Legacy Impacts of FIFA World Cup Celebrated in Advance of Seattle’s Final Match

Seattle—As Seattle hosts its final and biggest match of the FIFA World Cup 2026, with the United States playing Belgium in the Round of 16, the Seattle FIFA World Cup 26™ Local Organizing Committee (SeattleFWC26) celebrates the tournament’s legacy—one that will benefit Washington communities long after the final whistle.

Over three-plus years of preparation, SeattleFWC26 collaborated with its Host City Supporters, donors, and community-based organizations to use this fleeting moment of global focus to make lasting local progress. From a first-of-its-kind Sovereign Indigenous Nation sponsorship to innovative and inclusive programs for adaptive athletes and fans, small businesses, and Seattle’s LGBTQ+ and Black communities, SeattleFWC26 worked with local organizations and leaders to craft legacy initiatives that deliver meaningful, long-term community benefit beyond the tournament itself.

“From the beginning, our goal was to do more than just host six extraordinary matches,” said Seattle FWC26 Chief Legacy Officer Leo Flor. "We set out to create a legacy that reflects who we are as a region—welcoming, innovative, inclusive, and resolved to create lasting benefits for communities throughout Washington."

The cornerstone of SeattleFWC26's legacy work has been its partnership with the Puyallup Tribe of Indians, the first Sovereign Indigenous Nation in history to become an official Host City Supporter for any FIFA event. The Puyallup Tribe set an audacious vision and goals for its sponsorship and partnership, and SeattleFWC26 proudly supports the Puyallup Tribe’s leadership in introducing the world to their language, culture, and people. The Puyallup Tribe of Indians not only helped the entire region welcome the world, but also invited other Tribal Nations, international visitors, and locals to share in a remarkable series of events hosted on Puyallup Land, including the Coastal Protocol, World Cup Pow-Wow, and Stick Games.  

The Puyallup Tribe’s early and generous support as SeattleFWC26’s Presenting Legacy Supporter, as well as the support of Host City Supporters Alaska Airlines, Amazon, Boeing, Emerald Queen Casino, Microsoft, Port of Seattle, University of Washington, and Deloitte, was essential to every one of SeattleFWC26’s legacy projects, highlights of which include:

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More Opportunities to Learn and Play Soccer

SeattleFWC26 and partners invested in multiple community initiatives to give thousands of children new places and equipment to learn and play soccer across Washington.

• RAVE Fields: SeattleFWC26 proudly supported RAVE Foundation’s 26 by 26 soccer field initiative, which was so successful that RAVE doubled their goal to 52 RAVE Fields. SeattleFWC26 contributed directly to 15 RAVE Fields statewide, including a field at the Puyallup Tribe’s Chief Leschi School and two fields at Lummi Nation Schools.

• wələx̌ʷildubutali Soccer Park in East Tacoma: SeattleFWC26 teamed up with the Puyallup Tribe of Indians, Street Soccer USA, Bank of America, VISA, Seattle Sounders FC, RAVE foundation and more to build a new soccer park in East Tacoma, created to accommodate a regulation Paralympic Blind Soccer field.

• Blind Soccer: Partnering with the US Association of Blind Athletes, Seattle was also established as a Regional Hub for blind soccer.  Starting with a first-of-its-kind clinic in late 2025, SeattleFWC26 and USABA then hosted a Blind Soccer International Qualifying Tournament with the US, Peru, and Kazakhstan National Blind Soccer Teams competing over Memorial Day Weekend. The events concluded with SeattleFWC26 purchasing and then donating for ongoing use the region’s first dedicated set of Blind Soccer Kick-Boards, which will be stored at the wələx̌ʷildubutali Soccer Park for ongoing use.

• World Cup Soccer Balls for Students: With the support of a major Washington-based retailer who asked to remain anonymous, SeattleFWC26 donated nearly 2,000 special edition Seattle FIFA World Cup 26 soccer balls to elementary school students at the Puyallup Tribe of Indians’ Chief Leschi School, Lummi Nation School in Lummi Nation, Barge-Lincoln Elementary in Yakima, West Hills STEM Academy in Bremerton, and Orchards Elementary in Vancouver, WA.

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Broadening the Benefit of Hosting for Local Businesses, Neighborhoods, and Workers

Recognizing that large sporting events have the potential to bring tremendous social and commercial benefit to the communities that host them, SeattleFWC26 tested new approaches to better fulfill that potential while recognizing that large events can also disrupt typical routines.

• Stadium Neighborhood Liaisons: SeattleFWC26 initiated a first-of-its-kind program to fund a full-time Small Business World Cup Liaison in each of the three stadium neighborhoods. These liaisons, employed in community organizations, provided one-to-one support to businesses to help them prepare for this summer’s tournament.

• Small Business Megaevent Playbook: SeattleFWC26 funded the Seattle Metro Chamber of Commerce to create the Award-Winning Small Business Megaevent Playbook. An accompanying Graphic Novel was also translated into Spanish, Chinese, and Vietnamese for ongoing benefit across our community.

