This week we learned how many World Cup matches will be played in Vancouver and Toronto, which will co-host the men’s soccer tournament with cities in the United States and Mexico in 2026.
As it was known from the beginning, Canada and Mexico will sit at the children’s table, hosting only 13 games each. The United States will have 78 games, including the final, which will be played at an 87,000-seat stadium in New Jersey — which organizers describe as being in New York, presumably because the stadium normally hosts the New York Giants and the New York Jet. The tournament will begin in Mexico City on June 11.
[Read all the details from The Athletic: World Cup 2026: The biggest tournament yet and a New York final]
Vancouver will host seven games and Toronto will receive six, including the first game against the Canadian national team. The costs for both cities and the state of their stadium preparations are less clear.
Qatar, which hosted the 2022 tournament, built seven new stadiums.
Canada’s efforts will be much more modest. Vancouver will renovate BC Place for the second time since replacing the facility’s failing inflatable roof with a retractable one in 2011 — an increase that went over its $365 million C$149 million budget. And Toronto is adding an unusually precise 15,736 temporary seats to the 30,000 seats now at BMO Field. (In 2021, Montreal pulled out of the bid to be a host city after the provincial government declined to provide funding due to concerns about potential cost overruns.)
The British Columbia government estimated in 2022 that the cost of its preparations would be between C$240 million and C$260 million, of which C$40 million was for facilities — a category that includes practice fields as well as BC Place. The province and city of Vancouver both declined to release their agreement with FIFA. the sport’s international governing body, citing confidentiality provisions or to answer specific questions about it, although nearby Seattle, another host city, apparently had no such restriction.
Among other things, the Seattle deal gives a tight timeline for all stadium construction to be completed: the middle of next year.
In Toronto, a city where a major rail project is about two and a half years behind schedule, stadium renovations are still in the hands of architects.
Sharon Bollenbach, the city’s executive director for hosting the World Cup, told me in a statement that the current plan is to begin work this fall.
Currently, the estimated cost of hosting Toronto is 300 million. But FIFA then expanded the number of teams in the competition and, therefore, the number of matches. Toronto will now host one more game than it expected. Vancouver will get two more.
“The city is reviewing the planning assumptions and will recalculate costs, revenue opportunities and benefits,” Ms. Bollenbach said by email. “Existing calculations were based on Toronto hosting five games. As with any major event, the City is working with partners to balance costs and benefits to ensure that any public investment in hosting the World Cup in Toronto delivers significant benefits and legacies for Torontonians.”
The idea that the economic and tourism benefits will eclipse the costs to host cities was also offered by Ken Sim, mayor of Vancouver, a city that predicts the tournament could generate more than $1 billion a year in economic activity by 2026 and for each of the next five years.
“When you bring economic activity to the city, you lift everybody up,” Mr. Sim told the CBC. “You’re creating more opportunities for people.”
Money aside, with Canada guaranteed entry to the World Cup as host nation and many members of its national team, including Alphonso Davies, among the top international professional players, excitement is likely to be high in 2026.
However, claims that the World Cup will bring in more money than it costs to host its games should be viewed with scepticism. For decades, economists have gone back and examined pregame predictions of dramatic economic and tourism gains for host states and cities. There is broad consensus: predictions are, at best, exaggerated, and economic impacts are often minimal and short-lived.
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