The other US sites have significant international flight activity. On that note, Chicago, Denver, or Minneapolis would’ve made much more sense than Kansas City. Nearly every traveler will have to fly to somewhere else in the US first before getting to KC.

What are you on about? The Safeway isn’t the Wharf Safeway and no one would call it that. I lived in Navy Yard for 3 years, of course it’s in SE DC. That’s its address. Navy Yard is a term for a neighborhood and a naval yard. Is that confusing you?

The Wharf is easy to define because it’s the stuff that’s along an actual wharf. Audi Field is not in The Wharf. It’s in Southwest. The Wharf is a portion of Southwest. Not the whole thing

What makes a sports town? DC was fanatical about the Nats and Caps when they won titles.

Excluding Kansas City would have been a middle finger to the entire middle part of the country. If you remove KC from this map there is an enormous swath of the continent that would have been left out of hosting.

This Cup is being played in existing stadiums. All of the USA stadiums chosen are current NFL stadiums

First thing I thought looking at this was the huge swath of inland North America that was getting excluded from this World Cup other than Kansas City. Throw a bone to Denver or Chicago or Minneapolis or something.

Nats Park is about a mile from the Wharf. I personally would not want to walk that before or after a game in the sweaty summer.

I think the final bid was “DC/Baltimore” and some events would have been held in DC with all of the matches being played in the Ravens stadium. I think part of the bid was increased transit between DC and Baltimore for the duration of the Cup.

I took a picture of this exact same plate in Alexandria. It’s on an SUV with the most tinted out windows I’ve ever seen. You couldn’t tell if anyone was inside at any time of day.