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Sports Economy · World Cup 2026
The World Cup Gamble
Airbnb hosts spent tens of thousands renovating. Cities handed FIFA massive concessions. Now, with six weeks to kickoff, both are asking the same question: will the money actually come?
Mae Stewart spent $60,000 renovating her three-bedroom Atlanta home for this moment. Fresh paint, new appliances, upgraded bathrooms — all of it timed for the greatest soccer tournament on earth. She listed her property at $4,500 a week, triple her usual rate, and waited for the bookings to roll in. They haven't.
Stewart's story is playing out in living rooms, vacation properties, and city budget meetings across eleven U.S. host cities as the 2026 FIFA World Cup inches toward its June 11 kickoff. The tournament was supposed to be a once-in-a-generation cash machine. Instead, it's becoming one of the most complicated economic bets in recent American sports history — and the people who placed those bets are starting to sweat.
The Airbnb Gold Rush That Stalled
When FIFA announced the U.S. host cities in 2022, something close to a mania swept through the short-term rental world. Property owners rushed to list, renovate, and reprice. Airbnb itself stoked the fire, projecting that the tournament would generate over $327 million in guest lodging spending and attract roughly 382,000 guests to its platform. Individual hosts, the company suggested, could expect an average of $4,000 in earnings during the tournament window — and those in premium markets like New York-New Jersey could clear $5,700 or more.
The numbers were intoxicating. Bobby Roufaeal, who manages more than a dozen short-term rentals in New Jersey, began tripling rates on his units in anticipation of fan inflow. He told Fortune that a luxury rental in the state could theoretically bring in $240,000 between June 11 and July 19. His phone hasn't stopped ringing from homeowners asking how to list their homes. "They're like, listen, I'll figure it out. I'll go stay with my relatives for a few weeks just to capitalize," he said.
"The anticipated Airbnb windfall that hosts were counting on to boost their incomes is yet to materialize, leaving property owners in a state of uncertainty as the tournament draws closer."
— Travel and Tour World, May 2026But the windfall hasn't arrived yet — and some analysts fear it may never fully materialize. Booking data from analytics platform AirDNA shows Philadelphia sitting at just 42 percent occupancy for group stage dates. Several other cities are tracking even lower. Meanwhile, hotel rates across host cities from Atlanta to San Francisco are reportedly down by as much as a third from early projections, as the World Economic Forum noted this week.
The culprits are numerous: sky-high ticket prices (with premium seats for the July 19 final reportedly listed at $25,000), stubborn inflation that's made international travel genuinely unaffordable for millions of fans, a so-called "Trump slump" dampening foreign visitor enthusiasm, and rising jet fuel prices triggered by the conflict in Iran. Many fans, analysts say, simply can't afford to come.
What Fans Face When They Arrive
For those who do make the trip, the expenses don't stop at airfare. Getting to the stadiums has become its own financial ordeal. In New York, fans attending matches at MetLife Stadium may face $150 for a dedicated shuttle train or $300 for parking. In Boston, a round-trip commuter rail ticket to Gillette Stadium costs $80, with parking reaching $270. These transportation costs — layered on top of already elevated accommodation prices — are functioning as a secondary deterrent, especially for fans traveling in groups.
The tournament's sprawling geography compounds the problem. Unlike the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, where matches were clustered within a compact area, the 2026 event stretches across an entire continent. A fan following their national team through multiple rounds might need to travel from New York to Los Angeles to Dallas — a logistical and financial challenge that no previous World Cup has asked of attendees at this scale.
By the numbers: host city breakdown
Booking pace varies dramatically. Boston leads all U.S. markets with fill rates hitting 63% on opening weekend. New York–New Jersey hosts trail behind but command the highest per-night prices. Philadelphia, meanwhile, sits at just 42% occupancy — and Atlanta, where prices have been reset at triple normal rates, has seen minimal traction.
There are pockets of genuine activity. Suburbs around MetLife Stadium — Montclair, Jersey City, Clifton, Newark — have seen short-term rental occupancy surge as much as 169% above the same period last year, according to AirDNA. Boston remains the strongest performing market. And Airbnb itself launched what it calls its "biggest-ever new host incentive program," offering $750 to first-time entire-home hosts in any of the 16 host cities who welcome guests by July 31 — a sign the platform knows supply is thin in critical markets.
Cities vs. FIFA: A Lopsided Deal
The Agreement That Chicago Refused to Sign
While Airbnb hosts fret over vacancy rates, city officials are grappling with a far more structural concern: they may have locked themselves into deals that guarantee FIFA wealth while leaving local taxpayers holding the bill.
The contracts U.S. cities signed with FIFA are, by most independent assessments, remarkably one-sided. Alan Rothenberg, who sits on the Los Angeles host committee and served as U.S. Soccer president during the celebrated 1994 World Cup, put it bluntly: "Everybody signed an agreement that was very, very one-sided." In 1994, host cities received a share of game-day food and beverage revenues, and U.S. Soccer covered security costs. Cities came out ahead. This time, that arrangement is gone.
