All across Kansas City, hotel and restaurant mangers talk about being stressed out over whether the 2026 FIFA World Cup — which literally kicks off with its first game at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium on Tuesday, June 16 — will deliver the unprecedented deluge of fans they expect. But in and around Johnson County there is a bit of calm. Because for five days before the World Cup, from June 10 through June 14, nearly every major hotel is booked with thousands of athletes and fans. Except they’re not coming because of football, aka soccer. They’re coming for teenage girls’ fast-pitch softball and the Top Gun Invitational, one of the most important fast-pitch softball tournaments in the country, based in Kansas City, and now entering its 14th year, for female club athletes ages 14, 16 and 18. This year, some 325 club teams are set to compete from 32 states as far off as Florida and North Carolina, Texas, Arizona, Idaho and Washington. Scouting from the bleachers will be coaches from nearly 350 colleges looking for players to recruit from teams like the Atlanta Vipers and Texas Hotshots, the Nebraska Gold and, from Illinois, the Beverly Bandits. “There are teams staying in Topeka, all the way up to the airport and in Lawrence. That’s how big this event is,” said Warren Wilkinson, the president and CEO of Visit Overland Park, the city’s convention and tourism bureau known as a “destination and marketing organization.” Overland Park hotels Overland Park has about 35 hotels, with one new one, the Holiday Inn Express and Suites in the Bluhawk development, soon to be added. “We’ll be sold out,” Wilkinson said. To be sure, the estimated 12,000 to 12,500 players, coaches, parents and fans that the softball tournament is expected to draw is inconsequential — barely a rounding error — compared to the 650,000 soccer fans anticipated to descend on the Kansas City area for the World Cup’s month-long run, ending with a quarterfinal game on July 11. Even if the World Cup draws 500,000 visitors, it will nonetheless rank as the largest event in the city’s history. But the annual Top Gun tournament, to be played on 55 baseball diamonds from Olathe to Lee’s Summit to Kansas City North, has grown so important to hotels and restaurants that when the dates of the World Cup matches were officially announced in 2024, local hoteliers were concerned that they might lose the softball tournament and what has grown to be its guaranteed crowd. “It’s huge for our hotel,” said Rochelle Kolseth, the director of sales and marketing of the DoubleTree By Hilton Hotel in Overland Park. All but a few of its 356 rooms have been booked. “We were a little worried last year when the World Cup dates were announced that this tournament wouldn’t be in Overland Park, and we were in jeopardy of losing the tournament to another city. We were very thankful that the dates worked out.” Wilkinson said the city made a concerted effort not to lose the tournament, securing 1,000 more rooms in 2026 than they had in 2025. “Because in advance of the World Cup, securing rooms was challenging,” he said. “There was confusion of, ‘Well, this is going to be right on top of the World Cup.’ But the reality is, it’s not. It ends as the World Cup begins.” Like the World Cup, the Top Gun Invitational has its own lore and origin story. Top Gun Events Rob Behymer, a co-founder of Top Gun Events with business partner, Jeremy McDowell, said he first had the idea of get into youth sports in 2010, following the death of his father. Born in Hannibal, Mo., William Robert “Bill” Behymer was an electrician who raised his family in St. Joseph, Missouri, and who spent 40 years volunteering as a youth athletics coach in football, basketball, baseball and softball across Missouri, until he died at age 65. His father’s funeral visitation was held during a snowstorm on February weeknight. “At my dad’s funeral, I saw a couple of hundred people or more standing at his funeral. It was all his former athletes who had played for him,” Behmyer said. “I looked at my brother. He said, ‘Man, we’ve done nothing to make a difference like this. And they stood in the snowstorm just to get in and pay their respects. “So I came back. My daughter was in softball. And I got asked to help with a little event.” Top Gun Events was created soon after, with the first Invitational in 2013. It included 84 teams from 11 states. The first year, a few college coaches, looking to recruit, turned up. With each year, more attended. “If anybody knows much about softball, the currency is softball is recruitment. That’s really the endgame,” Behmyer said. Then, in 2020, COVID-19 struck. That summer, the Top Gun Invitational, based in Kansas, was one of the few national tournaments to remain open. “Everybody was closed down,” Behmyer said. “So everybody came here — all the top teams, all the top colleges. And it has just grown from that.” World Cup large? Hardly. But on Sunday, June 14th, two days before Argentina and Algeria face off for the Kansas City match of the tournament, fast-pitch softball players in the three separate age groups will vie for championships at the Blue Valley Recreation Center in Overland Park and the Mid-America Sports Complex in Shawnee With plenty of fans in attendance.