The 2026 World Cup put virtually every facet of the North American sports ecosystem to the test: facilities, event operations, broadcast reach, corporate support, consumer demand and security at every level. The execution was not flawless, but by almost any measure, the industry delivered.
By now, you’ve heard the top-line numbers: 6.8 million fans in attendance; 104 matches at 99.7% capacity; 62.8 million viewers for the World Cup final. FIFA President Gianni Infantino has said the governing body could top $15 billion in revenue for the four-year cycle ending in 2026. There’s an endless supply of other data points, too, with more set to emerge in the coming weeks and months via after-action reports and economic impact studies.
Distilling it all into an assessment of the event’s legacy, particularly just days after Spain hoisted the trophy, is premature. But some takeaways for the industry in the United States are already apparent.
The tournament established a new commercial benchmark for FIFA, offered thousands of professionals their first taste of working a mega-event, forced unprecedented coordination between local and federal agencies and provided host cities some hard-earned experience working with FIFA.
These developments come at a consequential moment, with the Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles less than two years away and the 2031 Women’s World Cup expected to be awarded to the U.S., Mexico, Jamaica and Costa Rica later this fall. Plus, given the success of the World Cup, other international sports properties that had already viewed the U.S. as a lucrative growth market are likely to bring even more events to American shores.
“Every federation in the world, if they’re not yet, should be doing an event in the United States every few years,” said Ricardo Fort, a veteran sports marketing executive with stints at Coca-Cola and Visa. “It is just too good. Everything works too well. It’s too professional for you not to be doing it, not to mention the commercial benefits of being in the States.”
The fact that the U.S. — the world’s richest and most sophisticated economy — is a leader in the sports business world isn’t exactly news.
But prior to 2026, the country had gone more than two decades without hosting either a World Cup or an Olympics. None of the 11 U.S. venues used this summer had previously hosted a World Cup match, and America’s stadium landscape had been almost entirely remade since 1994. There were also legitimate questions about whether a politically divided country could muster the cooperation needed to put on an event of such scale.
The tournament’s 39 days offered a vivid reminder of what separates the U.S. market: deep consumer demand, an unmatched corporate base and top-tier facilities.
“FIFA were gifted a platform to showcase its event like never before,” said John Kristick, who served as executive director of the North American bid to host the 2026 World Cup. “Our stadiums have to be seen as one of the biggest contributors to this success, not just in terms of the platform for the players, but for fan engagement, for the premium experience, for the pictures on TV. All of that was done, yes, with FIFA’s guidance, but because of infrastructure that we already had in place, as well as Canada and Mexico.”
Host cities: A key element of the World Cup’s success was the buy-in and execution of host cities across North America, particularly in the U.S., which staged 78 of the tournament’s 104 matches. FIFA’s move away from the traditional local organizing committee model centralized commercial rights and tournament control, but placed much of the responsibility for funding and delivering the public-facing experience on individual markets.
While FIFA offered host cities the opportunity to raise money to cover costs through the sale of Host City Supporter packages, the limited commercial inventory and restrictions imposed to protect FIFA’s own corporate partners made doing so a challenge. Kristick, who worked with several host cities in his current role as co-head of Playfly Sports Consulting, believes the event could have had an even bigger impact if the host cities had more commercial flexibility, or if FIFA had covered more costs.
“Because of their inability to really unlock more revenue sources — and we know that much of that was because of the restraints that FIFA placed on them — a lot of great ideas, I think, remained in the drawer,” Kristick said. “Every city initially wanted to have a fan fest for 39 days, and that was part of the original commitment. How much more could we have achieved if every city had the 39-day fan fest, or if the Fan Fest in Liberty State Park would’ve come to be? What else could there have been?”
Local organizers are touting the event as a major success that showcased their cities to the world and engaged their communities, while also acknowledging the need for FIFA to evolve its model for the 2031 Women’s World Cup.
Pam Kramer, CEO of the Kansas City host committee, said that while the city is still waiting for tourism and economic impact numbers, the event has “exceeded certainly all of our measures and objectives so far.”