"Twelve of the last fourteen World Cups hosted since 1966 resulted in financial losses for host countries."
— Institute on Taxation and Economic PolicyEach host city is now expected to bear between $100 million and $200 million in infrastructure, security, and logistics costs. FIFA, meanwhile, has demanded sales tax exemptions on World Cup ticket sales — costing Kansas City alone an estimated $11 million in lost public revenue across its six scheduled matches. On top of that, FIFA requires cities to provide it with office space equipped with state-of-the-art amenities, free of charge.
Chicago saw the terms and walked away from its host bid. Foxborough, Massachusetts — home to Gillette Stadium — went even further, threatening in February to withhold venue permits unless FIFA or the New England Patriots committed upfront to covering $7.8 million in security costs. It was a rare act of municipal defiance against soccer's all-powerful governing body.
U.S. cities hosting World Cup 2026 matches:
- New York / New Jersey
- Los Angeles
- Dallas
- San Francisco Bay Area
- Boston
- Miami
- Seattle
- Philadelphia
- Kansas City
- Atlanta
- Houston
The $47 Billion Promise Nobody Believes
FIFA has not been shy about promoting the tournament's projected economic impact. The organization released a study with the World Trade Organization estimating that the 2026 World Cup will generate $47 billion in economic impact across the United States. FIFA president Gianni Infantino has claimed the U.S. economy could derive as much as $30 billion from the games.
Economists are deeply skeptical. Victor Matheson, a professor at the College of the Holy Cross who has spent his career studying the economics of mega-events like the Super Bowl and the World Cup, described the FIFA-WTO figures as "insanity." The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that twelve of the last fourteen World Cups since 1966 resulted in financial losses for the host country. South Africa attracted only half its anticipated visitors in 2010. Brazil spent $14 billion on the 2014 tournament and sparked domestic protests. Qatar's 2022 edition was, by most economic measures, a fiscal catastrophe.
The core problem, economists explain, is the difference between gross and net impact. FIFA controls the most lucrative revenue streams — broadcasting rights and official sponsorships — and they flow directly back to Zurich, not to Houston or Miami. Cities see a surge in restaurant and hotel spending, but significant "leakage" occurs when that money exits the local economy. Meanwhile, regular visitors who might otherwise have traveled to New York or Los Angeles that summer often stay home, afraid of the crowds and inflated prices — a phenomenon economists call "displacement."
Historical context
Independent economists consistently find that pre-event World Cup projections overstate realized benefits by 30 to 40 percent. The FIFA-WTO study projecting $47 billion for the U.S. economy was prepared by an Italian consulting firm that did not respond to media requests for comment on its methodology.
The Regulatory Wrinkle
How Cities Are Accidentally Blocking Their Own Windfall
There's a painful irony lurking inside all of this. The cities with the most restrictive short-term rental regulations — New York and Vancouver — are precisely the cities where accommodation demand is most acute. New York prohibits rentals under 30 days unless the host is present in the unit and limits stays to two guests. In practice, this makes full-apartment rentals — the format most sought after by traveling fan groups — essentially illegal. Vancouver limits short-term rentals exclusively to a host's primary residence, wiping out any inventory from investment properties.
The result is a fractured market: legal supply that is far too thin to meet demand, soaring prices that push visitors toward less regulated alternatives, and a parallel informal economy operating outside any tax or safety oversight. The cities imposing the tightest restrictions were, in many cases, trying to protect their long-term housing stock from the distortions that short-term rentals create. Those are legitimate concerns. But the effect, during the one month that could have generated enormous local revenue, is to strangle the very market that might have delivered it.
For Airbnb's part, the company has made its position clear. The $750 new-host incentive, the Host Earnings Calculator launched specifically for World Cup cities, and the aggressive outreach to prospective listers all signal that the platform sees a supply gap it is racing to close before June 11.
Reasons for Cautious Optimism
It would be a mistake to write off the tournament entirely as an economic disappointment before a single ball has been kicked. History suggests that bookings for major events often surge in the final weeks before kickoff, as fans lock in plans and last-minute travelers scramble for remaining inventory. Jamie Lane, chief economist at AirDNA, expects that the gap between asking prices and booking prices will close sharply as June approaches. Properties priced at a premium that have sat empty may suddenly find takers.
The tournament's structure also plays in its favor. With 104 matches across 16 host cities — far more than any previous World Cup — there is simply more economic activity to distribute. Los Angeles County alone is projected to see $594 million in impact from its eight assigned matches. The hospitality sector broadly is forecast to see cumulative revenue growth exceeding $3 billion. And the long-term impact on U.S. soccer's commercial value — MLS franchise valuations, participation rates, broadcast rights — may dwarf anything that happens in the immediate tournament window.
But for Mae Stewart in Atlanta, and for the thousands of hosts who bet their renovation budgets on a bonanza, that long-term story offers cold comfort. The June 11 kickoff is six weeks away. The calendar is still uncomfortably empty.
The 2026 FIFA World Cup opens June 11 at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles and concludes with the final at MetLife Stadium on July 19.
