Last Monday, it was announced the United States, Canada, and Mexico would jointly bid for the 80 match, 48 team expanded 2026 World Cup. If the (heavily favored) bid wins over potential other bids from nations in South America, Oceania, or Africa, it would be the first three country joint bid, and first joint bid since 2002 in South Korea and Japan. (1)
Unlike the 2002 World Cup, in which games were split evenly between the two hosts (2), the proposed 2026 bid would have 60 games in the US, and 10 each in Mexico and Canada, with no games beyond the quarter finals. Mexican fans were not pleased with its significantly less futbol-obsessed neighbor getting a lion's share of the games in the sport's biggest event (3).
While I understand the frustration of Mexican fans in the joint bid being a mainly American bid, it understates an interesting fact about the bid: the US didn't need a joint bid to host. Looking at the World Cups since the last time the US hosted in 1994 , I compared the number of games and venues to estimate the venues needed to host the expanded World Cup (2)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11). I also looked at the 2022 US bid that lost to Qatar, amid allegations for the Qatari bid (12).
Figure 1, 1994-2022 World Cup Venue and Game Quantities
Figure 2, Estimated Venue Quantities for the 2026 World Cup
Using the average of 5.39 games per venue during that time, the enlarged 80 game format would require approximately 14 or 15 venues. Not only could the US hold expanded World Cup with fewer venues than the 2022 Bid, a single intercollegiate athletic conference with large enough venues (say, the Big Ten, whose smallest stadium is the 47,330 seat Ryan Field at Northwestern and with five stadiums over the 80,000 seat requirement for the World Cup Opener and Final) could feasibly hold the World Cup (13)(14). While the possibility of a World Cup match at Ross-Ade (and World Cup Breakfast Club) is exciting, and a full Big House or Horseshoe during a World Cup match would be an awesome sight, that obviously would not happen. And given the stated preference by the bidding nations to have more venues and cities involved, my guess is the ratio of games to stadiums would be more like the US's 2022 bid of 20 stadiums in the 64 match format, hosting an average of 3.2 games (1).
Using that baseline, an estimated total of 25 stadiums would be used. Splitting the stadiums in an equal ratio to the games, the US would host its 60 games in 19 venues, and Canada and Mexico would each use 3 venues to host their 10 games.
My guess is the US will use a similar set of stadiums to that of the 2022 bid, which included 18 cities hosting the 20 stadiums (see Figure 3). Since a number of new stadiums have been built since original bid for 2022 in 2010, in Figure 4 I have created a guess for the 19 venues for 2026, replacing the LA Colosseum for the new Los Angeles Stadium being built for the Rams and Chargers (15), and the Georgia Dome for the new Mercedes-Benz Stadium being built for the Falcons and Atlanta FC (16). I also remove Seattle's Husky Stadium, and moved San Diego's hosting to the Bay Area to better distribute the venues throughout the country, and take advantage of the new Levi's Stadium (17). It's likely the final bid would include other, different stadium selections (e.g. I was surprised Indianapolis was included in the 2022 bid, and while I'll be excited to see a World Cup match here, it wouldn't surprise me if the 2026 bid would include Chicago's Soldier Field instead of Lucas Oil). It should also be noted that while some venues have artificial turf, much like in 1994 temporary grass fields may be used.
Figure 3, The US 2022 Bid Venues
Figure 4, Guessed 2026 American Venues, based on 2022 Bid. Differences from 2022 in Italics
Canada is much more restricted in the stadiums it has. Only four are above the 40,000 seat minimum for group matches, and none large enough to host the final. Those four are Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton, Olympic Stadium in Montreal, BC Place in Vancouver, and the Rogers Center in Toronto (18). Commonwealth Stadium, while the second largest venue at 56,302 seats, also has a few issues that would make it less than ideal for the World Cup. First, it features a running track, which moves fans further from the pitch (20); secondly, Edmonton, Alberta is the smallest of the four cities, which may reduce both the available local fans compared to the larger cities and available travel infrastructure; finally, given the size of Canada it would be preferable to spread the venues, which would lend itself to a Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal configuration. Which, by process of elimination, is what I will do. Olympic Stadium and BC Place also hosted matches in the 2015 Woman's World Cup, including the final and a quarterfinal at BC Place and a semifinal at Olympic Stadium (21)(23). The one negative of the three venues is all are indoor, and require temporarily install natural grass pitches, as would occur with some American venues. While this would be costly, the cost to replace a small number of pitches is much cheaper than building a number of new venues specifically for the event, as has occurred in recent World Cups.
