{"id":384265,"date":"2026-07-23T20:20:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T20:20:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/384265\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T20:20:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T20:20:07","slug":"houston-mayor-follows-zohran-mamdani-with-soccer-ticket-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/384265\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston mayor follows Zohran Mamdani with soccer ticket plan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Houston’s hosted seven 2026 FIFA World Cup<\/a> matches and a daily soccer celebration at the\u00a0FIFA Fan Festival<\/a> throughout June and July. The city now hopes to keep soccer fever in the Bayou City with the World Cup now in the rearview mirror.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Houston Dynamo<\/a>, of the MLS, and the Houston Dash<\/a>, of the NWSL, on Thursday announced a partnership with Mayor John Whitmire<\/a>, in which the two teams will give away free tickets at Shell Energy Stadium to 10,000 first-time attendees. Thousands of Houstonians discovered a love for the beautiful game when the World Cup invaded Houston. They now have a chance to continue to support their hometown clubs in person, free of charge.<\/p>\n

“By welcoming 10,000 first-time fans to Houston Dynamo and Houston Dash matches, we are giving families the opportunity to experience professional soccer right here in their own backyard,” Whitmire said in Thursday’s announcement. “Every child deserves the chance to fall in love with the game, and every Houstonian should know these clubs belong to them.”<\/p>\n

Six Dynamo games and six Dash games are eligible for the free-ticket promotion<\/a>, which begins July 25, and ends Sept. 26. Up to two complimentary tickets are available for each online customer, and fans will use the promo code HOUSTON26 at checkout for promotional access.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Whitmire’s\u00a0idea should buy him a degree of goodwill from Houston soccer fans. He perhaps received some inspiration from a pair of prominent politicians.<\/p>\n

New York Mayor\u00a0Zohran Mamdani<\/a> in May announced he negotiated with FIFA to receive 1,000 World Cup tickets for New Yorkers that only cost $50 per seat (those 1,000 tickets were then awarded citywide via a random lottery). Harris County judge Lina Hidalgo<\/a> incurred a more personal cost<\/a> in July, when she paid more than $41,000 for reduced-price World Cup tickets from\u00a0FIFA, then awarded those tickets to kids across Harris County.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The City of Houston will distribute a portion of the 10,000 tickets through a collection of community organizations, nonprofit partners and youth programs. The Dynamo returned from its World-Cup induced break in a 1-1 draw against D.C. United on Wednesday, and it will host Austin FC on Saturday (a game eligible for free tickets). The Dash will host Bay FC at Shell Energy Stadium on Friday, though their first game eligible for free tickets will be Aug. 1.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Houston’s hosted seven 2026 FIFA World Cup matches and a daily soccer celebration at the\u00a0FIFA Fan Festival throughout…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":384266,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1836,16469,1704,56,58,57],"class_list":["post-384265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-chronnews","tag-chronsports","tag-chronstaff","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=384265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384265\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/384266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}