Match Day Is the One Thing Every Family Asks Me About in Kansas City

By Nicole Damiano, ASTA Verified Travel Advisor with FG Luxury Travel · Updated October 2026

If there is one specific thing people search for before a Kansas City trip with kids, it is a match. Sporting KC or the KC Current, and it is usually the first question I get once someone realizes both teams play a few miles from where they would be staying anyway.

Both play at Children’s Mercy Park in Kansas City, Kansas, right off I-435 next to the Legends outlet mall and the NASCAR track. That surprises people who assume everything sports related in the metro sits on the Missouri side with Kauffman Stadium and Arrowhead. It does not. This is Kansas’s stadium, and it is one of the better reasons to plan a trip around this side of the state line instead of just passing through it.

We went to KC Current games at Children’s Mercy Park in 2022 and 2023, before the team moved into its own stadium on the river, and Avilene got to meet some of the players after one of those games. Jake did the face paint both times, which tells you the level of commitment involved. The atmosphere at a Current match runs different from a lot of pro sports, loud, packed, and built around families rather than around beer sales, and the team sold out every single home match in 2024, so tickets are not something to leave until the week of.

Sporting KC is the easier ticket of the two most seasons, bigger stadium capacity, more games on the calendar, and still a real MLS atmosphere with a supporters section that will make an eight year old’s night. I would still get there early either way. Parking fills, and the pregame tailgate scene outside the stadium is half the experience for families, not something to rush past on your way in.

Ticket prices vary a lot depending on the opponent and how far into the season you are buying, so I would rather tell a family to buy the moment a date is set than give a number that will not hold up by the time you book.

For logistics, base yourself in Overland Park or anywhere in Johnson County. You are close to the stadium, the hotels are solid, and parking is free almost everywhere compared to what you would pay downtown for a Royals or Chiefs game. The zoo, Union Station and Starlight are across the state line in Missouri if you want to build a full weekend around both sides.

Match day is not a big secret experience the way a national park hike is. It is simpler than that. Buy the tickets early, get there with enough time to enjoy the tailgate, and let the kids be as loud as the stadium already is. That is most of what makes it work.

I go through where to stay, what else is worth the trip on either side of the state line, and the drive west toward the Flint Hills and Wichita, in our Kansas guide.