• SEA&WIN Mobile Game: SeattleFWC26 worked with more than a dozen community organizations over two years to develop SEA&Win and curate its stops. Since March 2026, thousands have downloaded and played the app. Players traveled to local businesses and cultural highlights, played games and quizzes to win points, and won prizes. More than 20 players won the ultimate prize: attendance at a Seattle World Cup match for the winner and plus one, courtesy of SeattleFWC26.

• Unity Loop: The Unity Loop connects the best of downtown Seattle into a curated map of local business, neighborhood, and cultural highlights. As a SeattleFWC26 legacy project, the Unity Loop will endure as a way to see Seattle’s best.

• Pacific Northwest Hospitality Training Program: SeattleFWC26 proudly sponsored a class of the Pacific Northwest Training Program. The class’s eighteen graduates received extensive training and support, preparing them for employment as prep cooks, and 100% of class graduates were hired by stadium concessionaire Levy to work at Lumen Field during the FIFA World Cup.

• UNTemp: SeattleFWC26 supported the launch of UNtemp, a worker-owned dispatch service that allows co-ops of union janitorial and event services workers to better benefit from the essential services they provide.

• Labor Standards Agreement: In partnership with the Martin Luther King Labor Council, SeattleFWC26 signed a first of its kind Labor Standards Agreement with affiliate unions to establish common expectations for how workers should benefit from Seattle Fan Celebrations.

• Chinese American Legacy Art Project: On the suggestion of organizations in Seattle’s CID Neighborhood, SeattleFWC26 supported the community’s long-running work to fund a public art installation to educate residents and visitors about the 1886 expulsion of Chinese residents from Seattle. SeattleFWC26 made its own donation and shared the opportunity with its growing statewide and international soccer audience, and two additional donors came forward to complete CALAP’s Phase-I funding, fully funding creation of the artwork.

• SODO Welcome Center: Partnering with the SODO BIA, SeattleFWC26 funded the BIA’s new SODO Welcome Center. Part welcome center and part neighborhood museum, the Welcome Center will open on major event days for years to come, helping SODO orient visitors to the neighborhood’s highlights.

• AMPLIFY: Chinatown-International District, a community-driven initiative to support 35 small businesses throughout Chinatown, Japantown, and Little Saigon was sponsored by the SeattleFWC26.

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‍New Public Art to Celebrate Seattle on the International Stage

SeattleFWC26 worked with artists, most working locally, to create accessible, free public art for Seattle while ensuring that artists were fairly paid for work commissioned by SeattleFWC26.

• Seattle Host City Poster and SEA&Win Prize Poster by Shogo Ota

No image embodies Seattle’s time hosting the FIFA World Cup more than Shogo Ota’s award-winning Seattle Host City Whale Tail Poster. Local Artists Daniel Baptista, Taylor Cameron, and AJ Basayne were finalists in the contest. Shogo completed several other designs with SeattleFWC26, including the SEA&Win Prize Poster, designed as a counterpart to the Host City Poster.  

• Vital Spirit by Gerard Tsutakawa

Vital Spirit is a newly installed sculpture commemorating Lumen Field’s role as a host stadium for the FIFA World Cup in Seattle. Tsutakawa sculptures now feature at Seattle three biggest sports venues: Lumen Field, T-Mobile Park, and Climate Pledge Arena.

• Seattle Children’s Collaborations with Stevie Shao

SeattleFWC26 partnered for three projects with the patients and therapists of the Seattle Children’s Therapeutic Art Program, including a Stevie Shao mural on Third Avenue in downtown Seattle.

• Downtown Murals by Leo Shallat and INO

SeattleFWC26 kicked off its public art campaign in summer 2025 by unveiling two large format murals curated by Street Art for Mankind.  Leo Shallat’s work features next to Seattle Central Library, and INO’s work floats near Harbor Steps, visible from Overlook Walk.

• Pride Match Day Design Contest

Shayla Hufana, Kelly Bjork, and Sharon Blyth-Moss are the three finalists of SeattleFWC26’s Pride Match Day design contest. Their designs featured on limited-edition pins, a monorail column, art banners, the commemorative Pride Match Day Scarf, and more across Seattle as Seattle celebrated Pride during the FIFA World Cup.

• Juneteenth Design Contest

Designs by Damon Brown and Samray Estifanos featured across the city on a monorail column, commemorative Juneteenth Match Day Scarves, pins, banners, and more as Seattle marked the occasion and responsibility of hosting the US Men’s Team match on Juneteenth.

• Fifteen Pioneer Square Art Frames

SeattleFWC26 funded Pioneer Square-based Forest for the Trees to curate a series of 15 outdoor “Art Frames” to celebrate soccer, the nations playing in Seattle, Juneteenth, Pride, and Indigenous art.  Several of the Art Frame designs were also given out at World Cup matches as commemorative Seattle post cards.

