Obama supports the US FIFA bid for the World Cup...

http://www.seattlepi.com/othersports/2050ap_soc_wcup_us_obama.html

Yeah, man!

"England and Spain, which submitted a joint bid with Portugal, are considered the favorites to host in 2018, with the U.S. seen as a favorite for 2022."

How does everybody else read that?

England has one bid with Spain and Portugal submitting another?
or
England, Spain and Portugal doing a tri-bid?

I'm thinking it is probably the former, but I really hope it's the latter because I think that would be funny!

I think that "frontrunners" instead of favorites might be better wording. In any case, even if the World Cup comes here in 2022 I'll be about 8-10 years away from retirement then. I'm actually hoping to try to travel to Brazil in 2014 to see that one there. That would be amazing.

Quest Field or X-Box Pitch is being considered as a venue. I'm guessing Civic Stadium would not have enough seating to be a FIFA venue with the remodel. Are they planning on making it seat more than 40,000? I think FIFA generally wants 60,000+ or so...

I don't think Civic will be big enough, but 60K isn't necessarily the goal. Some of the German parks were smaller in the early rounds, and I believe the South Africans will have some smaller stadiums as well.

I think one of the German stadiums was only 35-40K.

FIFA DOES want a mega-stadium (80-100K) for the finals. There aren't too many such venues in this country, especially ones that have enough sky boxes for the fat cats.

There are enough venues though. I'm sure they'd use the Rose Bowl again. It seats 91,000+.

This has some of the venues that were used:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_FIFA_World_Cup

The Rose Bowl is probably the best bet. The others that would be big enough are college stadiums like the Big House, Beaver Stadium, or Neyland, but--no offense--Ann Arbor, State College, and Knoxville aren't exactly World Cup-caliber host cities.

I would totally go to Seattle for a World Cup match. And I can tell you I will be up at Qwest with some...friends...sometime this summer...

went to the rose bowl this winter.....great tradition, dump venue....im sure they dont look at capacity so much as what will provide the best atmosphere, because its not like theyre making their money on the extra 20,000+ tickets sold

Rob's Jacket wrote:

PurplePrideTrumpet wrote:And I can tell you I will be up at Qwest with some...friends...sometime this summer...

I think we run in the same crowd, PPT!

That wouldn't be for the US Men's National Team on the 4th of July, would it?

I didn't even know about that one. I think you'll know when I'm there.