Amazon, Microsoft execs join effort to promote Seattle's 2026 World Cup bid

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Two of the Seattle area's biggest tech employers are helping promote the city's bid to get a 2026 FIFA World Cup match at Lumen Field.

Top executives from Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) and Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN) are a part of SEA 2026, an executive committee lobbying for Seattle to serve as a host city for the quadrennial international soccer tournament, which will take place in North America that year. Amazon Web Services CEO Adam Selipsky, who rejoined the company earlier this year, was named to the committee along with Amy Hood, Microsoft's chief financial officer. Hood is also a co-owner of the Seattle Sounders FC.

The two will be joined by fellow Sounders co-owners Russell Wilson of the Seattle Seahawks and his wife, the singer Ciara, as well as majority owner Adrian Hanauer. Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan and Mark Suzman, CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, will fill out the seven-person committee.

SEA 2026 is trying to use Seattle's reputation as a city in which professional soccer has flourished — the Sounders have won two MLS Cups since joining the league in 2009 — and the noise produced over the years at Lumen Field.

https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2021/10/24/amazon-microsoft-execs-promote-seattle-world-cup.html

[Ron Obvious]

1. Let's hope it happens

This city would be perfect for the event, having a relatively mild climate in the summer.

I was really disappointed that UW wasn't interested in putting grass in Husky stadium to participate in the 1994 bid, apparently thinking this whole world cup and "soccer" thing was just a bunch of foreign nonsense, i guess.

They realised their mistake when the 1994 WC was a massive success with stadiums sold out everywhere, including in thoroughly unsuitable venues like Dallas and Orlando where the temperatures got well over 100 degrees and even higher pitchside.

I could have ridden my bike to the stadium back then.

[LisaM]

2. Then they can pay their taxes.

Seattle's infrastructure is on the brink.