Dug McIntire
Football journalist
It cannot feel so far, but there is a party like never before next year. And it has been building since 1994.
Except this bash is being compared to “104 Super Bowls in a month”.
After covering football for two decades and for five world cups worldwide, I have seen a 15-service performance for American men’s national team in the 2014 edition for Tim Howard’s record 15-sev performance from the glory of Lionel Messi (and before that from his years of his years of suffering from Lionel Messi in 2022.
Lionel Messi won his first World Cup in Qatar 2022. Can he win his second win in the United States in the next summer? (Photo through Getty Image by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
All of this ends in 2026, when the most popular spectacle in sports returns as a 48-team behem in the United States, an increase of 50 percent in size from any previous version that will see the duration of the tournament in our borders in Canada and Mexico.
When everyone said and did, the World Cup 2026 will be the biggest event in history – sports or otherwise. Its success will rest on the shoulders of some of the most emotional fans in the game.
But to pull it, it will expect the people behind the curtain, most of which are not domestic names. What do they have to say about how they will do it here.
As a proud son of Augusta, Georgia, JT Butson, CEO of US Soccer, knows how to understand the people in their home state how big the 2026 FIFA World Cup would be when the planet’s most popular event in Atlanta and 15 other North American cities starting from June 11 in the next 11 June.
“Depending on where you are, you try to make relevant, so this is something that people can wrap around their heads,” Baton told me at an event with Governors of New York and New Jersey earlier this month, which marks the countdown of one year in the World Cup.
“So when I am below the south, it likes, Atlanta is going to host a large version of eight directly SEC Championships. They know how it overtakes the city, or Ohio Rajyigan, only how to tilt Columbus.”
The FIFA World Cup Trophy is displayed in the area of ​​Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo through Getty Image by Stew Milne/FIFA)
Others have taken a similar view.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino said in an interview with Fox Sports in April, “Super Baul, which is fantastic, has 120–130 million spectators? There are six billion in the World Cup.” “A World Cup is 104 super bowls a month.”
FIFA Vice President Victor Montagliani extended things even further. Canadian is also the president of the businessman ConcacAF, who is a governing body that represents football associations in North America, Central America and Caribbean.
“I disagree with my FIFA president on one thing,” Montagliani said in a phone interview. “Once we exit the group’s stage, forget about the finals in the 32 and 16 round – it is already bigger than the Super Bowl.”
Most Americans now know that the World Cup is a colossus and over half a century, when the arrival of live television turned it into the most viewed sports program on Earth. The 2022 final, including Lionel Messi led Argentina, which is with Kylian Mbappa and France, attracted 1.42 billion audiences globally, which includes 26 million statusides on NFL on Sunday.
When their national teams play, the entire counties come in a stagnation. In 2018, the Mexican fan celebrating El tri Troubled by defending champions, Germany triggered a small artificial earthquake due to a mass jumping during the Mexico goal in the World Cup. Al Salvador and Honduras once fought a six -day war after a series of World Cup qualifying games.
The Signature Quadrenal event will be even bigger for the 2026 World Cup, which will be the first to include 48 teams-the hurry will increase by 2022 to 50 percent from 2022 as well as staged in three host countries. This World Cup, in other words, all of them will be grand.
“This is going to be the biggest sports program in the history of the world,” the US men’s national team’s legendary Landon Donovan told reporters in June. “When everyone is said and done, this is the ability to be the biggest event in history,” Alexi Lalas, Donovan’s partner USMNT replaced Fox Sports Analyst.
In this era of immedia, the 2026 World Cup is still far away to die for football fans who died 12 months out. But when it lands on these shores in next June, the American public will not know what they were killed.
“We love big events in this country,” Fox Sports Tom Renaldi told me. “Millions of Americans watch a football game throughout the year. Super Bowl is a cultural phenomenon because it is a sports phenomenon. The World Cup fits exactly the same size. It is a cultural phenomenon.
“And there is a motion and a passion that comes with the World Cup,” Renaldi said. “Super Bowl is as great, one day. It is an opportunity to build, where the word of the mouth spreads, where the proof of passion and concept spreads, where dramatic return and story develops.
