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{"id":25830,"date":"2026-07-14T19:02:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T19:02:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/the-drama-spoiling-a-citys-world-cup-moment\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T19:02:20","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T19:02:20","slug":"the-drama-spoiling-a-citys-world-cup-moment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/the-drama-spoiling-a-citys-world-cup-moment\/","title":{"rendered":"The drama spoiling a city\u2019s World Cup moment"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>DALLAS, Texas \u2014 The World Cup was supposed to be Dallas\u2019s moment to shine. The city is <a href=\"https:\/\/url4027.email.politico.com\/ss\/c\/u001.6g0Zd3AyneOViJYBXgbV69rXRyiWqhCzIJbstXnYrx6OOjbrWtr82PAer60av1rohEX13QpDufZ4HG4oKEbcIDx4qhZIRUd8jmUV2NhqfEL1MvLLSQcw-CV06_whtHVxZLqty9FsU8FH1MUQap2dpe2HQ6kXrQvJ8d7CQgLP7JDAYkUWs-wINUXPbQfw5jU5Zp3mgKBg_FHsFqZ3LwBmOw\/4sa\/Eu-gthP5R12Y4o-pLZ7UoA\/h2\/h001.kiAC6-IEenmLTFoP2amkQytcMW4veAJpPYvobAzVmkU\" target=\"_blank\">famously image-conscious,<\/a> and the powers-that-be trumpeted the fact that more Cup matches were scheduled here than any other host city. It seemed like a coup for a town whose football team (the other kind of football) bills itself as <a href=\"https:\/\/url4027.email.politico.com\/ss\/c\/u001.6g0Zd3AyneOViJYBXgbV612VNgUGq3ytmD6cmIEncE-NqpViVUvpOoJNTv2SL5FfbUFiV0Qp6Rdjn5oYRxehKw85X70mHYmP6QY2hFvPtyIb7E9PGFQd6zKTCDEL37WT\/4sa\/Eu-gthP5R12Y4o-pLZ7UoA\/h3\/h001.bXj-xrf1GzDRRe-vduykYy_untFbRbj3H4xyjYHMYS4\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cAmerica\u2019s team.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<p>But off the pitch, Dallas leaders have spent the spring and summer fighting a series of political fights, many of them centered around sports. It\u2019s a cautionary tale to the many European tourists who have marveled at America\u2019s glittering sporting venues, but are unaware of the complex economic and political forces that have shaped them, for better and for worse.<\/p>\n<p>Before the soccer tournament even started, the city\u2019s pro basketball team had announced it was leaving its downtown arena. Then the hockey team decamped for a new arena in the suburbs.<\/p>\n<p>Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson was booed when he attended a World Cup Fan Fest. Along the way, the city was forced to furlough non-essential workers because of a budget shortfall, so the public libraries were closed for a day last week.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere&#8217;s a lot of \u2014 the only word I can think of is \u2014 drama,\u201d City Councilmember Paula Blackmon said.<\/p>\n<p>To be clear, the World Cup matches aren\u2019t being played in Dallas. They\u2019re 15 miles west, in Arlington, Texas. The Texas Rangers play baseball a few blocks away.<\/p>\n<p>But Dallas proper could still stake a claim as a professional sports hub. The Dallas Mavericks (basketball) and the Dallas Stars (hockey) have spent the last 25 years at American Airlines Center, a retro-styled arena just north of the central business district, which is served by its dedicated light rail stop. That arena\u2019s future has been at the heart of the fighting.<\/p>\n<p>Last fall, the city began discussing the idea of tearing down its City Hall to make way for a new sports arena. The building is showing its age \u2014 or its neglect \u2014 and city officials estimate it\u2019ll take hundreds of millions of dollars to repair it.<\/p>\n<p>Some in Dallas questioned whether the teams need a new arena, since the American Airlines Center \u2014 which is 1.6 miles from City Hall \u2014 seems to work just fine. Others objected to tearing down the building since its architect, I.M. Pei, is <a href=\"https:\/\/worldarchitecture.org\/architecture-news\/ecpvn\/the-12-most-significant-projects-of-i-m-pei.html\" target=\"_blank\">kind of a big deal<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The conflict divided the city council into two factions \u2014 the majority in favor of tearing down the building, the minority trying to preserve it. Blackmon and another council member, both of whom favor preserving the old City Hall, sued the city in June trying to block a vote on tearing down the building.<\/p>\n<p>To some extent, the fight has been a proxy for the broader fight over how to preserve downtown Dallas. AT&amp;T, the telecom giant which has had its corporate headquarters in Dallas since 2008, announced this spring it\u2019s moving to the suburbs, citing rising crime, homelessness and government dysfunction. Even the luxury retailer Neiman Marcus, the most Dallas of institutions, is closing its downtown store.<\/p>\n<p>Former Dallas Mayor Laura Miller, who got into politics after a career as an investigative reporter, said the fracas over the sports arena is a symptom of the city\u2019s dysfunctional government. Dallas has a weak mayor and its city council has been divided for decades, which gives developers \u2014 and sports teams \u2014 the upper hand in negotiating with the city.<\/p>\n<p>Miller is famous locally for turning down the Dallas Cowboys when team owner Jerry Jones asked for a publicly-financed stadium inside the city in the early 2000s.<\/p>\n<p>The Cowboys \u2014 like the Mavericks and Stars before them \u2014 promised to help redevelop neglected parts of the city. Miller argued that the city was better off putting its funds into basic services like public safety and infrastructure \u2014 and pointed to a string of broken promises from the sports teams and other big developers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt&#8217;s kind of Dallas&#8217; Achilles heel, because Dallas will just do anything to quote unquote \u2018save the teams,\u2019 even though all the teams are all within a 30-minute drive of all of our homes,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Dallas\u2019s local organizing committee for the World Cup declined to comment for this story, as did a spokesperson for the Mavericks. A spokesperson for the Stars didn\u2019t respond to requests for comment. Johnson, the Dallas mayor, also declined several interview requests.<\/p>\n<p>Most of the fighting has been invisible to World Cup fans, who will flock to town Tuesday for the region\u2019s final World Cup match, which is the semi-final between France and Spain. But the outcome of the city council fight could affect Dallas for decades to come.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>DALLAS, Texas \u2014 The World Cup was supposed to be Dallas\u2019s moment to shine. The city is famously image-conscious, and the powers-that-be trumpeted the fact that more Cup matches were scheduled here than any other host city. It seemed like a coup for a town whose football team (the other kind of football) bills itself [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25830\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}