MLB All-star Week is in the books, but the spotlight on the city of Arlington will just get bigger in the next few years.
The city will also play host to nine FIFA World Cup matches in 2026. It’s the most matches of any host city.
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WATCH HEREOfficials say the past week of All-Star visitors were a good test for World Cup traffic.
Arlington Police have met with FIFA several times already and will now share what they learned from All-Star Week.
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SIGN UP “We've been meeting with them for more than one year at this point,” Arlington Police spokesperson Sgt. Alex Rosado said. “We're going to continue to meet with them in the years to come and even debrief, not only this event, but past events that we've had to really fine-tune our plan to ensure that we're safe and we can get fans in and out of the area as efficiently and as safely as possible.”
From foot traffic to vehicular traffic, All-Star Week has been a major undertaking and police say it went well.
With Globe Life Field, AT&T Stadium, Choctaw Stadium and the Arlington E-Sports Arena all in the Entertainment District, the area is no stranger to events with heavy traffic.
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Around a half million people swarmed to the Entertainment District for the Rangers’ World Series parade. But, All-Star Week was a better test for the specific kind of crowd that will be in the city for the World Cup Matches.
All-Star and World Cup events are made up of hundreds of thousands of people who are from out-of-town and police say that presents a different challenge.
“Our goal is to make sure that our visitors come in and out of the area as safely and efficiently as possible and we're not only going to take what happens here in Arlington into account, we're going to take what happens in other areas to really make sure that our plan is robust,” Rosado said.
