Sporting Kansas City
Also written as Sporting KC.
The club
Sporting Kansas City are not Sporting Clube de Portugal, better known as Sporting Lisbon, and they are not Sporting Gijon of Spain either. The two European clubs share only the "Sporting" name with the Kansas team, are otherwise unconnected to it, and Sporting Lisbon appears elsewhere in this corpus in European competition. The feed sometimes shortens the Kansas club to "Sporting KC".
The club was founded by Lamar Hunt on 6 June 1995 as the Kansas City Wiz, a charter member of Major League Soccer, and played its first match on 13 April 1996, beating the Colorado Rapids 3-0 at Arrowhead Stadium. A trademark dispute with the electronics retailer The Wiz forced a name change and the club became the Kansas City Wizards from 1997. Preki was the 1997 MLS Most Valuable Player. Lamar Hunt sold the franchise in August 2006 to OnGoal LLC, a six-man ownership group led by the Cerner Corporation co-founders Neal Patterson and Cliff Illig; the 2007 season was dedicated to Hunt, who had died the previous December.
In November 2010 the club rebranded as Sporting Kansas City, borrowing the "Sporting" title used by Iberian multi-sport clubs such as Sporting Clube de Portugal, and moved into a new stadium in Kansas City, Kansas, initially named Livestrong Sporting Park. The name was dropped after the Lance Armstrong doping scandal, and since 19 November 2015 the ground has been known as Children's Mercy Park under a ten-year naming agreement; capacity is 18,491. The club had played previously at Arrowhead Stadium from 1996 to 2007 and at CommunityAmerica Ballpark, a converted minor-league baseball park in Kansas City, Kansas, from 2008 to 2010. Sporting Kansas City is the only major professional sports franchise to play its home games in the state of Kansas.
Peter Mallouk, founder of the wealth management firm Creative Planning and a long-time minority owner, bought a further 71 percent stake in January 2026 to take his holding to 80 percent and become majority owner, a purchase that valued the club at 700 million dollars. Raphael Wicky was hired as head coach around the same time.
Recent seasons
Sporting Kansas City reached the MLS Cup final in 2004, losing 3-2 to D.C. United, with Josh Wolff scoring what was described as the first penalty in MLS Cup final history. They returned to the summit in 2012 and 2013: the 2012 side finished first in the Eastern Conference at 18-7-9, with Graham Zusi leading the league with 15 assists and Jimmy Nielsen winning MLS Goalkeeper of the Year, before the club won the 2013 MLS Cup. Under Peter Vermes the club were a fixture in the playoffs through the 2010s. Vermes's tenure ended on 31 March 2025, with the club and coach agreeing to part ways after a winless start to that season, 0 wins, 5 losses and 1 draw. Sporting Kansas City finished 2025 in 15th place in the Western Conference and did not qualify for the playoffs. Through the first six months of the 2026 season, under new head coach Raphael Wicky, the club sat 15th in the Western Conference and 30th overall in MLS with a record of 4 wins, 14 losses and 3 draws from 21 matches, 20 goals scored and 51 conceded.
Honours and landmarks
MLS Cup winners in 2000 and 2013, and runners-up in 2004. Supporters' Shield winners in 2000. US Open Cup winners four times: 2004, 2012, 2015 and 2017. The 2004 final was a 1-0 golden-goal win over the Chicago Fire at Arrowhead Stadium on 22 September 2004, the club's first Open Cup title. The 2012 final was won against Seattle Sounders. The 2015 final was won 3rd title against Philadelphia Union, though the exact scoreline was not established from the sources read here. The 2017 final was a 2-1 win over New York Red Bulls, the club's fourth Open Cup and Peter Vermes's fourth win in a cup final or championship game as head coach.
Notable scorelines
In the 2000 MLS Cup final at RFK Stadium, Kansas City beat the Chicago Fire 1-0, Miklos Molnar scoring the only goal in the 11th minute; goalkeeper Tony Meola, who had set an MLS record 681-minute shutout streak that season, was named MLS Cup MVP and league MVP. In the 2013 MLS Cup final Sporting Kansas City drew 1-1 with Real Salt Lake after extra time, in what was described as the coldest MLS Cup game on record, and won the title on penalties, 7-6. On 25 July 2010, in a friendly at Arrowhead Stadium, Sporting Kansas City beat Manchester United 2-1 in front of 52,342, a record attendance for a professional soccer match in the Kansas City area at that time. In the 2026 MLS season the club suffered heavy defeats including a 6-0 loss to Portland Timbers and a 5-0 defeat to Chicago Fire, but also beat LA Galaxy 3-1 on 13 May 2026 and Minnesota United 2-1 on 22 July 2026.
Head-to-head notes
Against Houston Dynamo, Sporting Kansas City's record stood at 18 wins, 18 losses and 16 draws as of 2022. Against Real Salt Lake, the two sides having also met in the 2013 MLS Cup final, the record stood at 17 wins, 19 losses and 12 draws as of October 2023. Rivalries with the Portland Timbers and with the more recently established St. Louis City SC have developed in the years since, but detail on those series was not established from the sources read here.
Right now (2026/27)
Raphael Wicky is the head coach, appointed after Peter Vermes departed following a winless start to the 2025 season. Sporting Kansas City sat 15th in the Western Conference and 30th overall in MLS as of 23 August 2026, with 4 wins, 14 losses and 3 draws from 21 games, 20 goals scored and 51 conceded, and a 1-1 draw with St. Louis City on 19 August 2026 among their most recent results. The club was eliminated from the 2026 US Open Cup in the round of 32, losing 3-0 to Colorado Springs Switchbacks FC on 14 April 2026. In August 2026 the club broke its transfer record to sign the Brazilian André Luiz from Olympiacos for an initial fee of around 18 million dollars, with add-ons potentially taking the deal to about 22 million. The squad features the Serbian forward Dejan Joveljic, the English forward Calvin Harris, the Canadian midfielder Stephen Afrifa, the Norwegian midfielder Lasse Berg Johnsen and goalkeeper John Pulskamp. Further detail on the club's 2026/27 European or CONCACAF involvement was not established from the sources read here; Sporting Kansas City has not qualified for the CONCACAF Champions Cup in this cycle based on the sources read here.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sporting_Kansas_City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Sporting_Kansas_City_season https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Vermes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Open_Cup https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_U.S._Open_Cup https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_U.S._Open_Cup
Researched and written for not4quarters. Where a fact could not be established from the sources read, this page says so rather than guessing.