The World Cup is coming to Houston.
FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, chose Houston as one of 16 sites for the 2026 Men’s World Cup, the first edition of the tournament to be co-hosted by three nations: the United States, Canada and Mexico.
Sixty games will be played in the U.S., including all from the quarterfinals on. Canada and Mexico are to host 10 games each.
Houston did not stage matches the last time the U.S. held the World Cup in 1994 — Dallas was the closest venue — but the Bayou City is now getting its shot.
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World Cup games in Houston — likely five or six — will be played in 72,000-capacity NRG Stadium. Chris Canetti, the local bid committee CEO, said he is hopeful Houston hosts some knockout round matches as well as group stage matches. NRG Stadium is not a candidate for the semifinals or finals because FIFA requires a minimum of 80,000 seats for those games. MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., and AT&T Stadium in Arlington are believed to be the top contenders to stage the final.
The Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., which hosted the 1994 World Cup final, was left out, as was a combined bid representing Baltimore and Washington, D.C., meaning the United States capital will not play a role in its biggest sporting event in 2026.
FIFA will also select two training sites out of five proposed venues: PNC Stadium, Houston Sports Park, AVEVA Stadium, Rice University and University of Houston.
This will be the first 48-nation World Cup, up from the 32-team format used since 1998. In a tournament likely to run from June 11 to July 12, but possibly start and end a week later, there will be 16 groups of three nations. Each team will play two first-round games instead of three, meaning one nation in each group opens against an opponent who will have already played. The top two in each group advance to a 32-nation knockout bracket.
Gianni Infantino, the FIFA president, said some of the last decisions on host cities were not made until Thursday. The decisions, he said, were made “to ensure fans did not have to travel too far, to ensure everyone has a fantastic experience.”
To reduce travel, FIFA plans to group participating teams by region. Houston is in the Central along with Kansas City, Dallas, Atlanta, Monterrey, Mexico, and Mexico City.
The East region is Toronto, Boston, Philadelphia, Miami and New York/New Jersey. The West: Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles (SoFi Stadium) and Guadalajara, Mexico.
“This is the biggest, most popular, most prestigious, the most important sporting event in the world,” Canetti said. “Bigger than the Super Bowl, bigger than the Final Four, bigger than the Olympics and for our city to be able to land this event is spectacular. It’s going to be something unlike anything we’ve ever seen here before and it’s going to bring great value and great benefits to our city.”
As noted before, this has been a years-long process, and it’s great to be among the chosen locations at the end of it. You can see a map of the host cities in the story. Congrats to everyone involved. Just let me know when tickets will be on sale. CultureMap has more.
This is fantastic news for Houston.
$1B total economic impact for Houston per the Ch 2 news last night….
CL,
There will be a positive impact for Houston both in $ inflow and international recognition, but $1B is a completely laughable #. Don’t believe it.