Sporting Kansas City, often shortened to Sporting KC, is an American professional soccer club based in Kansas City, Kansas. The administrative offices are located in Downtown Kansas City, Missouri, and the team clubhouse and practice facilities are located in Kansas City, Kansas near Children's Mercy Park. The club competes as a member of the Western Conference in Major League Soccer (MLS), having returned in 2015 after spending ten seasons in the Eastern Conference.
Kansas City is the largest city in Missouri by population and area. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city had an estimated population of 495,327 in 2019, making it the 38th most-populous city in the United States. It is the most populated municipality and historic core city of the Kansas City metropolitan area, which straddles the Kansas–Missouri state line and has a combined statistical area (CSA) population of 2,487,053. Most of the city lies within Jackson County, but portions spill into Clay, Cass, and Platte counties. Kansas City was founded in the 1830s as a Missouri River port at its confluence with the Kansas River coming in from the west. On June 1, 1850, the town of Kansas was incorporated; shortly after came the establishment of the Kansas Territory. Confusion between the two ensued, and the name Kansas City was assigned to distinguish them soon after.
The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri and Kansas. With 8,472 square miles (21,940 km2) and a population of more than 2.1 million people, it is the second-largest metropolitan area centered in Missouri and is the largest metropolitan area in Kansas, though Wichita is the largest metropolitan area centered in Kansas. Alongside Kansas City, Missouri, these are the suburbs with populations above 100,000: Overland Park, Kansas; Kansas City, Kansas; Olathe, Kansas; Independence, Missouri; and Lee's Summit, Missouri.
The Livestrong Foundation is a United States nonprofit organization that provides support for people affected by cancer. The foundation, based in Austin, Texas, was established in 1997 by cancer survivor and former professional road racing cyclist Lance Armstrong, as the Lance Armstrong Foundation. The Livestrong brand was launched by the foundation in 2003. Armstrong resigned from the foundation in 2012 after his admission of doping, leading to the rebranding of the entire organization as Livestrong Foundation.
Jimmy Nielsen is a Danish-American retired footballer who played as a goalkeeper who most recently served as head coach of Hartford Athletic in the USL Championship.
The Kansas City Metropolitan Area has a long history of sports, which has included national championship teams and championship title events.
Sporting Club, formerly "OnGoal, LLC", is a group of Kansas City investors that owns or represents a portfolio of athletic organizations under the Sporting Club umbrella. Its flagship property is Major League Soccer franchise Sporting Kansas City.
Team RadioShack was a professional road bicycle racing team, with RadioShack as the title sponsor, the creation of which was announced on July 23, 2009. Lance Armstrong co-owned and led the team, which raced in the Grand Tours and the UCI ProTour. The team was managed by Capital Sports and Entertainment, an Austin, Texas sports and event management group that also manages the Trek-Livestrong U23 development cycling team and that ran the former Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team.
The 2011 CONCACAF Gold Cup was the 11th edition of the CONCACAF Gold Cup competition and 21st CONCACAF regional championship overall in CONCACAF's fifty years of existence. The United States was the host nation.
Children's Mercy Park is a soccer-specific stadium in Kansas City, Kansas, United States, and is the home of Sporting Kansas City. The stadium is located near Kansas Speedway, on the far west side of Wyandotte County, Kansas. It opened during the 2011 season of Major League Soccer on June 9, 2011 with a match against the Chicago Fire. The stadium has a seating capacity of 18,467 seats, which can expand to 25,000 for concerts. Most SKC games attract around 21,000 because of different stadium modes. The stadium is Sporting Kansas City's third home venue; then known as the Kansas City Wizards, the team played in Arrowhead Stadium from 1996 to 2007 and CommunityAmerica Ballpark from 2008 to 2010. In 2013, the stadium hosted the MLS All-Star Game, the United States men's national soccer team, and the MLS Cup, and is the only stadium to host all three in the same year.
The 2013 Major League Soccer season was the 101st season of FIFA-sanctioned soccer in the United States and Canada, the 35th with a national first-division league, and the 18th season of Major League Soccer. The season featured 19 total clubs.
The 2012 CONCACAF Men's Olympic Qualifying Tournament was an association football competition to determine the two participants at the 2012 Summer Olympics.
The 2011 MLS Cup Playoffs was the sixteenth post-season tournament culminating the Major League Soccer regular season. The tournament began on October 26 with the play-in round and concluded on November 20 with the championship match. It was the first playoff series to include ten clubs, two more than the traditional eight. Six of the ten teams earned a direct bye into the conference semifinals, while the four wildcard teams played a single-elimination match to earn a berth into the conference semis. These eight clubs played in a single-elimination tournament en route to playoffs championship MLS Cup 2011, which doubles as the league championship for the 2011 MLS season altogether.
Group C of the 2011 CONCACAF Gold Cup was one of three groups competing of nations at CONCACAF Gold Cup 2011. The group's first round of matches were played on June 7, with the final round played on June 14. All six group matches were played at venues in United States, in Detroit, Tampa and Kansas City. The group consisted of host, and four time Gold Cup champions, United States, 2000 Gold Cup champion Canada, as well as Panama and Guadeloupe.
The 2010 Tour of Utah was the seventh edition of the Tour of Utah. It was held August 17-22, 2010. The race was distinguished by the decision of the organizers prior to the race to submit the 2011 edition of the race for addition to the UCI America Tour, upgrading it from national status to international status. Although UCI Pro Tour team were not allowed to compete in the race, Levi Leipheimer of Team RadioShack, who had just won the Leadville Trail 100 MTB mountain-bike race in Colorado, raced as the sole member of a team sponsored by Lance Armstrong's Austin bicycle shop, Mellow Johnny's, and won the overall title. Consistent with its self-proclaimed title of "America's toughest stage race", only 71 of the original 140 starters finished the race.
The 2012 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup Final was played on August 8, 2012 at Livestrong Sporting Park, now known as Children's Mercy Park, in Kansas City, Kansas. The match was the culmination of the 2012 U.S. Open Cup, a tournament open to amateur and professional soccer teams affiliated with the United States Soccer Federation. This was the 99th edition of the oldest ongoing competition in American soccer. Sporting Kansas City won their second U.S. Open Cup title, their first since 2004, by defeating Seattle Sounders FC, 3–2 in a penalty shootout following a 1–1 draw through extra time.
The 2012 MLS Cup Playoffs was the seventeenth post-season tournament culminating the Major League Soccer regular season. The tournament began on October 31, and culminated on December 1, 2012 with MLS Cup 2012, the seventeenth league championship for MLS, won by the Los Angeles Galaxy 3-1 over Houston Dynamo. It was the second year that the playoffs included ten teams, and the first playoff series since 2006 in which teams could not cross conference brackets. The top five teams in both the Eastern and Western conferences of the league earned berths, with the top three clubs in each conference earning direct byes to the conference semifinals. The fourth and fifth-place finishers of both conferences played in a single-elimination play-in match.
"Boston Strong" is a slogan that was created as part of the reaction to the Boston Marathon bombing in April 2013. It is a variation on the term Livestrong, which was created in 2004. Since the phrase became popular it has been frequently placed on various kinds of signage and merchandise. The use of the term in Boston has led to similar phrases entering public discourse, such as America Strong.
Dried apricots are a type of traditional dried fruit. When treated with sulfur dioxide (E220), the color is vivid orange. Organic fruit not treated with sulfur vapor is darker in color and has a coarser texture. Generally, the lighter the color, the higher the SO2 content.
