2026 Sports & Business Outlook: Lance Kettering

Kettering’s 2026 Projection: The newly turfed diamonds at the Cooper and Killian complexes have been highly popular with event rights holders, helping the sports commission book 18 new event weekends for 2026, and will drive strong demand for growth this year in youth fast-pitch softball and baseball in Springfield. Additionally, Springfield is seeing continued growth in Olympic sports, with rugby and archery recently hosting championship events, and more opportunities will emerge this year.

As the city of Springfield and the United Soccer League LLC continue to consider the prospect of a local expansion team, what is the potential local impact if it were to come to fruition?
If a facility’s built for a USL team, not only is it a facility that could be used as a stadium for soccer, but we would hope it would be designed as such that it could be used for other uses – community uses, concerts, other sports. There’s a lot of really good soccer venues that double as a football venue, too. It could give us another facility to help market to bring events to Springfield, not only in soccer, but other sports. And then certainly sports pride in Springfield continues to show with the USL team that ties to the growth of the sport of soccer and comes at a good time potentially, too, with the World Cup.

Speaking of soccer, as Kansas City is one of the hosts for the 2026 World Cup, to what capacity do you believe the Springfield area will benefit from that event’s visitors?
It’s a tough one, isn’t it, because you just don’t know. We anticipate there will be some travel from the various sites, Kansas City, Dallas, in particular. Will those visitors spend some time in Springfield? Potentially. Our visitors that come into the United States that have interest in Route 66 travel the route. I think that’s potentially an opportunity as well. We are still three hours away from the closest site. People that travel to the World Cup do travel outside the venue city. It’s kind of on the fringes.

Where are the growth opportunities for local sports investments?
Our growth opportunities are still in the indoor space. We do not have the indoor anchor sports facility that can house eight to 12 courts under one roof. And when I say that, it could be a flexible venue that could then be turned around and have mats for whether it’s wrestling or judo or futsal, you name it. And when I say courts, basketball, you need eight to 12, and then volleyball, you take two times that, so 16 to 24. So that’s the biggest need and potential investment I see for Springfield.

What differentiates successful sports markets today? Would you consider Springfield to be one?
Successful sports markets are accessible, meaning by land or by air, for the participants. They have world-class venues with the latest technology and floor types or field types. And that’s different because in the diamond sports, you need turf. The indoor space and basketball, specifically, you need wood floors and centrally located destinations that have entertainment and attractions to supplement those sporting events. I think we’ve got that with Bass Pro Shops and Springfield Cardinals. And for the historians, we’ve got the Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield. We’re the cave state, so we’ve got cave opportunities, and of course Branson’s just 35 miles down the road. So, we’ve got that as well. You’ve got to have a successful market with restaurants and attractions and hotels. We’ve got 6,000-plus hotel rooms in Springfield, so we’ve got a good number there. It also comes down to communities that are known to embrace sports. I think we are a successful sports market. Do we have room to improve? Yes, certainly. We’ve come a long way just in the last five years with our facility improvements.