing i look forward
04:31to the public coming out um next thursday and beyond and seeing what is really just a tremendous
04:36tremendous venue with so much for for people to do uh showcasing houston's culture but to your point
04:42there's gonna be people from all over the world where we have a match between sweden and um and the
04:48netherlands on june 20th and we know that there's thousands of people from holland and from sweden
04:53who are there over the course of three days coming in and mixing and mingling with with houstonians and
04:58that's gonna be the case when portugal plays or germany um or you name it so it's it's gonna be
05:03a lot of a mix of a lot of different things it's hard to forecast the attendance to be honest
05:08because
05:09we've never done anything like this before um so there's no precedent whatsoever but we feel like
05:15we have the right size venue to accommodate all the crowds and um if it does get to the point
05:21of
05:21capacity one of the reasons why we put it there was because of all the bars and restaurants in the
05:25area where people can go to watch the games so it should be awesome yeah i mean i was i
05:30was i was
05:30going to ask you you know like what's the best way for houstonians to kind of partake in everything
05:35and obviously there's the games themselves but the fan you know as i've looked at the website for
05:41everything that's going to be offered at the fan fest it almost it feels almost like you're going to
05:45a houston version of epcot center to where like there's just different there's going to be so many
05:49different places where you can experience everything that is houston but alongside people from all over
05:54the world who are in and getting texas barbecue they're getting american pizza they're getting uh
05:59like a really good dose of of houston if anything no you said it well i mean that's exactly what
06:05it's
06:05intended to be it's supposed to be a showcase for houston we have space themes rodeo themes uh of course
06:12there's going to be lots of food culture there and even the music and live entertainment on the stage
06:17we made a decision to make sure that 100 of that talent was local we did a talent search uh
06:23and it's
06:24all going to be local talent on the stage so it really is going to highlight our city and what
06:29we wanted was uh you know if folks from houston attended that they felt very proud that this was
06:35a representation of our city and then for all these people from around the world attending that they
06:40they walk away with just an amazing uh feel for what houston's all about so that you summed it up
06:45great
06:45that there's also going to we also built a soccer field out there uh it's a mini sized pitch
06:51uh where over 120 hours of youth play will take place so kids can even come out and play soccer
06:57uh if they're not uh watching the games eating or uh you know and partaking in some of the space
07:04themes or things so it's gonna be awesome yeah definitely chris kennedy uh president of the
07:08uh 2026 houston world cup host committee joining us here on pain and pendergast on sports radio 610
07:15um okay chris take us back to the process and become one of the cities uh selected to host the
07:22world cup when when we were selected and i don't know i don't think people in houston were surprised
07:27because you know the you know the the history with the dynamo and obviously the history with all kinds
07:32of world-class international soccer games here in town houston's a big soccer city did the committee
07:38when they selected houston did you get feedback from them afterwards as to what the driving reasons were
07:43behind houston getting picked and if so what were they we didn't get feedback to be honest with you
07:49we didn't get much feedback along the way at all but you know i can tell you that probably when
07:53this
07:53process began back in 2019 houston was on the outside looking in believe it or not um there was
07:59you know it was clear that you know new york los angeles atlanta miami probably even dallas
08:05san francisco boston were going to be host cities cities on the fringe i think houston was one of them
08:11with places like philadelphia and kansas city and uh orlando but we you know we knew that we didn't
08:17have any weaknesses we've hosted more major sporting events than any other city since 2004
08:23um and we have you know great venues and airports and you know all these things so we knew there
08:28was
08:28no weakness we just needed to communicate to fifa that houston had everything that it required and
08:35fortunately during the bidding process we were able to uh to do that one of the cool things by the
08:40way
08:40was fifa was only able to make one site visit into each city because of covid and that site visit
08:47happened in october of 21 when the astros were playing the braves in the world series so their
08:54site visit got to include a trip to the world series i mean we caught a break on that one
09:00um but at the
09:01end of the day we have everything and that was just a matter of uh tweaking it to to fit
