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FIFA Says World Cup Will Add $17B to US Economy; Here’s Where The Money Goes - Voronoi

Jun 20, 2026

FIFA Says World Cup Will Add $17B to US Economy; Here’s Where The Money Goes

The 2026 FIFA World Cup is projected to add $17.15 billion to the U.S. economy.

This estimation comes from the FIFA World Cup 2026 Socioeconomic Impact Analysis, released in March 2025 and available through the FIFA Digital Hub.

The methodology measures how tournament-related expenditures propagate through U.S. value chains.

In other words, it’s based on how spending at a Miami hotel triggers economic activity in the food supply, laundry services, property management, and financial services further down the economic chain.

But what is most interesting is which sector benefits the most.

The Accommodation and Food sector has the largest projected benefit, with a $2.38 billion contribution to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Public Administration and Defense receives $1.09 billion in projected GDP impact, a figure substantially produced by security, policing, and government administrative costs that are primarily borne by U.S. taxpayers

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The analysis was commissioned and published by FIFA, the entity with the most direct interest in demonstrating the tournament’s economic value to host governments and the public.

This does not make the analysis false.

It does mean the $17.148 billion should be read as FIFA’s case for its own event rather than an independent assessment.

Independent academic reviews of comparable major sports events (the 2010 South Africa World Cup, the 2022 Qatar World Cup, multiple Olympic Games) have consistently found that organizer-commissioned pre-event impact studies project outcomes that exceed those subsequently measured by independent post-event analysis.

The pattern is documented across multiple events and multiple research institutions.

The independent assessment of what it actually delivered will take longer to produce than the tournament itself.

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