Football Partnerships

By Charles F. Rouse III

After planning for nearly two years to have a new soccer stadium built in the old Bannister Mall area in south Kansas City, it now appears the Kansas City Wizards’ new stadium is more likely to be built on the Kansas side of the state line near CommunityAmerica Ballpark, where the team is currently playing its games.

Lane4 Property Group, the property developer working with the Wizards ownership group, OnGoal LLC, has proposed a new stadium plan for an 18,500-seat facility that would be used exclusively for soccer and be located on a site owned by Nebraska Furniture Mart in Wyandotte County near the Kansas Speedway and within the Village West retail area.

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By James Dornbrook

The Kansas City Wizards and the Heartland Soccer Association have formed a strategic partnership to promote soccer and increase participation in the sport.

The Wizards will work with Heartland Soccer on a new field-improvement program that includes ticket sales, fund-raisers and donated auction items, the Wizards said in a release Thursday. Both organizations will engage in co-branding and on-site promotions at Heartland events and Wizards games.

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By ALAN GOFORTH

Soccer is the world’s game. OnGoal LLC, owner of the Kansas City Wizards, is determined to make it as much a part of the local sports landscape as the Chiefs and the Royals.

“We learned a lot about the sport from Lamar Hunt, who founded the Wizards,” said Robb Heineman, chief executive of OnGoal, which bought the Major League Soccer team from Hunt Sports Group in 2006. “He believed soccer has a pathway to becoming the No. 2 sport in the United States over the course of the next 20 years, and we bought into that vision.”

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Major League Soccer (MLS) announced Tuesday MLS “First Kick” 2009, Week 1 of the League’s 14th regular season. The Kansas City Wizards will start the season with a home match against Toronto FC on Saturday, March 21, 2009. The game will kick off at Kansas City’s new start time, 7:30 p.m. CT, at CommunityAmerica Ballpark. Season ticket packages are now available by calling the Wizards ticket office at (913) 387-3400. Group packages for groups of 15 or more are also available for the home opener. Single-game tickets will go on sale at a later date.

The home opener for each MLS club is included below. Games could be added to Weeks 2 and 3 by MLS at a later date. Major League Soccer’s complete 2009 schedule, including local and national broadcast details, will be announced by early February 2009.

Kansas City finished the 2008 regular season with a 9-2-4 home record, good for the 3rd best mark in MLS. The Wizards defeated D.C. United 2-0 on March 29, 2008 in their first-ever match at CommunityAmerica Ballpark. The stadium quickly became known for its loud atmosphere and distinct home-field advantage for the Wizards, as the team closed with a 7-0-3 mark in its last 10 regular-season home games.

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