The 2026 World Cup has ended, and the initial figures tell a more moderate story than projections anticipated, at least for the host countries.
Bank of America estimates that the tournament generated around $20 billion for the U.S. economy, driven by tourism, fan spending, and increased consumption in hotels, restaurants, and businesses. This figure represents approximately two-thirds of the target that FIFA had projected before the tournament, which exceeded $30 billion. The Department of Commerce adds a data point that grounds expectations: international air traveler arrivals increased by just 0.2% annually during June, the first month of the competition.
For Mexico, the contrast is more pronounced. Deloitte estimates that the tournament contributed $2.543 billion to the Mexican economy. This figure is eight times less than that of the United States, although the number is frequently approximated as "almost ten times" in various reports. The difference reflects the structural imbalance between the two host countries: a greater number of matches, more venues, greater hotel capacity, and significantly higher per capita visitor spending in the U.S. case.
The Mexican data also takes on another dimension when contrasted with private consumption behavior during the tournament. In June, private consumption in Mexico advanced by just 0.15% monthly, and its annual pace cooled from 2.8% to 2.6%, a sign that the World Cup did not achieve the generalized boost in household spending that many projections anticipated. The event generated localized spillover in tourism, hospitality, and specific sectors, but it did not activate a broad consumption cycle.
The big winner of the tournament, however, is FIFA. Bloomberg Intelligence estimates that the organization will earn close to $9 billion from the 2026 World Cup, an increase of more than 40% over the record of $6.314 billion recorded in Qatar 2022. The unprecedented scale of the tournament explains the jump: 48 teams, 104 matches, almost 40 days of competition, and 16 cities distributed among three countries. For FIFA, the expanded format was a roaring success. For the host countries, the equation was more complex.
For the next+ team, the balance of the 2026 World Cup confirms something that major sporting events continue to demonstrate with relative consistency: the gap between pre-tournament projections and the measured economic impact afterward is always greater than what organizers publicly anticipate. The incentive to project high figures before the event is political and commercial. The impact depends on variables that no model captures well: local consumer behavior, the distribution of visitor spending between the formal and informal economy, the absorption capacity of each host city, and the macroeconomic context in which the tournament occurs. In Mexico's case, a consumer who arrived in the summer with accumulated inflation and wages under pressure was not in a position to amplify the World Cup's effect beyond the sectors the tournament directly activates.