🍎 FIFA Final is Set

No pressure, New Jersey, all eyes are on you

The decision has been made, everyone. The moment we know you’ve all been waiting for. Drumroll please…MetLife Stadium, the home of the New York Giants and New York Jets, located in East Rutherford, New Jersey will host the 2026 Men’s World Cup Final 🥳. After contemplating for months, FIFA (i.e. the international association football federation…aka soccer) has made their decision to gift the World Cup final to the NY/NJ region instead of Dallas or Los Angeles. It’s a huge win for the region and today we’ll take time to review the thoughts as to why MetLife was chosen, the economics behind the 2026 World Cup, the details behind North America (Canada, Mexico, and United States) being the host, etc. Let’s get into it…

What will the 2026 World Cup tournament look like?

• The Men’s World Cup has featured 32 teams since 1998, but 2026 will be the beginning of a new format with an additional knockout round and 104 matches rather than 64 (this will be around the time when I’ll be taking my sabbatical).

• The tournament will feature 12 groups of four teams. The top two sides from each group will advance to the first knockout stage alongside the eight best-performing third-placed sides — 32 teams in total. After that, there will be a round of 16, quarterfinals, semifinals and the final.

  • The competition will be held across 16 stadiums (see Table 1):

    • 🇺🇸 New York/New Jersey, Dallas, Miami, Kansas City, Houston, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Seattle, San Francisco, and Boston.

    • 🇲🇽 Mexico City, Monterrey, and Guadalajara.

    • 🇨🇦 Vancouver and Toronto.

Why was MetLife Stadium chosen to be the destination for the final match?

• Besides the fact that it’s right across the river from The Big Apple?! Yeah ok we’ll pause the sarcasm, let’s get into why…

• There could be plenty of reasons why MetLife was selected to host the final, but in our opinion it comes down to 3 main ones: logistics, transportation, and media market. 

  • Logistics

    • It’s no secret, this region is used to chaos. Nor is it their first time playing host to insane crowds: from the 2014 Super Bowl, to the 2016 Copa America Final, to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour during MDW, the region knows how to put together an event. The stadium has a capacity of 82,500, there are three major international airports, hundreds of thousands of hotel rooms, as well as public transportation already built and coordinated for venue access.

  • Transportation 

    • There are multiple forms of transportation when it comes to having the final match in the NYC region. Access to the subway so people staying in NYC can get to the venue, access to Amtrak trains so people on the East Coast can take the train into NYC/NJ for the weekend, as well as access to multiple international airports. In July, the board of NJ Transit, the state’s public transportation system, approved $35 million in spending to fully design a new corridor to help with transportation to MetLife Stadium.

  • Media Market

    • NYC might be the #1 tourist attraction in the whole country as well as being the media capital of the world. With plenty of media conglomerates based in NYC as well as being the home of the United Nations and industry sector hubs for finance and fashion, it only makes sense for the region to be on center stage for the entire world to marvel at.

What is the economic impact of hosting the 2026 World Cup?

• According to a 2018 study, from The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), hosting the 2026 FIFA World Cup could generate more than $5 billion in short-term economic activity, including supporting ~40,000 jobs, and more than $1 billion in incremental worker earnings across North America. The overall net benefit to the region could be between $3 and $4 billion 🤑.

• The study further estimates that individual host cities could expect to see ~$160-620 million in incremental economic activity. Which could end up being a net benefit of ~$90-480 million per city after accounting for potential public costs (no wonder the US was drooling throughout the bidding process!).

  • We’re already seeing investments being made in the tourism, hospitality, real estate and construction, and transportation sectors in and around these cities:

    • Houston: NRG Stadium is anticipated to require approximately $10 million in renovations to prepare it for hosting World Cup matches.

    • Kansas City: an owner of a vacant 380-room hotel across the street from Arrowhead Stadium is looking to renovate and convert the building into a mixed-use residential tower or an athletic training facility for aspiring athletes.

    • San Francisco: plans of a 9.2 million square foot development adjacent to Levi’s Stadium is already underway to include 1,600 residential units, 500,000 square feet of retail space, 700 hotel rooms, and 102 acres of parks and open space.

• According to Sports Business Journal, host cities will be allowed to sell their own corporate sponsorships to help offset the costs associated with hosting matches, but these brands will not be able to leverage any of the tournament’s intellectual property (IP) or rights (think World Cup logos and marks).

