The World Cup came to America. Baltimore watched from the sidelines. That wasn’t a lucky break.
By Michael Phillips | MDBayNews
The Inner Harbor was packed last weekend. Tourists elbow to elbow, families along the waterfront, the kind of crowd that makes out-of-towners recalibrate their assumptions about Charm City. Justin Fenton, a journalist for The Baltimore Banner, posted the photo and noted it was taken in 2026, not 1996.
The image made the rounds. One reply, from a local commentator named Julian Baron, put it plainly: “This is why I was really disappointed none of the World Cup games were in Baltimore. We need more reasons for people, local and otherwise, to come downtown.”
“We need more reasons for people, local and otherwise, to come downtown.”
He’s right. And the story of how Baltimore lost that chance — and what the city’s leadership has said about it since — deserves more scrutiny than it has received.
What Baltimore Submitted
In the spring of 2022, Baltimore and Washington, D.C. merged their bids. Games would be played at M&T Bank Stadium. A massive fan festival would be held on the National Mall. The nation’s capital would serve as a backdrop for the World Cup during America’s 250th anniversary year.
The pitch was not a longshot fantasy. M&T Bank Stadium holds 71,000 people and sits minutes from BWI Marshall International Airport, with more than 10,000 hotel rooms within walking distance. FIFA officials toured the stadium. Maryland Sports Commission Executive Director Terrance Hasseltine flew to London’s Wembley Stadium to discuss hosting logistics with English Football Association executives. Governor Larry Hogan, Lieutenant Governor Boyd Rutherford, and Mayor Brandon Scott were all in.
FIFA selected 16 North American cities. Baltimore was not among them.
The Spin Didn’t Hold
In the aftermath, some observers tried to reframe the rejection as a near-miss that Baltimore should be relieved about. The argument: hosting is expensive, FIFA extracts enormous concessions, and the direct economic return to host cities is more modest than advertised.
That framing isn’t entirely wrong on the economics. FIFA keeps the lion’s share of revenue from television deals, ticket sales, and sponsorships. Phoenix walked away from its own bid after calculating that the costs outweighed the benefits. Hosting the World Cup is not a straightforward windfall.
“Extremely disappointed” that FIFA “did not see through the fog and through the dark” to recognize what the Baltimore-Washington combination represented. — Terrance Hasseltine
But “it would’ve been expensive” is not the same as “we were better off without it.” And the people closest to Baltimore’s bid were not buying the consolation prize framing.
Rutherford, who chaired the bid committee, said Baltimore would have been a superior host to Boston — which did get a slot, playing games in Foxborough, a distant suburb with none of the urban character Baltimore could have offered. He called the omission not a dodged bullet but a missed opportunity. “It would’ve been a headache,” he acknowledged, “but we would’ve figured it out.”
Hasseltine was blunter. He called it “extremely disappointed” that FIFA “did not see through the fog and through the dark” to recognize what the Baltimore-Washington combination represented: a “one-two punch that deserved to host.”
This was not the language of a region shrugging off a rejection it had quietly anticipated.
What the Snub Meant
The magnitude of being passed over is worth stating plainly. The Baltimore/Washington bid was not an early casualty — it made the final round of cuts on June 16, 2022, eliminated alongside Cincinnati, Denver, Edmonton, Nashville, and Orlando. This was not a longshot that never had a chance. It was a serious finalist that came up short at the last stage. Historians of the tournament noted it marked only the third time in World Cup history that a primary host nation’s capital city did not receive games. The United States hosted one of the most commercially significant tournaments in soccer history — and Washington, D.C. was not part of it.
It was a serious finalist that came up short at the last stage.
Baltimore absorbed the collateral damage. The crowds that would have filled Federal Hill bars, packed the Inner Harbor, and poured through the Lexington Market corridor went to Philadelphia, Miami, and New York instead. The global broadcast attention that would have framed Baltimore’s waterfront for five billion viewers went elsewhere.
The photo Fenton posted is evidence of what Baltimore can do on an ordinary summer weekend. Imagine what it could have done with the world watching.
Maryland Is a Soccer State
The dismissal stings more when you account for what Maryland actually is as a soccer market.
The state consistently ranks in the top 11 to 15 nationally — a highly competitive second tier behind only the population behemoths like California and Texas, and well above its weight for its size. The University of Maryland men’s program is a perennial national powerhouse that has claimed the top spot in NCAA Division I rankings. The youth pipeline is among the densest in the country, concentrated in three corridors: the Montgomery County suburbs, anchored by Bethesda SC and the Potomac Soccer Association; the Baltimore metro, home to Coppermine Soccer Club and Pipeline SC; and Howard County, driven by programs like Maryland United FC. These clubs compete at the highest national tiers — MLS NEXT and ECNL.
And then there is the Baltimore Blast. The city has had a professional soccer team since 1980 — one that has won 10 championships across multiple leagues, including three consecutive titles from 2016 to 2018. The Blast are one of the most decorated indoor soccer franchises in North American history, and they have spent more than four decades cultivating a soccer fan base in the same city FIFA decided didn’t deserve a World Cup game.
This wasn’t a casual soccer market asking for a vanity event. This was a state with the infrastructure, the youth base, and the fan culture to absorb a World Cup and deliver something memorable.
Maryland doesn’t host an MLS franchise, but it doesn’t need one to be integrated into professional soccer. D.C. United and the Washington Spirit are the region’s professional anchors, and local youth players have direct homegrown pathways to both clubs.
This wasn’t a casual soccer market asking for a vanity event. This was a state with the infrastructure, the youth base, and the fan culture to absorb a World Cup and deliver something memorable. FIFA looked at all of that and picked Foxborough anyway.
The Accountability Question
Hasseltine’s abrupt departure from the Maryland Sports Commission in December 2024 — without public explanation — has left Baltimore’s bid for the 2031 Rugby World Cup in uncertain status. Whether that bid is still active is unclear. The institutional infrastructure that led the World Cup push has quietly dissolved.
That is worth following. Baltimore’s case for major international events did not die with the 2022 FIFA decision — but it requires leadership willing to sustain the argument. The Inner Harbor photo is a reminder of what the city is capable of. The question is whether anyone in a position of authority is doing the work to make sure the next opportunity lands differently.
The World Cup came to America. Boston got a suburb. Baltimore got to watch.
That wasn’t luck. It was a failure worth accounting for.
Sources: The Baltimore Banner; CBS Baltimore/WJZ; DCist; Sports Destination Management
Keep MDBayNews Reporting Free
MDBayNews exists to help Marylanders understand decisions made by state and local leaders — especially when those decisions affect daily life, rights, and public services.
If this article helped clarify what’s happening or why it matters, reader support makes it possible to keep publishing clear, independent reporting like this.
Have a tip or documents to share?
We review submissions carefully and confidentially. Anonymous tips are welcome when appropriate.
Discover more from Maryland Bay News
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.