As one of 11 U.S. host cities, Seattle will welcome several nations for the 2026 FIFA World Cup…but not to Lumen Field.
The 68,000-seat stadium, traditionally home to the Seahawks, Sounders and Reign FC, will be rebranded to “Seattle Stadium” before hosting six matches next summer.
The stadium is changing names to follow sponsorship guidelines set by FIFA, soccer’s governing body. The stadium will keep its new title for the duration of the quadrennial tournament, which starts June 11 and lasts over a month and will draw roughly 750,000 fans to the city, generating $929 million in King County, according to a Visit Seattle report.
The Sodo stadium has held several names over the years. It was originally called Seahawks Stadium when it first opened in 2002. The stadium was renamed to Qwest Field in 2004 after the telecommunications carrier bought the naming rights. It then changed names again in 2011 to CenturyLink Field, after the company acquired Qwest. CenturyLink changed its corporate name to Lumen Technologies in Sept. 2020 and, thus, updated the stadium name.
In addition to shrouding the two gigantic, 305-foot wide “Lumen Field” logos on either side of the arena’s roof next year, the stadium will need to scrub all other non-FIFA sponsorship lettering and advertisements throughout the building, per FIFA’s guidelines to protect exclusive partnerships, like Coca-Cola and Adidas, who pay top dollar. FIFA will generate roughly $1.8 billion from the tournament’s marketing rights next summer.
“What the marketers want is exclusivity with FIFA and the games that they’re hosting,” David Mortlock, a partner in Bain’s media and technology practice, told the Puget Sound Business Journal. “The sponsors themselves are interested in maintaining that exclusivity because what they don’t want to do is be paying for a sponsorship and then have a competitor show up on the broadcast.”
Zach Hensley, general manager of Lumen Field, will begin putting out requests for quotes to rebrand the stadium soon, so his team can start work in May and finish in time for the city’s first game on June 15. Hensley hopes most of the rebrand work will be done by mid-May, when FIFA takes over the stadium and begins adding their own sponsors and other elements.
“Right now, some of the unknown of what we’re going to deliver is what the procurement and design will be,” Hensley told the Business Journal. “I think we’ll learn a little bit more about that in the coming months.”
After Seattle Stadium hosts its last World Cup match on July 6, it will be quickly reconverted back to Lumen Field in time for Seahawks’ preseason in August.
Here are the dates of the World Cup Games at Seattle Stadium.
Group Stage:
Monday, June 15
Friday, June 19 (*Team USA Match)
Wednesday, June 24
Friday, June 26
Knockout Rounds:
Wednesday, July 1
Monday, July 6
FIFA will announce the full match schedule in December.
Sophia Vesely: svesely@seattletimes.com. Sophia Vesely is a general assignment sports reporter at the Seattle Times. She wrote for the Dallas Morning News and the Orlando Sentinel before joining the Seattle Times in 2025.