What do you think will happen when one of the largest events in the world is hosted just 70 miles from your home? With the 2026 World Cup slowly creeping up, companies, government agencies, and individual people are preparing to host the colossal event that plans to break even more records.

For those who are unfamiliar with the World Cup, it is an international soccer tournament hosted by one or  multiple  countries. It is divided into two main stages: the group stage and the knockout stage. 

The group stage divides all 48 qualified national teams into 12 groups of 4 countries each, playing each other once to determine who continues in the tournament. The next round is the knockout stage, where counties play in single elimination games until one final victor is remaining.

Economic Opportunities

To understand the impact of what the World Cup may bring, we can look at the previous World Cup in Qatar in 2022. 

FIFA is the international governing body for association football and organizer of the World Cup. They made an estimated $7.6 billion from the 2022 world cup, with the Qatar government making an estimated $1.56 billion in revenue. According to FIFA, the 2026 World Cup is projected to generate a staggering $30.5 billion for the US, and an increase of $17.2 billion in GDP.

These astronomically high profits can partly be attributed to an increase from 32 to 48 teams resulting in 104 matches instead of the 64 from previous years. 

Development

According to FIFA, the event will draw over 10 million people to the US. One major challenge with this influx of people will become apparent during the actual event. The United States transportation system across many states and cities is underfunded and not ready to accommodate this many people. Many host cities aren’t equipped with public transportation systems, with some like Arlington, Texas relying on ride sharing as their main form of public transportation.

Without investing in infrastructure and getting cities ready to host a large number of visitors, systems like these can cause real problems. People that live in those areas and use these systems for daily life are especially prone to trouble. 

Luckily, most states and cities are investing millions of dollars into improving security, transportation, and the stadiums the games will take place in. They are taking this chance to invest in the long term for these systems and will hopefully improve the lives of people now and after the World Cup ends. 

Another upside is that many jobs will be created across the host cities for this event. The World Cup will create an estimated 185,000 jobs. Even though the majority of these jobs will be short-term, contract based jobs, an increase in infrastructure investments and tourism will potentially create more long term jobs.

Impact

How will all of this impact you? 10th grader and soccer fan Grey Cummins believes, “Traffic will be really bad on those [game] days, but I think it will be similar to game days for football as well because it’s the same stadium, same capacity.”

The price point of these games may also have an effect on the people who wish to attend. Grey says  “Yes, I really want to [watch some games], but only if the price allows for it…the tickets are really expensive, like outlandishly expensive.” 

Another soccer supporter and varsity team starter Alex Denley said “I like the fact that a lot of the tickets available for sale were reserved for people who lived in the US. It allows a lot of people to experience first hand a kind of soccer that is not really here in the US yet.” 

Alex then added “I hope something as big as this will increase the popularity of soccer around the US.”

No matter how prepared cities are, the 2026 World Cup will bring major economic activity, increase tourism, and significant change to local routines.

Whether or not you plan on watching the World Cup, in person or online, the biggest sporting event in the world is around the corner, so let’s go Team USA!