World Cup 2026: Viewership drives value

Research evidence excerpt

World Cup 2026: Viewership drives value

Barclays | Thematic Investing

Executive Summary

The 2026 FIFA World Cup is set to be the largest and most geographically

dispersed in history, jointly hosted by the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

The tournament has expanded materially compared to previous years, with

2026 seeing a greater number of teams (48 vs. 32 in 2022), matches (104 vs. 64),

and a broader footprint (16 cities across three countries). While there is a lot of

excitement around the World Cup, in our view, the lasting impact will be limited.

Macro view

Our Economics team estimates the World Cup could provide a small, temporary

lift to US GDP by at most 0.2% over the summer, but leave little lasting macro

imprint at year-end (Figure 2 and 3). The team views the FIFA estimate of boosting

US GDP growth by $17.2bn as an upper-bound for two reasons. First, demand for the

event seems to be running below expectations thus far. Second, a key channel

through which international sporting events/cultural events tend to generate activity

(and employment) is construction of infrastructure – venues and transportation. The

US is uniquely positioned, in that, it already has this infrastructure in place. Any

employment gains are also likely to be localized, short-lived, and concentrated in

services.

Localized price increases in hotels, airfares, and related services are also expected to

be temporary, narrowly concentrated, and unlikely to materially move the needle on

national inflation. Visual inspection of US data (Figure 6 & Figure 7) reveals no

obvious event-driven inflation.

In Mexico, the event is also unlikely to alter our economic projections with some

prices volatility over the summer and growth impact of less than 0.1pp. Given