The FIFA World Cup is coming to Seattle! But that’s old news. It has been two years since it was announced and approved that Seattle would be one of the eleven U.S. locations for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, co-hosted along with our neighbors to the north and south, Canada and Mexico. 

This announcement spurred lots of excitement in the city. Jun Lee is a Second-year Business Management Major who grew up watching soccer and wanting to see a World Cup live. 

“As a kid, I always wanted to watch the World Cup live. But to find out that it’s coming to us, I feel like it’s a pretty good experience and it’s something that’ll live with us forever, [and] live with me forever,” Lee said. 

The City of Seattle has been undertaking renovations all over the city, including a $19.4 million renovation to Lumen Field to install a new FIFA-regulation grass pitch, as well as many other upgrades to the stadium. 

Lumen wasn’t the only facility in Seattle to receive an upgrade. If you were on campus during the end of the 2024-25 academic year, you may have noticed that Championship Field, home to the Seattle University men’s and women’s soccer teams, looked a little different than usual. 

This upcoming summer, Championship Field will serve as one of the practice facility locations for the teams playing matches in Seattle, along with the University of Washington soccer pitch. Championship Field was last renovated in 2015, so the facility was long overdue for a facelift. Additionally, the field was in need of renovations in order to meet FIFA standards.

“We’ve been looking to renovate the field for easily five years or more. Natural grass turf fields go through sort of a time of life, and it was time. Then the FIFA World Cup 2026 came along and made it possible to renovate the field,” Shannon Britton, assistant director for Grounds and Waste Management at Seattle U, explained. 

Renovations began during May 2025, with the first major project being the replacement of the field’s grass turf. For this, the university contracted Premier Field Developments, a field construction company based out of Snohomish, Wash. The replacement of the turf began with removing the old grass and almost a foot of soil, followed by the installation of conduit before installing the new turf. 

Once turf installation was completed in the middle of July, the renovation proceeded with installing a new video scoreboard, ball control netting, irrigation system and other underground electrical components, which was all completed either prior to or soon after the project’s original deadline of Aug. 3. 

“It’s a great day for Seattle University Athletics to receive so much for their program, and they really have. It’s really elevated this field to more of a state-of-the-art field… It’s just amazing what we were able to do for athletics and making Championship Field a premier field,” Britton said. 

Championship Field is no stranger to being used by the top talent in the world. The facility has hosted the likes of Manchester United of the Premier League, Tottenham Hotspur F.C. and the U.S. Women’s National Team. 

“I think it’s cool that we have the facilities that are good enough to support [professional teams practicing],” Second-year Civil Engineering Major and lifelong soccer fan, Bennet Kalberer said. 

Seattle U soccer has been up and running for almost a month now and both teams are showing success early on. With the FIFA World Cup coming to Seattle in 2026, there’s no doubt that Championship Field and Seattle as a whole will be seeing lots of action in the next few months.