"More games, revenues will go up in terms of broadcasting, in terms of sponsorship, hospitality." That was FIFA President Gianni Infantino's answer when asked how to organize the biggest World Cup in history. Not tactics. Not fan experience. Money. That tells you almost everything you need to know about who's really running 2026.
Argentina's penalty shootout win over France in Qatar — a 3-3 draw that needed 120 minutes and four rounds of spot-kicks to settle — set a bar that's genuinely hard to clear. And the people tasked with clearing it are already fighting FIFA for the right to do so on their own terms.
The scale is staggering — and so are the complications
The 2022 tournament fit inside a 21-mile radius. Eight stadiums, one city, one time zone. It was compact, controllable, and logistically straightforward in a way that 2026 simply won't be. The next edition spans four time zones, 16 cities, and as many as 3,500 miles between venues — Mexico City's altitude on one end, Miami's humidity on the other, with Toronto and Kansas City filling in the gaps. Eighty games. Forty-eight teams.
Qatar built seven of its eight stadiums from scratch. The U.S., Canada, and Mexico don't have that problem — the infrastructure is already there. What they do have is a FIFA that has pulled the commercial levers firmly toward Geneva.
Alan Rothenberg, who ran the 1994 World Cup — still the best-attended tournament ever — puts it plainly: FIFA now controls the TV rights, the international marketing, the ticketing revenue, and most domestic sponsorship categories. In 1994, his organizing committee kept enough of that to generate a $50 million surplus, double original projections. That money seeded the U.S. Soccer Foundation and helped launch Major League Soccer. None of that happens under the current model.
"The host cities are scrambling to either find donations or public money or some creative ways to earn revenue," Rothenberg said. He now advises six of the 2026 host cities, so he's watching this play out in real time.
The legacy question nobody at FIFA is asking
U.S. Soccer President Cindy Parlow Cone spent two and a half weeks in Qatar specifically to figure out what transfers and what doesn't. Her honest answer: not everything does. Different laws, different culture, different scale. Qatar strictly regulated alcohol; the U.S., Canada, and Mexico actively profit from it. Small detail with large commercial implications.
But Cone's focus — to her credit — isn't just on getting the tournament through 80 games without incident. She wants a legacy. Grassroots participation. New fans in cities that won't host a single match. A reason for the sport to grow after the final whistle in 2026.
- 48 teams playing 80 games across 16 host cities
- Venues spread across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico — up to 3,500 miles apart
- FIFA projects 5.5 million traveling fans
- Stadium capacities of 80,000–90,000, mostly converted NFL venues
- Tournament format still undecided: 12 groups of four, or 16 groups of three
That last point is quietly telling. Infantino admitted he doesn't yet know the best way to structure a 48-team group stage. The tournament is less than four years away. Format uncertainty at this stage doesn't inspire confidence — and it matters for anyone pricing early-stage betting markets, where group-stage draw value shifts significantly depending on whether teams play three or two group games before the knockouts begin.
Rothenberg's broader warning is the one worth sitting with: FIFA's financial model now effectively limits future World Cup hosts to either wealthy democracies or authoritarian states with government money to burn. That's the direction this is heading, regardless of how 2026 turns out.
"It's totally different from '94, that's for sure," he said.
