2026 World Cup: High Costs for Host Cities

There’s no doubt about it: The 2026 World Cup is a numbers game—48 teams, 104 matches, 16 host cities (including Foxborough’s Gillette Stadium, which has undergone a temporary rebrand to Boston Stadium) across the United States, Canada, and Mexico. But as the United States prepares to host a slew of games during the tournament’s run from June 11 to July 19, those numbers aren’t the only ones at the forefront of people’s minds.

“There are very, very significant costs to host cities, which host anywhere from four to eight games,” says Andrew Zimbalist, Robert A. Woods Professor Emeritus of Economics at Smith College. “I think it’s fair to say that none of them will benefit economically from [the World Cup] because they don’t get the revenue, but they get the costs, which can run well over $100 million.”

That aforementioned revenue—amounting to billions of dollars—lands squarely in the pockets of FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association), the global governing body for association football and organizers of the World Cup. Backlash against FIFA, combined with skyrocketing hotel and transportation costs, exorbitant ticket prices, international criticism and the call for a boycott against the United States have made for a dramatic lead-up to the international event.

For all intents and purposes, hosting the World Cup seems like an uphill battle. Ahead of Boston Stadium’s kickoff on June 13, Zimbalist discussed how this year’s preparations compare to those of years past, whether or not host cities can expect the economic boost to their communities promised by FIFA, and what, in spite of it all, still drives cities to host and fans to attend.

Who usually sees the most financial benefit from the World Cup? FIFA, the host cities, the players?
“It’s important to understand that the economic model of the World Cup and of FIFA has changed quite a bit over the last 20 or 30 years, so whatever might have been true in 1990 or 2000 isn’t necessarily true today. FIFA has switched the model to the current one, where basically FIFA gets all the revenue from national and international television contracts, which is, of course, billions of dollars. FIFA gets all of the ticket revenue; they even get 30% of the ticket revenue on [FIFA’s official resale marketplace]. They also get the signage, advertising, and sponsorship revenue, with a small exception for local companies in each of the different cities where the games are being held. Basically, FIFA gets all the money and the costs fall upon the host city.

“If there’s any economic benefit at all, it would come from new people coming into the city to spend time and money. If there’s an influx of travelers and tourists, that could, in theory, be a modest boost to the level of economic activity. What tends to happen instead is that others stay away to avoid the congestion, traffic jams, higher prices, and security issues. So yes, you’ll have an influx of soccer fans, but then you’ll have an outflux of other tourists and maybe even some locals.

“The net effect can go either way. It could be a net positive, negative, or neutral… What could theoretically be a small positive contribution to the local economy is much more likely to be a neutral or negative effect from tourism, but an immense $100 million-plus of expenses. Without any of the revenue, it’s not a very good bargain at all.”

Foxborough, Massachusetts, saw some back and forth earlier this year when it came to financing added security measures. Is that kind of clash typical for host cities?
“I think it’s happening all over the place. Basically all of these cities are discovering that they’ve got a massive cost involved and they’re getting next to no revenue. People are struggling, asking, ‘Who’s going to pay for this?’ When you have a situation like they do in Foxborough and Boston, two distinct cities in two distinct counties, there’s an extra terrain to battle over: which of the two cities should be paying here?

“When [Foxborough] was chosen as the host [city], they signed an agreement that said they wouldn’t have any net costs. So that means Boston was going to have the costs. Boston then went to the Krafts [owners of the New England Patriots and Gillette Stadium] because they wanted them to kick in too. The Krafts felt they were already kicking in by making the stadium available for the games and not being able to rent it out for other events during the World Cup. Somehow they worked it out. I don’t know what the final formula is, but they’re still coming up short and we shouldn’t be surprised if the state of Massachusetts and we as taxpayers will end up contributing a little bit.”

Do you have any examples of host cities that have been successful in hosting the World Cup?
“If you go back to the 1990s, there were successful games in Germany. They basically had all the stadiums already, they didn’t need to be remodeled or renovated at all, and there are some economic studies that found there was a modest, short-term gain from hosting the games. There were also the games in the United States in 1994. That was a time period when soccer was really just being introduced in the United States, and the games then served to energize the momentum of the sport.”

It almost makes you wonder why anyone would want to host the World Cup in the first place.
“Well, I think politicians like the attention. I think there are always going to be construction companies that like the idea of hosting because either you’re going to build new stadiums, do some renovations, or improve some transportation infrastructure. Construction companies and executives are usually pretty powerful figures in local and urban economies and so politicians tend to listen to them. You’ll probably also get some law firms involved with investment banking companies that float some bonds to help pay for some of the expenses involved.

“So there’ll be small groups of individuals, most of them well connected, who will go to the politicians and say they want them to do this because it’ll be good for their city. They’ll hire some company to do a promotional economic impact study. Those reports are done with false methodologies and unrealistic assumptions and they come out with fantastic results. But the independent economists who have studied this, the academics who have looked at this without an axe to grind, have concluded that mega sporting events are not generally positive forces for the local economy.”

What do you think it is about sporting events like this that make people more willing to spend money?
“I think, first of all, that we’re all basically looking for community all the time. Having a sports team that you root for creates community—a bunch of people all rooting for the same thing, all thinking about the box score from the night before and whether they should have bunted in the eighth inning or not, whether they should have thrown the pass or not. And they talk about it at work, at the water cooler, on the phone, or over Zoom. It creates bonds amongst people.

“That’s one of the things, and when it’s a major event like this, with so much publicity and hype around it, there’s an urge to participate in this community activity. I do think that there’s a sense of significance to some people when they get to say, ‘I was at the opening game in Gillette [Stadium], or I went to one of the games at SoFi [Stadium].’ It makes people feel important, and then you get bragging rights. You get to go to the cocktail party and say, ‘I was there.’”