09:07you know the
09:08uniqueness of a fifa world cup and that's that's what we're doing which is uh which fan base of the
09:14multiple countries that are coming in if you know at this point who's got the most visitors coming from
09:20their specific country it appears that uh the most visitors will be coming from either germany or the
09:27netherlands um potentially portugal but both all three of those teams are top 10 in the world
09:34portugal's playing here twice and of course they have one of the greatest players of all time
09:38cristiano ronaldo on their roster and he kind of you know brings the you know the circus with them
09:44um but we're the netherlands are well known for this very very big and organized fan base so we're
09:50expecting a sea of orange to come in um in fact they have a huge tradition of marching to the
09:57match
09:58so there's going to be somewhere in the neighborhood of five to ten thousand uh dutch fans on saturday
10:04june 20th making a march down to uh the stadium from uh their starting so it should be quite a
10:10thing oh that'll optimize my my google translate okay so i'll get the i'll get dutch on here yes
10:17yeah german yes yeah i can fake my way through german and portuguese dutch i have zero okay
10:24kind of like german isn't it yeah but one of the cool things too is you know we have two
10:29knockout
10:30rounds games and we don't know who's playing in those yet and if the seeds hold the first knockout
10:35game uh june 29th yeah um could be just japan and um that would be a really big international soccer
10:43matchup and you know brazil's won the world cup more than anyone and they would probably both of those
10:48countries would bring a lot of visitors as well if that's what it ends up yeah how did you feel
10:51when
10:52you saw the draw i mean if there's the excitement obviously of learning that the city gets selected
10:57and then there's the excitement of of the the unveiling of who exactly is coming here what was
11:02your gut reaction when you saw the games that we would be getting here in houston including the
11:06the possibility or as you just alluded to chris the the possibility of of getting some some really
11:12big name teams for the knockout round games yeah we i think we lucked out we got a great draw
11:17we
11:17were very excited back in december when we like i said three of the top 10 teams in the world
11:22in
11:22germany the netherlands and portugal and having portugal here twice so that was awesome we also
11:27have three teams that are making their world cup debuts they've never played in the world cup
11:31uh cape verde curacao and uzbekistan so uh you can imagine the excitement from those countries uh we
11:40we got word the other day from an official that the 4,500 folks from curacao are coming into town
11:47next weekend for the game against germany so um you know having those those kind of scenarios are
11:53neat as well other than just having the big ones have you been getting feedback from things like
11:57hotels and tourism here in town as to what the uh what the you know the the the what the
12:04levels of
12:04people they're anticipating here and maybe what the economic impact is and things like that
12:08so we've we've you know we've done our estimates and um our economic impact is estimated to be 1.5
12:15billion with a b um well yes it's also project 500 000 visitors to the city now that's not all
12:23at
12:24once that's spread out over you know 21 to 25 days um and you know we have data that shows
12:31that um
12:32you know 74 percent of the ticket buyers are from outside of houston so we do expect a lot of
12:38people to
12:38be traveling in to houston for these matches okay chris which um okay so of the of the matchups that
12:44you know of right now which is the which is the environment that's going to be be the most like
12:51like impressive in terms of the the the the grudgery against you know from one from one country versus
12:58the other the fans and uh their their songs and chants and everything like where do you get the
13:03where are you most likely to get the full bore oh wow this is international soccer experience
13:08well i think that match is going to be saturday june 20 when uh the netherlands play sweden so
13:13they're those are both you know two of the top teams in the world matched up against each other
13:19the other matchups are a little bit maybe more one-sided germany curacao portugal versus uzbekistan
13:24or portugal um versus the congo uh but that one that one match between the netherlands and sweden
13:32in the in the group stage phase seems to be the one that uh everyone's most excited about and the
13:37one
13:37that's you know got the longest history against it and all that kind of stuff so that should be a
13:42fun
13:42one for everyone to keep an eye on oh that's a saturday too saturday at noon yeah do the march
13:50to
13:50the match and come on in absolutely yeah and then a little party afterwards and yeah then head on down
13:55to you know head on down to ito and hang out with all the soccer fans from from all and
13:59there's all