“One of the things that we set out to do was really establish Kansas City as a hub for sports and soccer business in the Midwest,” Kramer said. “We were very successful in doing that in terms of that exposure, the conversation around Kansas City, the confidence in our people here and just proving that we could do this and do it really well.”
Kramer pointed to the Kansas City FIFA Fan Festival, which drew more than 400,000 visitors over 19 days, as a resounding success, but said the economic model needs to change for next time.
“We were able to do it and do it well, but either we need to have more flexibility on the sponsorship side or the governing FIFA needs to invest more in fan fest, because it is such a central part of the experience and valuable to their sponsors,” Kramer said.
A key question, Kramer said, is whether the city will have enough money left over to implement a meaningful legacy program aimed at promoting “lifelong love of the game.”
Houston took a more institutionalized approach. Host Committee President Chris Canetti pointed to the placement of its Impact Houston 26 initiative within the permanent Houston Sports Authority Foundation to ensure that a temporary event leaves a legacy. The initiative is building or renovating 23 soccer fields in underserved communities and has contracts providing local clubs with no-cost access in exchange for offering scholarships to underprivileged youth.
Government: One of the biggest question marks hanging over the lead-up to the World Cup was how the federal government would perform across a wide range of functions — from security and law enforcement to making the event accessible to fans from around the world. The tournament was not free of political controversy, but staging it without a major security incident represents a massive achievement.
“All of these people that got into the United States, that beautiful balance between national security — making sure we knew who was coming into the country, making sure we knew what bad actors were in the country already — while also making sure that we welcomed those that wanted to come here and contribute something great to the United States of America — that, I think, is an incredible legacy,” said Andrew Giuliani, executive director of the White House’s World Cup Task Force.
In terms of lasting impact, Giuliani pointed to the country’s investment of $500 million in counter-drone security, along with policy changes allowing local authorities to act against drone threats, as a lasting impact of the World Cup that will help protect future major events. Meanwhile, the U.S. Travel Association’s GREAT USA Coalition is drafting a bill aimed at extending the FIFA Priority Appointment Scheduling System (PASS) for travel visas to future U.S. events.
Much of the task force that facilitated the coordination of 50 government agencies throughout the tournament will remain in place for the 2028 L.A. Olympics, albeit with different leadership. President Donald Trump has appointed longtime Republican operative Richard Walters, currently a White House deputy chief of staff, as the executive director of the Olympics task force.
While the World Cup task force performed well, some inside the Beltway wonder whether a permanent federal body focused on sports would be more beneficial than ad hoc entities for individual events.
“In D.C., there’s been this unprecedented level of attention to the power of sports to bring people together and the diplomatic benefits that it brings,” said Travis Murphy, CEO of sports government affairs firm Jetr Global. “Now that the World Cup is over, that spotlight kind of goes away. There’s no standing committee on sports diplomacy.”
Future leaders: The 1994 World Cup organizing effort became a training ground for a generation of American sports business leaders, including future U.S. Soccer President Sunil Gulati; 1999 Women’s World Cup chief Marla Messing; longtime MLS and SUM executive Kathy Carter; and Premier Partnerships founder Randy Bernstein. At the venue level, the tournament provided early experience to figures such as soccer event promoter Charlie Stillitano and longtime Fox executive David Sternberg.
Even without a local organizing committee like Alan Rothenberg’s in 1994, the 2026 World Cup has provided a new generation of professionals with invaluable life and career experience.
“I wouldn’t have been in the position I was in [leading the United Bid] if it weren’t for World Cup ’94 and the experience that I had to get into sports,” Kristick said. “Now, we have another generation. If it’s not 10,000, it’s 5,000 individuals who can claim their part in helping put on this event. And it’s now for them to build off of that.”
Added Kristick: “Our next leaders in the sports industry, many of them, I’m sure, will come from a background of being involved with World Cup 2026.”
Record-setting World Cup
The 2026 World Cup, expanded to 48 teams, set the following records over its 39 days in North America.
Total attendance: 6,810,966
Average game attendance: 65,490
Stadium capacity: 99.7%
FIFA Fan Festival attendance: More than 9 million