• Corridor of Nations at the Monorail Columns

With special support from Nordstrom, SeattleFWC26 and Seattle Monorail collaborated to decorate 53 monorail columns with World Cup designs. 48 of the monorail posts showcased the flags of the nations that qualified for the FIFA World Cup 26. Columns also featured Sharon Byth-Moss's Pride Match Day finalist design, Damon Brown’s Juneteenth Match Day finalist design, commemorative artwork by Puyallup Tribe artist Daniel Baptista, and a special collage of art from the patients of the Seattle Children’s Therapeutic Art Program.

• SEA Beacons & Selfless Stations with Western Neon and Shogo Ota

As part of a #FollowTheFlukes campaign to highlight local businesses and help visitors find Seattle’s best, SODO-based Western Neon collaborated with Shogo Ota to create iconic neon art pieces. With its Supporters and Donors, SeattleFWC26 donated more than 350 SEA Beacons to highlight small businesses and key cultural attractions and created a network of twenty-six eight-foot-tall Selfless Stations that each shine a light on a community non-profit while featuring in the background of countless selfies throughout the tournament.

Showing the World how Seattle Celebrates Pride and Juneteenth through “The 19th” and "Welcome to Seattle: This Is How We Pride”, both first-of-their-kinds host city campaigns celebrating Juneteenth and Pride Month, local artists, Black and LGBTQ+-owned businesses, and community organizations during the tournament. SeattleFWC26 also sponsored Story of the Salute exhibit at the Northwest African American Museum, offered businesses free Inclusion Training sessions, featured LGTBQ+ and Black-owned business in its Unity Loop and SEA&WIN programs, and proudly sponsored Seattle Pride Parade and Trans Pride.  

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Bringing the Game to People Statewide

SeattleFWC26 recognized early that a truly statewide celebration would call for events that were free to the public in cities across Washington State.  

• Bringing more than 1,400 Youth to World Cup matches

Thanks to SeattleFWC26 Supporters and Donors, SeattleFWC26 partnered with Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson to create the tournaments’ largest community access program by inviting more than 1,400 youth and their chaperones from community organizations to attend a Seattle match. Participating youth also received a complementary stadium bag with a scarf and a voucher for food. No other FIFA World Cup 26 host city created a program of this scale that allowed so many youth to feel the excitement and belonging that comes from witnessing history being made in their hometown.

• Seattle Fan Celebrations

To broaden the benefit to more businesses and communities, SeattleFWC26 worked with Seattle Sounders FC, Seattle Center, Seattle Mariners, and BH Properties to deliver more choices for fans to gather with community and watch matches. These official Fan Celebrations at Seattle Center, Pacific Place, the Seattle Waterfront, and Victory Hall, were complimented by lively watch parties hosted by HomeTeam in Pioneer Square, the City of Seattle in Community Centers, and dozens of local businesses across the city.

• SeattleFWC26 Fan Zones

SeattleFWC26 also partnered with the largest cities in each of Washington’s most populous counties outside of King County to create official Fan Zones, ensuring a truly statewide celebration enjoyed by tens of thousands of fans.  

• Joint Base Lewis-McChord Watch Parties: SeattleFWC26 teamed up with Seattle Host City Supporter Boeing and Joint Base Lewis-McChord (JBLM) to bring watch parties for military service members, families, and those who work at JBLM.  

• Kicking It in the CID Summer Series

Right next to the stadium, Seattle FWC worked with leaders in the Chinatown-International District (CID) to plan watch parties to help the CID draw more visitors during the World Cup while reminding Seattleites that a thriving CID requires local residents to support CID businesses every day.

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Additional Legacy Pillars and Accomplishments

In addition to the accomplishments above, the SeattleFWC26 team is proud of the following initiatives:

• Expand accessibility and inclusion through accessible technology, wayfinding, adaptive sports programming, inclusive event planning, and community partnerships—creating lasting improvements that help people of all abilities experience Seattle and the FIFA World Cup 2026™ with confidence and dignity.

• Advancing human rights and community safety SeattleFWC26 worked with a local Human Rights Advisory Committee to set Human Rights Priorities for SeattleFWC26. Under these priorities, SeattleFWC26 partnered with BEST to help businesses access free anti-human trafficking education, promote inclusive business practices across the region, and publish a Getting Help and Reporting Harm playbook for non-emergency Human Rights issues that visitors and residents might experience during the tournament.

Collectively, these initiatives demonstrate how a global sporting event can serve as a catalyst for long-term economic opportunity, accessibility, cultural celebration, and community connection.

Throughout the tournament planning process, SeattleFWC26's legacy work has been guided by a simple principle: use the power of soccer to strengthen communities before, during, and after FIFA World Cup 2026™.

"At the end of the day, the FIFA World Cup is about more than soccer," said Peter Tomozawa, CEO of SeattleFWC26. "It's about unity, celebration, and reminding ourselves that even during challenging times, we can find moments that bring people together. We wanted to capture that spirit not only during three unforgettable weeks of tournament action, but in everything we built as a host city. The final whistle may mark the end of matches in Seattle, but it also marks the beginning of the next chapter, one where the relationships, investments, and lessons from this tournament continue creating positive impact for years to come."

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