A study done by The Boston Consulting Group estimates that hosting the ‘26 FIFA World Cup could generate more than $5B in short-term economic activity across North America. The report, released today and done on behalf of the United Bid Committee that represents the national federations of Canada, Mexico and the U.S., said that the overall net benefit to the region would be between $3-4B, with individual host cities seeing a net benefit of approximately $90-480M per city after accounting for potential public costs. The group hopes the report further emphasizes not only the commercial opportunity that a World Cup would offer to FIFA and its member associations, but also the certainty in terms of ability to meet those promises. The only other bid for the ’26 World Cup is by Morocco. “Our vision for what we’re looking at with this competition is simple: we believe we offer FIFA and the member associations an unpresented and united opportunity to stage a new World Cup that is low risk and has high operational certainty,” said Peter Montopoli, Canada Bid Director and General Secretary of Canada Soccer. “The study really demonstrates that this will yield benefits to our communities, as well as world football.” Mexico Bid Director Yon De Luisa said the numbers produced by this report would represent a 30-60% increase of the net economic output compared to previous World Cups. While some of that is due to the fact that the ’26 World Cup will be the first since FIFA announced it would expand the number of the matches in the tournament from 64 to 80, it also is due in part that each city will see more net benefit due to the fact that there are no plans to invest in stadiums, roads, airports or any other infrastructure specifically for the World Cup in any of the cities that are in the running for hosting. “We have the infrastructure to host these events, but also the experience of hosting them in the past,” said De Luisa. “That will provide an amazing opportunity for economic benefit.”
PROJECTIONS HAVE 5-6 MILLION TICKETS SOLD: United Bid Committee Exec Dir John Kristick said that the models the bid group is looking at right now suggests that 5-6 million tickets may be available for the entire World Cup, with the average stadium being used close to having 70,000 seats with the expectation that every match will be sold out. “When you look at traffic around fan fests, hotels, food and beverage -- that’s where you see the big lift from the previous World Cups, and how that will flow back to the cities,” said Kristick. He added it also demonstrates why cities are heavily motivated to host some part of the World Cup as well, as the bid group is currently working with 32 cities across the three countries. That number will be eventually narrowed down to 16 host cites total for the tournament, a decision that would not be made until at least '21. FIFA is set to vote on the host of the ’26 World Cup on June 13.
