How an Alumnus Brought the World Cup to Kansas City
Alan Dietrich, MBA ’90, helped make the city an unlikely hub for the tournament.
- By
- July 13, 2026
- Media, Entertainment, and Sports
On a recent morning during the 2026 FIFA World Cup, Alan Dietrich, MBA ’90, drove to a soccer training facility in Kansas City. He wanted to check in with England’s national team to make sure everything was in order before their next match.
England had chosen Kansas City as its base camp for this World Cup: a home-away-from-home where they’d stay and train between matches. But for a tournament spread across the United States, Mexico, and Canada, what drew a top-ranked team to a mid-sized Midwestern city?
Thanks goes, in part, to Dietrich. As an executive of KC2026, the group that spearheaded Kansas City’s World Cup bid, Dietrich oversaw the city’s base-camps operation. He had to convince national teams from around the world that Kansas City would be the best place to set up for the duration of the tournament.
“I didn’t know much about base camps at the time; I learned it,” says Dietrich, the former COO of the city’s Major League Soccer team, Sporting Kansas City. “As teams started to come through, I just stepped into being a host for them—kind of an ambassador for the city.”
It worked. Dietrich wooed four national teams to the Kansas City area—tying New York–New Jersey for the most. Three came into the World Cup ranked in FIFA’s top 10: Argentina (No. 1), England (No. 4), and the Netherlands (No. 8). All three made the knockout stage of the tournament, along with the fourth, Algeria (No. 28). Two, Argentina and England, are now in the semifinals.
Dietrich’s efforts helped make Kansas City an unlikely hub for this World Cup, despite being the smallest of the 16 metropolitan areas hosting. He’s relished the chance to show the world what Kansas City has to offer: world-class barbecue, a thriving cultural scene, and Midwestern kindness. “A lot of people are discovering us, maybe even for the first time, and going, ‘Hey, this is a cool place. I'm glad I came here,’ or, ‘I want to go there,’” he says. “That was our hope.”
“I could immediately tell that a sports enterprise runs like a business.”
— Alan Dietrich
Pivoting from Software to Sports
Dietrich wasn’t dreaming of a career in sports business when he started in the Weekend MBA Program in 1988. He was working in marketing for IBM and knew the degree would help him eventually make it to the C-suite. “I kind of thought that I just needed the piece of paper that said I had an MBA,” he says. “But what I really got out of it was the ability to engage in all areas of business effectively.”
Dietrich focused on finance at Booth, filling in a gap from his undergraduate degree, when he studied marketing and computer science. He also took multiple classes in total quality management, a then-budding management philosophy that emphasizes customer satisfaction.
After graduating, Dietrich pivoted to software and began working at Cerner Corporation (now Oracle Health), a healthcare software company in Kansas City. He made his way to CMO and later left for an operations role at a nonprofit.
In 2012, two of Cerner’s cofounders reached back out with a new offer. They were also part of the ownership group for Sporting Kansas City—and they wanted Dietrich, with his wide business experience, to join the team as COO. “One of their gifts was that they would see the abilities in people that maybe those people couldn’t see themselves,” he says.
Dietrich played soccer as a kid but had no experience in the sports industry. “But I could immediately tell that a sports enterprise runs like a business,” he says. “You’ve got finance and marketing and accounting and sales—all of those core business functions that I had come to study and learn. You’re figuring out how they operate better, just in a sports environment.”
Scoring the World Cup for Kansas City
Dietrich joined Sporting KC at an exciting time, shortly after the team rebranded from the Kansas City Wizards and opened a new soccer-specific stadium. They won four championships from 2012 to 2017, which solidified their fan base and led to more investment in soccer infrastructure across the Kansas City area.
That all laid the groundwork for Kansas City to submit its bid for the 2026 World Cup—joining 40 other cities in the running. The city first submitted in 2017, and by 2021, FIFA executives were planning to visit.
KC2026 knew FIFA would be touring other, larger cities too, so they had to go above and beyond to impress them. Dietrich put his operations experience and quality-oriented mindset to work.
The team enlisted friendly volunteers to fill Kansas City’s airport when FIFA arrived at night. They made sure all of FIFA’s hotel rooms faced a billboard that read “We Want the Cup.” They sketched out routes that avoided construction and graffiti, and planted kids’ scrimmage matches along the way. They treated the FIFA representatives to local barbecue, of course, and took them to watch the US women’s national team play a sold-out match at Sporting Park.
“We wanted to demonstrate that we create great experiences,” Dietrich says. “And that we would do that for the teams that would come play here, we would do that for the teams that would base camp here, and we would do that for the visitors that would come to watch the matches.”
“One of the things I felt accountable for was making sure that we delivered what we promised them when they picked us.”
— Alan Dietrich
After Kansas City got the bid, Dietrich began focusing on base camps, wanting to give national teams the same experience the FIFA executives got. He showed off the city’s multiple state-of-the-art training facilities and convenient hotels, while also adapting to different nations’ specific concerns. Some emphasized privacy and security; others wanted to know how players’ families would be taken care of.
One commonality: “They wanted a partner,” Dietrich says. “And to know if they needed help here, they would get that help.”
Now, with the tournament underway, Dietrich and a team of nearly 50 volunteers have become concierges to the teams based in Kansas City—not just arranging facilities, but booking leisure activities like golf outings and dinner reservations. “One of the things I felt accountable for was making sure that we delivered what we promised them when they picked us,” he says.
Along the way, Dietrich has watched soccer history play out in his own city: Lionel Messi scored his first-ever World Cup hat trick for Argentina; Curaçao earned its first-ever group-stage point; Dutch fans hosted their biggest-ever US gathering.
He’s grateful, looking back, for what his former bosses saw in him when they offered him the Sporting KC role. “I’m so glad I gave it a shot,” Dietrich says. “It’s been, by far, the highlight of my career.”
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