“This will be the most financially successful World Cup of all time,” FC Dallas President Dan Hunt said.
The breakdown
The best way to picture the economic influence of the World Cup is to imagine what a Super Bowl event typically looks like, Hunt said: the number of fans traveling to and staying in the city for the game, the amount of merchandise sold, the food purchased for watch parties, and more.
“We're about to have 104 Super Bowls,” Hunt said.
While the 104 games will be split across the host cities in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, the Dallas-Fort Worth area is expected to see eight matches and possibly host the semifinal or final match in Dallas, said Josh Dill, director of sports and events at Visit Frisco.
While all of DFW is considered to be one of 16 World Cup host cities, Frisco is in the running to act as a base camp for one of the 48 participating teams or as a headquarters for referee training.
Housing a team could be a huge tourism draw, Dill said.
“Their fans will travel to Frisco,” Dill said. “They will want to be at open practices; they will want to be around. ...There may be many fan fests around just that international delegation.”
Frisco’s National Soccer Hall of Fame also lends itself as an additional tourist attraction for the incoming soccer fans, Dill said.
“If [fans are] here for three days and the match is one day and you go to practice, what do you do in the in-between days?” Dill said. “Hopefully, you come up and experience Frisco for all it has to offer, but maybe that Soccer Hall of Fame is the thing that draws [fans] here.”
Keep in mind
Many city projects announced over the past few years have been in preparation for the World Cup, Dill said.
“A new terminal at [Dallas Fort Worth International Airport is] slated to be ready for 2026; Universal [is] slated to be ready for 2026,” Dill said. “All of the cities around here are going, ‘Well, 2026 is our finish line because [the World Cup is] going to have that kind of impact.’”
Soccer fans are expected to flock to the area in the same way football fans did when the Dallas Cowboys moved to Frisco, Dill said.
“Sporting events create that same halo effect,” Dill said. “The amount of business development and ... economic development that's going to happen with the World Cup being that North Star that people are looking toward, it's going to be incredible.”
What’s next?
Until the official game schedule and locations are released in September, the next steps are going to be more local, Hunt said.
A grassroots local organizing committee composed of representatives from participating DFW cities will be formed following a late summer announcement of which cities will be hosting teams, the referee camp and the international broadcast center, Hunt said.
“Say Frisco is going to host the teams or the referees,” Hunt said. “[The local organizing committee] will be in charge of figuring out, capacity wise, the hotels and transportation for those people.”
The committee will also be coordinating with local governments and airports as well as managing the operational side of things, Hunt said. It will also be heavily focused on fundraising, Dill said.
“Even though there's some state money and some other things, there's going to need to be some corporate support,” Dill said. “That [local organizing committee] is going to primarily function to make sure that we're financially solvent to host the event.”
The state money will come from places such as the Major Events Reimbursement Program in the Texas Events Trust Fund, which Frisco has used for large events before, Dill said.
“Our applications tend to be, you know, can be anywhere from $50,000 or $75,000 all the way up to $700[,000]-$800,000,” Dill said. “The World Cup is obviously going to be on a whole different scale.”
Local organizing committees are a new concept for FIFA as the association has not allowed cities to work together like this before, Hunt said.
“This is a big collaborative effort where we have to bring North Texas together because we want to put on the best show possible for FIFA,” Hunt said.
More Frisco-specific World Cup details are expected to be revealed in September alongside an official game schedule, Dill said.
Looking ahead
The World Cup could help further solidify soccer’s relevancy and place in the U.S., especially as international soccer stars such as Lionel Messi come to play on U.S. teams, Dill said.
“It’s like somebody put together this covert marketing plan to build soccer to this fever pitch that we will see in 2026,” Dill said. “You’re already seeing it in ticket sales.”
From local youth teams to the professional level, soccer will continue to evolve and become more sophisticated nationwide, Dill said.
“I think there's going to be more money invested into soccer,” Dill said. “You're starting to see the sport evolve into something that's part of the fabric within the U.S.”