14:00kinds of stuff going on chris i want to make sure we get it all in before we cut you
14:03loose because
14:03there's there's watch parties at shell energy stadium i mean there's all kinds of stuff there's
14:08the the legends loft which i know we've been talking about here on the station where if you've got a
14:12company or uh you know you want to entertain clients or show your employees how much you love
14:18them you can get a hundred people in an air-conditioned elite hospitality space there are tons of different
14:24ways to experience this here in houston right first and foremost you know i want to point out there are
14:29some tickets available so fans if you're interested in going to a game you could go to tifa.com backslash
14:35tickets and there are still tickets available the one game that has most inventories is a friday night
14:40at seven o'clock which is saudi arabia versus cape verde saudi arabia actually beat argentina in the last
14:47world cup who were the champions uh and that match could could matter um in terms of someone advancing
14:52but aside from that um again the fan fest is the is the primary place to go it's free admission
14:58uh on a general admission basis but we do have vip hospitality packages for people who maybe
15:03want to upgrade a little bit get into an air-conditioned space get food dev uh private
15:09bathrooms and things like that but it's all available on our website which is um fwc26houston.com
15:17uh but those are the kind of the official things that are going on but you know people are are
15:21doing
15:21parties all over the city and uh you know we endorse that and we support that because we really
15:26want the entire city to participate in this and feel it and uh and really enjoy it and feel like
15:32it
15:32was just a great experience overall for everybody do you have like do you have like an extra like an
15:36extra section like a dossier how you handle ronaldo and everything that comes with just like the massive
15:43celebrity that he is not that he's demanding you know only green m&ms or something like that
15:48but like is there is just like is there a whole separate playbook for the ronaldo dynamic
15:53there is one i don't know what it is luckily as a host committee we don't have to handle that
15:58fifa takes care of all the team movements but i i've heard you know you know just through the
16:04planning that it there's a lot of special things that need to play take place to move him around so
16:09it
16:09should be interesting to see what's the first thing you're going to do when this world
16:13cup is over chris oh boy i don't know uh hopefully um hopefully relax it's been a long
16:21journey but uh you know this is fun and um i'm not even looking forward to it ending because it's
16:26just been a lot of fun and i can't wait to see it all unfold as someone this is last
16:30one and we'll
16:31get you out of here as someone who's been involved in soccer here in houston obviously your time over a
16:36decade with the dynamo and now this labor of love of bringing the world cup here what is your hope
16:42for after this world cup is over as to where soccer stands in houston are you hoping that this
16:48world cup you know either people who are casual soccer fans become even bigger fans like what do
16:53you think the overall effect is going to be from having the world cup here yeah i think there will
16:58be a long-term positive effect of the game if you think about it you know the world cup was
17:02last year
17:02in 1994 32 years ago and we barely even knew soccer existed in this country at that time and
17:08the world cup in 94 kind of started the the the train if you will in terms of growing and
17:14developing
17:14soccer it led to major league soccer uh in this country so here we are 30 we are now more
17:20of a
17:20very mature soccer nation and i think this world cup will only just elevate it take it to the next
17:25level
17:26it's it's it'll be interesting to see what that level is but there's no doubt it'll have a very
17:30positive impact on growing the game here in houston and beyond that's chris kennedy former president of
17:36the dynamo and current president of the 2026 houston world cup host committee fwc26houston.com is the
17:44landing point where you can get all the information you need on ways to experience the world cup either in
17:48the stadiums or at all the different all the different parties the ito party the big fan fest downtown that
17:54is
17:54the landing spot the legends loft for all of that stuff fwc26houston.com hey chris um congrats on
18:01on getting the world cup here obviously we've known that for a long time but i i know we'll be
18:06congratulating you afterwards on what's going to be a great experience for everybody who's
18:09both in houston and coming to houston over those several weeks uh appreciate all the hard work man
18:15thank you sean sath i appreciate you having me on and all of your guys support and look forward to
18:19grabbing lunch when it's all over absolutely absolutely we will do that that's uh the great chris
18:24joining us here
18:25you
Comments