The USA Bid Committee has narrowed down its list of host cities for the FIFA World Cup in 2018 or 2022 to 18.



The USA Bid Committee, a nonprofit organization created to prepare a successful application for the event on behalf of the United States Soccer Federation, announced the following finalist cities at 3:30 p.m. today: Philadelphia, Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville, New York, Phoenix, San Diego, Seattle, Tampa, and Washington, D.C.


The cities that have been eliminated from consideration are: Charlotte, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Jacksonville, Oakland, Orlando, St. Louis, and San Francisco. The bid process began with 58 cities last spring, and had seen two cuts to 27 cities, prior to today’s announcement.


The remaining cities will now be a part of the USA Bid Committee’s final bid to FIFA, soccer’s international governing body on May 14. FIFA is expected to announce the host countries for both 2018 and 2022 in December 2010. Ultimately, 12-to-15 cities are expected to host games. Each host city can typically expect to host four-to-six games over the four weeks of the event.


“The Game is in US” marketing campaign was initiated by the USA Bid Committee in recent months in order to generate nationwide support of its efforts to host the World Cup in the U.S. for the first time since 1994. Soccer fans from across the country have been asked to “sign” an online petition for prospective host cities to see which could generate the most signatures. Seattle currently ranks first, followed by Atlanta, Houston and Philadelphia.


Contested every four years, the FIFA World Cup is considered the largest sporting event in the world. Cumulative television viewership from the 2006 event in Germany was estimated at 26 billion. Hosting the event would be a huge boost for soccer in America, as well as the Philadelphia region, with an estimated economic impact of $300-500 million per host city. A USA Bid Committee Economic Impact Study can be found at http://www.gousabid.com/news.


Other countries submitting bids for 2018 and 2022 are: Australia, Belgium and the Netherlands, England, Japan, Russia, Spain, and Portugal. Korea Republic, Indonesia, and Qatar submitted bids just to host in 2022.