Only for the second time men’s World Cup came to America, in 1994, it broke the presence record that stands till date. That 24-Team, 52-Game tournament was played in nine stadiums and attracted 3.6 million fans in total and an average of 69,174. Any World Cup Brazil 2014 since those figures hosted the buyers of 3.43 million more in matches, or an average of 53,592.
The 1994 FIFA World Cup final, held at Rose Bowl in Pasadeena, was more than 94K. (Photo by Mark Leach/Offside through Getty Image)
There will be 104 matches in the 2026 World Cup – 40 more than 2022 and more than double in 1994. “Nobody really knows what is coming and how big it is going to be – even in business people I will call football people,” said Montagliani. “This has never been done before.”
Consider where the game was in America three decades ago, when top level football was best a curiosity and the worst, hate millions of mainstream Americans. “There was no honor for the game,” Peter Warmes, who captained USMNT in the 1990 World Cup, once its first appearance after 40 years of absence, once Said Of that time.
There was no domestic league in the US in 1994; MLS is now in its 30th season, with 27 teams in the US and three more in Canada. Lionel Messi, the greatest player ever, is with Inter Miami in his third season.
Three decades ago, there was no football on television or other media. These days, you can see any sport from any league anywhere on American Earth. Barcelona and Real Madrid are equally dominated by primary school playgrounds in cities and suburbs.
In New York City Boro, Queens, the Basketball Court, which was standing for generations, has been replaced by fusals, packed on the evening and weekends.
NFL is still king in the US, but football is getting a market share every year. Hosting the World Cup will only speed up that progress.
Montagliani told me, “If we do not go very close to five million or north, I would surprise,” Montagliani told me how many tickets can be sold for 2026.
Do not make any mistake: Stadiums will be sold from the coast to the coast here and to the south of the north and border. In the US alone, the 2026 World Cup is estimated to drive around $ 50 billion in economic activities, including the creation of more than $ 8 billion in social benefits and about 824,000 full -time equivalent jobs globally. FIFA according to FIFA,
The three governments are working together behind the scenes, as their respective football associations.
In March, the White House called a task force to ensure that the tournament is a success. This is only the third time for a sports program and the first to the World Cup; President Clinton had a task force before the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, his successor, George W. Bush for Six years later for the Salt Lake City Games.
“It is great that senior officials at the White House, including the President, were engaged in it,” said Montagliani. Lalas, who attended a task force event in Washington, DC last month, said that visitors would be made to feel more than the reception.
“I think from an organizational point of view, we will ensure whether these people are traveling from outside or people here are from inside, that they have a kick-slag experience-one who is memorable is safe and one is that they can take home with them,” Lalas said.
Monica Paul, executive director of the Dallas Sports Commission, said, “We are going to receive a lot of international visitors.” The AT and T stadium in suburban arlington will host nine matches in the next summer, more than any other place. “But then there are locals, and so many people who cannot even ticket or have the opportunity to watch World Cup games, but they just want to be a part of action.”
The AT & T Stadium, the house of Dallas Cowboy, is a seat of 80,000 people. (Photo by Omar Vega/FIFA through Getty Image)
Paul’s group will also organize a fan festival through competition, as there are many other host cities such as Chicago and Washington, with no matches. She is expecting up to 100,000 people per day in Arlington. Dallas will also serve as a home to the International Broadcasting Center in the next summer, which was also in 1994.
“Not only we are looking at fans,” Paul said. “We will be thousands of broadcasters of thousands of broadchers around the world working 24/7 in IBC.
Additionally, 48 teams will choose from more than 60 places which have been identified by FIFA as a possible base camp. All have 84 training sites and 178 practice areas. Add it, and the footprints of the next World Cup will spread to most parts of the continent, which will have a legacy in its awakening.
“This is going to be a cultural revolution for the game, especially in the US and Canada,” said Montagliani. “Everyone wants to come here. Everyone wants to play here … I think we will see benefits on our shores for the coming decades.”
“When it comes on a scale, the promotion is real,” said Rinaaldi. “This incident is going to fascinate the country in such a way, which will be more than fanfare football fans. People will flow into the cultural event of the World Cup.”
Doug McIntair is a football reporter for Fox Sports that has covered United States Men and women national teams at the FIFA World Cup on five continents. His chase @Bydougmcintyre,
Get more than FIFA men’s World Cup Follow your favorite to get information about sports, news and more
