CPKC Stadium

• 1. Introduction

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  CPKC Stadium opened on the 16th of March, 2024, in Kansas City, Missouri. It is the first privately financed stadium ever purpose-built exclusively for a professional women's soccer team. The Kansas City Current of the National Women's Soccer League play their home matches there. Before the stadium had a site or a name, the team that would occupy it was sharing a baseball diamond. How a club went from borrowed fields to a building it owns, and what that required, starts with a December 2020 conversation.

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• 2. A Club Without a Home

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  The Kansas City Current were founded in December 2020 under the initial name Kansas City NWSL. Their three owners, Angie Long, Chris Long, and Brittany Matthews, built the club on an accelerated timeline. The team was created to absorb the roster of Utah Royals FC. The Royals' closure was publicly announced on the same day the new Kansas City club was revealed. The new club needed a home immediately.

  Their first target was Children's Mercy Park, a soccer-specific stadium in Kansas City, Kansas. Major League Soccer club Sporting Kansas City owned and controlled the facility. Sporting declined to share it with the new women's side.

  For the 2021 season, the Current shifted to Legends Field, a baseball stadium shared with the Kansas City Monarchs. Converting the diamond to a soccer pitch introduced delays. Sporting Kansas City eventually stepped in to help. The Current played their first 2021 Challenge Cup home match at Children's Mercy Park on the 26th of April. No team in the National Women's Soccer League owned or controlled its own primary venue. Every club relied on borrowed facilities, with scheduling conflicts as a constant companion. By late 2020, co-owner Chris Long was already in early conversations about a permanent stadium of their own.

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• 3. Parcel 8

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  Tom Proebstle, design director at Generator Studio, was brought into the project in December 2020. His firm evaluated more than ten locations across Kansas City before settling on a 7.08-acre parcel. It was owned by the Port of Kansas City, east of the Richard L. Berkley Riverfront Park.

  The site was known as Parcel 8. Before consideration was ever given to a stadium, the land had served a different purpose. It had been used as a dumping ground for debris from the collapsed Kemper Arena roof.

  Long initially planned to build both the stadium and a dedicated training facility on the same site. Team ownership eventually separated the two projects. They announced, planned, and constructed an $18 million practice facility in Riverside, Missouri, which opened in June 2022. The stadium project proceeded alone on Parcel 8.

  On the 26th of October, 2021, the Current's owners announced a 50-year lease with Port KC for the site. A formal proposal for the stadium itself, with specific construction costs and a target capacity, followed the same day.

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• 4. Blueprint and Build

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  The proposal called for an 11,000-seat stadium at an estimated cost of $70 million. That figure was already a significant expansion from the earliest planning stage, when initial concepts had assumed a need for only around 6,000 seats. The design placed all seating within 100 feet of the pitch. It included a safe standing section for supporters, suites, tables, and reserved seating. The building was also designed to convert for use as a music venue, with retractable seating to accommodate a gridiron football field. Plans allowed for future expansion to as many as 20,500 seats.

  By May 2022, the projected capacity had increased to 11,500 seats and the budget had climbed to $117 million. The Current's ownership requested $6 million in state tax credits to help offset the difference.

  Construction began in 2022 and the official groundbreaking ceremony was held on the 6th of October that year. Structural work on the stands began in May 2023. J.E. Dunn Construction Group and Monarch Build led the general construction effort. Generator Studios designed the stadium's interior. Thornton Tomasetti handled structural engineering, while Taliaferro & Browne provided surveying and civil engineering. Part of that work involved coordinating with the United States Army Corps of Engineers. The concern was the project's potential impact on the Missouri River levee.

  On the 19th of October, 2023, the Current announced that Canadian Pacific Kansas City had acquired the naming rights to the stadium. The company is a Canadian railway holding company with its U.S. headquarters in Kansas City. Under a ten-year agreement, the venue became CPKC Stadium. In November 2023, the press box was dedicated to the late Grant Wahl. Wahl was a Kansas City native who had covered soccer for Sports Illustrated and other outlets. With the press box named, the stadium was ready for the Current's first home match of the 2024 season.

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• 5. Opening Day

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  Vanessa DiBernardo scored the first goal in CPKC Stadium's history, putting Kansas City ahead of the Portland Thorns. The Current won 5-4 in front of a sell-out crowd.

  The sell-out on opening day proved to be the first of many. By season's end, the Kansas City Current had become the first team in NWSL history to sell out every home match in a single season.

  In October 2024, CPKC Stadium would host its first major competition involving teams other than the Kansas City Current.

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• 6. Beyond the League

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  The Kansas Jayhawks won the 2024 Big 12 Conference women's soccer tournament, which CPKC Stadium hosted in late October and November 2024.

  On the 23rd of November, 2024, the stadium hosted the NWSL Championship between the Orlando Pride and the Washington Spirit. Barbara Banda scored the only goal. Orlando claimed their first NWSL Championship 1-0.

  On the 5th of April, 2025, the Mexican women's national team played Jamaica at CPKC Stadium, marking the venue's first international soccer friendly. Less than a month later, on the 3rd of May, USA Rugby faced Canada in front of an announced crowd of 10,518 fans. U.S. star Ilona Maher played in the match. The crowd set a new attendance record for a USA women's rugby match.

  The Premier Lacrosse League and Women's Lacrosse League held their All-Star events at CPKC Stadium on the 4th and the 5th of July 2025. The WLL Skills Competition and WLL All-Star game were held on the 4th, alongside the PLL Skills Competition. The PLL All-Star game followed on the 5th. On the 29th of October, 2025, the United States women's national soccer team played their first match at the venue, defeating New Zealand 6-0.

  The 2025 NCAA Women's College Cup arrived at CPKC Stadium in December 2025. In the semifinals on the 6th, Florida State beat TCU 1-0 and Stanford beat Duke 1-0. Three days later, on the 9th of December, the Seminoles defeated Stanford 1-0 to win their third national championship in five years. Florida State had entered the tournament as the 3-seed and left Kansas City as national champions.

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