Our humble homebase of Kansas City won a sports bid of international proportions yesterday, and social media was at the heart of the victory.

For the past few months at the USA Bid Committee has been rallying American soccer fans to convince the FIFA to let the United States host the World Cup in either 2018 or 2022. The Bid Committee contacted 37 cities to compete for the opportunity to host the tournament games. Through a process that involved online voting by fans, that list of 37 was narrowed to 18. And Kansas City is on it!

Next May, the Bid Committee will submit the overall bid to FIFA, which will come back with an answer in December.

Things are looking good for our cowtown.

And when you look at the numbers, it’s no wonder.

As the Riverfront Times reported, KC earned around 6,000 more signatures than the Lou. In fact, at just over 11,000, we’ve got more than LA and New York-New Jersey combined.

Kansas Citians no doubt have Wizards fans to thank for this.

Though supporters of our town’s MLS team can’t compare in number with fans of the Royals or the Chiefs, they have a reputation for being absolutely rabid in their dedication to their team, particularly the members of the KC Cauldron.

So how’d they do it? In addition to alerting fans to the contest on the main site, the Wizards drove support on Hillcrest Road, the official Wizards blog, which posted this video of yesterday’s announcement party.

The Wizards and Hillcrest Road also made use of Facebook and Twitter.

The effort seems to have been spread out across multiple platforms. No doubt the Bid Committee’s widget made a difference, as it has allowed fans to use their own individual profiles and sites to collect votes.

Whatever the case, the passion of KC soccer fans was the ultimate winning factor.

Goal!