The Kansas City [Missouri] Current opened its new stadium with a March 16 win in front of a sellout crowd, a fitting tribute to the excitement around women’s soccer in the U.S.
The Current’s 5-4 victory over the Portland [Oregon] Thorns in the National Women’s Soccer League’s 2024 season opener was the first professional game played in a stadium built expressly for women’s sports.
“What this club is doing and setting the standard, and building this stadium, and people showing up and supporting it, and just women’s soccer growing in general, I think it’s just super special,” said the Current’s midfielder Vanessa DiBernardo, who scored the game’s opening goal. “Where we started with this league and where we are now, it just shows the growth and how much players have put into it.”
Opening day festivities at the 11,500-seat stadium included the U.S. Air Force’s first flyover piloted by an all-woman crew. This year also saw the launch of the Professional Women’s Hockey League in the U.S. and Canada in January.
Four pilots from #TeamWhiteman completed a historic all-female T-38 flyover for the #KCCurrent stadium opener! #womenshistorymonth #flylikeagirl #t38 #kcbaby pic.twitter.com/XRmgiXxaRy
— 509th Bomb Wing (@Whiteman_AFB) March 16, 2024
Women soccer players, especially those on the U.S. women’s national team, have been the driving force behind soccer’s popularity in the U.S. The national team has won four World Cups and four Olympic gold medals.
Between 1990 and 2017, the number of Americans who called soccer their favorite sport increased sevenfold. Soccer is now the fourth most popular sport in the U.S., after football, basketball and baseball.
Elisa Rios said watching her hometown Current play in a stadium built for women’s sports almost brought her to tears. “It means everything to me,” Rios told National Public Radio in Kansas City. “Growing up I mostly played in men’s soccer because there weren’t a lot of women’s soccer teams, and so to see it here today is phenomenal.”