How could this news pan out in the coming years and beyond?

• East coast cities will be the real winners: Even though Dallas received the highest number of matches (9) for the World Cup, the real winners are East Coast cities as Boston, NY/NJ, Philly, and even Toronto (27 total matches combined + World Cup Final) are all accessible by train. For MetLife Stadium, organizers can request up to $7.5 million in funding distributed by the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority. With this funding and the location of these host cities, it’s not farfetched to think they could all work together when it comes to transportation, security, and even potential cost sharing to provide more of an economic boost.

• Mid-tier & local brands will see high returns: Because host cities will be allowed to sell their own corporate sponsorships, look for mid-tier & local brands, who would be unable to spend top dollar to be associated with the tournament, to piggyback off the excess World Cup inventory and bring home the bacon!

• 2026 will break all viewership records: Fox and Telemundo will continue to own the rights of the 2026 World Cup, just like in 2022. The World Cup final between Argentina and France had a global reach of 1.5 billion viewers with an average of 25.8 million US viewers. For context, Super Bowl LVII between the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles had an average of 113.1 million US viewers. We all know football is king, but the biggest tournament in the world playing in our backyard…expect those numbers to soar like no other! 📈 

• FIFA listens when money talks: Just ask Russia and Qatar when you get the chance 😂 (oh man lol we’re so screwed aren’t we?). But joking aside, they’re forcing us, FIFA loves money. No, we know everyone loves money, but they get a weird high squeezing extra pennies out of us. Even though MetLife Stadium might not have all the bells and whistles coupled with the glitz and glamour like more newly built AT&T Stadium (Dallas) and SoFi Stadium (LA), it’s the revenue potential of having the final in the NYC region which smelled so good for FIFA leadership. More branding opportunities, more tickets being sold, more merchandise sales, higher quality of cold cuts, etc.

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Quick Hitters

• 🏎️ Last week, 7-time world champion (and one of the most popular F1 drivers ever), Lewis Hamilton, finalized a deal to switch from Mercedes to Ferrari beginning in 2025. It’s been reported Hamilton will will earn over $100 million per year at Ferrari, making him the highest-paid F1 driver ever. It’s also rumored Ferrari Chairman, John Elkann, will put significant money toward Lewis Hamilton's charitable initiatives as well. After the news, Ferrari’s U.S. stock rose more than 12.5% to reach an all-time high of $389.45 per share (what a day for the red hot Prancing Horses!). Last year, Hamilton finished 3rd in the standings and earned $55 million.

• 💉 Peter Thiel (cofounder of PayPal, early backer in Facebook, and political activist) is back and crazier than ever before. Thiel is now one of the main investors to The Enhanced Games, a new multisport competition in which athletes are actively encouraged to use performance-enhancing drugs 🤣 (aren’t these bored billionaires hilarious sometimes!). The games will essentially be a renovated model of the Olympics featuring competition in combat sports, gymnastics, swimming, track and field, and weightlifting. There are still plenty of questions surrounding this venture, especially from a health and legal perspective but, hey Peter, you got our attention!

• 👷🏻 Yesterday, a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) regional director issued a ruling that Dartmouth men’s basketball players are considered university employees under U.S. labor law—which means they’re eligible to unionize 😬. The ruling hit on several themes during the hearing, including the amount of control Dartmouth has over athletes and the compensation they receive—even if not in cash—that considers them as employees. (Fun fact: Ivy League athletes do not receive athletic scholarships like other Division I athletes), however the NLRB found that the other forms of compensation they received, like swaggy apparel, was enough to rule in their favor. Dartmouth is said to appeal the hearing, in the meantime, the team will have the opportunity to hold a union election.

• 🧦 Your favorite executive is back, kids! From Boston Red Sox GM to Chicago Cubs GM to a special consultant with the MLB (and winning a few World Series championships along the way…nbd), Theo Epstein is back in the picture and coming full circle returning to Boston and taking part ownership of Fenway Sports Group (FSG), as a senior advisor. He will look to work on sports initiatives across FSG’s holdings, such as the Red Sox, Liverpool FC, the Pittsburgh Penguins, RFK Racing, TGL’s Boston Common Golf and a recently acquired stake in the PGA Tour. It’s said to be a part-time role so he can continue to informally serve the MLB’s competition and on-field committees.