Figure 5, Guessed Canadian Venues, with soccer capacities (18)(21)(22)
Mexico has seven stadiums meeting the capacity requirements, and unlike their northern neighbors, all are primarily designed for soccer, with natural grass pitches (24). The largest (and recently renovated and historic) is Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, which hosts Mexico's national team and the professional Club America. Given the historic nature of the stadium, including a previous World Cups and international competitions, it would be hard to exclude it (25). Much like choosing venues in Canada, I am going to select venues that are geographically distributed and have hosted both high level international and club competitions; in addition the two other stadiums have been recently built or renovated, and are among the largest five stadiums in the country.
Figure 6, Guessed Mexican Venues (25)(26)(27)
Given the statements of the bid to spread the games out geographically, my guess is each venue may only hold a few games during the group stages, and maybe a few during the knockout stages, with later rounds held in larger venues (1). A proposal based on that idea is in Figure 7. I did throw Mexico a bit of a bone in assigning the Los Angeles area a total of seven games, including 4 in the knockout stages. Given this would be among the easiest areas of the US for fans from Mexico to get to, this would allow Mexican fans an easy trip if their team makes a deep run. My guess is groups will be assigned to games in geographical clusters to prevent excess travel, with each host nation getting their games on their own soil. How clusters are assigned to groups would then wait until group assignments would occur.
Figure 7, Proposed Game Assignment for 2026 World Cup
The resulting final attendance figure is estimated at over 5.8 million people, which would blow away the previous record in the US in 1994 of 3.6 million, incidentally the last World Cup in North America. A big reason for the US holding the record is in the quantity of large stadiums; even the smallest American stadium in the 2022 bid, Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, is larger than the largest Canadian stadium by 10,000 seats, and would be the second largest stadium in Mexico. Yes, a stadium where from the top row the players look like ants is the smallest American stadium to be considered among the list.
If this World Cup bids wins, it will be an incredible event, showcasing soccer across the US, giving fans of each host a chance to see a World Cup match on their home soil, and being a tournament to rival none.
Also, the proposal for World Cup Breakfast Club still stands, wherever matches will be hosted (28).
A previous version of this article had an incorrect value in Figure 1. Thank you to Sara N. for pointing this error out.
Sources and Footnotes:
(1) http://www.espnfc.us/fifa-world-cup/4/blog/post/3100892/usa-mexico-and-canada-bid-to-host-2026-world-cup-q-and-a
(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_FIFA_World_Cup
(3) http://www.espnfc.us/team/mexico/203/blog/post/3100854/mexico-has-full-range-of-mixed-emotions-over-world-cup-2026-joint-bid-with-usa-and-canada
(4) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_FIFA_World_Cup
(5) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_FIFA_World_Cup
(6) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_FIFA_World_Cup
(7) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_FIFA_World_Cup
(8) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_FIFA_World_Cup
(9) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_FIFA_World_Cup
(10) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_FIFA_World_Cup
(11) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_FIFA_World_Cup
(12) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_2022_FIFA_World_Cup_bid
(13) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Ten_Conference#Football.2C_Basketball.2C_and_Baseball_facilities
(14) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/world-cup/4734057/England-World-Cup-2018-bid-team-consider-stadium-options.html
(15) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Stadium_at_Hollywood_Park
(16) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercedes-Benz_Stadium
(17) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levi's_Stadium
(18) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stadiums_in_Canada
(19) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_Stadium_(Edmonton)
(20) In my personal experiences watching sports at venues with both running tracks and without, the experience is definitely better at the venues without; you both feel closer to the action, and the real closeness and better angles allow you to see more of the action.
(21) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Stadium_(Montreal)
(22) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_Centre
(23) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BC_Place
(24) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_football_stadiums_in_Mexico
(25) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estadio_Azteca
(26) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estadio_BBVA_Bancomer
(27) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estadio_Cuauht%C3%A9moc
(28) For reference, Breakfast Club is a tradition prior to Purdue Football games and Purdue Grand Prix (a campus wide go cart race), in which people dress up in costumes, go to the bars near campus, and (still in costume) attend the game or Grand Prix (or in many cases, just go home).
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