Soccer’s Billion Dollar Moment, and It’s Happening in Your Backyard
The 2026 World Cup is back in America. This time is different. Far more Americans are watching, playing, and following the game than in 1994. This is the rise of American soccer, three decades of explosive growth, powered by MLS, the NWSL, and the youth pipeline that built the foundation.
The first time the United States hosted the World Cup, tickets cost roughly $50, MLS did not exist, and most Americans attempted to learn the offside rule right before kickoff and still don’t understand it years later. That was 1994, when I was playing college soccer at Baldwin-Wallace University in Berea, Ohio. Thirty-two years later, the world’s largest sporting event, with cumulative global viewership reaching billions of people across the tournament, is officially back on American soil.
Nearly nothing about the landscape is the same.
Soccer has made it to America. What happened between then and now is a great growth story in American sports. Here is a perspective on the 2026 World Cup economic impact, the U.S. teams, the leagues (MLS/NWSL), and a few different angles, including the voices calling the game and a glossary of terms that may make you sound like you know what you are talking about, at least a little.
The Economic Impact of the 2026 World Cup (vs. 1994)
| Year | Host | FIFA Revenue | What It Cost to Host |
| 1994 | USA | $341M | ~$500M |
| 2006 | Germany | $1.2B | ~$1.5B |
| 2010 | South Africa | $3.6B | ~$3.5B |
| 2014 | Brazil | $4.8B | ~$15B |
| 2018 | Russia | $6.1B | ~$11B |
| 2022 | Qatar | $7.5B | ~$220B – built infrastructure for a tournament |
| 2026 (proj.) | USA / Canada / Mexico | $11-14B | $2-3B |
Qatar reportedly spent more than $200 billion on infrastructure tied directly or indirectly to the tournament. They built air-conditioned outdoor stadiums in the desert, a new metro system, hotels, and highways for a tournament that lasted one month. The United States is dropping the 2026 World Cup into stadiums that already exist, MetLife, AT&T Stadium, SoFi, and Hard Rock.
The economic impact on American host cities is projected at over $5 billion.
What It Will Cost You
Group-stage tickets on the secondary market are generally running $200–$1,500+, depending on the teams, city, and seat location.
Knockout-round tickets are typically $800–$4,000+, with quarterfinals, semifinals, and marquee matchups commanding substantially more.
The Final at MetLife Stadium has become one of the hottest tickets in sports, with resale listings ranging from roughly $3,000 to over $10,000, and premium seats reaching far higher.
Hotels near host venues during major match weekends are commonly seeing rates 2x–5x normal levels, particularly in New York/New Jersey, Miami, Los Angeles, and Dallas.
The Women Got Here First, and the Numbers Prove It
25.4 million Americans watched the 2015 Women’s World Cup Final, USA vs. Japan. It remains the most-watched soccer game in US history. No men’s match has come close.
The US Women’s National Team has four World Cup titles, 1991, 1999, 2015, and 2019. The men have none. The 1999 Final at the Rose Bowl with 90,000 fans and Brandi Chastain’s iconic celebration vaulted the mainstream visibility of soccer in this country.
The NWSL launched in 2013 with eight teams. Early franchise values were in the $2 to $5 million range. By 2024, Angel City FC sold a stake valuing the club at over $180 million. Bay FC entered the league at $125 million. The league’s media deal, CBS, ESPN, and Amazon Prime Video is worth $240 million over four years. Trinity Rodman, Mallory Swanson, and Sophia Smith are legitimate stars with real commercial profiles. The women built the foundation. The men are playing the main stage this summer.
The Backyard Pipeline Behind the Boom, How Youth Soccer Built This Moment
The World Cup does not arrive in America by accident.
It arrives because millions of kids have been playing organized soccer since they were five years old, club teams, weekend tournaments, year-round.
It arrives because parents loaded coolers into SUVs before sunrise, drove hours for a single match, and sat through rain, heat, and wind just to watch their kids play. I was one of them.
Because families rearranged or planned vacations around tournament schedules.
Because hotel lobbies across America filled with pizza boxes (ours was always pasta = fuel for the players), teams in slides and club hoodies, and exhausted parents debating colleges, coaches, lineups, and the game at 10:30 at night over a few adult beverages.
Because an entire generation grew up understanding the difference between possession and long-ball, between patience and panic, between a boot upfield vs. a composed pass out of the back.
America built soccer through carpools, hotel blocks, Venmo requests, and parents spending thousands of dollars a year chasing opportunities for their kids.
None of this was cheap.
American families now spend billions every year on youth sports, and soccer commands a massive share of it through club fees, gear, travel, private training, and showcases.
But something bigger was happening underneath all of it.
America was building a soccer culture.
Quietly. Gradually. For decades.
That is why the World Cup is here. America finally grew into the game.
The Growth of American Soccer: Early 1990s vs. Today
How MLS Became a Billion-Dollar League
MLS was literally created as a condition of the US winning the 1994 hosting bid. FIFA wanted a permanent domestic league in exchange for the tournament. Thirty years later that league has 30 teams, a $2.5 billion Apple TV deal, and Lionel Messi playing in Miami.
| Year | MLS Teams | Avg. Franchise Value | Milestone |
| 1996 (launch) | 10 | ~$0 | Created as condition of 1994 World Cup hosting bid |
| 2007 | 13 | ~$37M | David Beckham signs with LA Galaxy |
| 2015 | 20 | ~$157M | US Women’s WC Final draws 25.4M viewers |
| 2020 | 26 | ~$500M | Apple TV signs $2.5B / 10-year MLS deal |
| 2023 | 29 | ~$900M | Messi signs with Inter Miami; 150,000-person waitlist overnight |
| 2026 | 30 | $1B+ | World Cup returns to America |
The US Men’s Team Is Built Differently and Playing at Home
The core of this team was not built domestically. These players left the US as teenagers and developed in the Bundesliga, Serie A, the Premier League. Many elite American players emerged through the American system and further developed in Europe’s top leagues. The players came back better. Iron sharpens iron. The result is the most technically capable US men’s squad in history, playing on home soil, in front of a crowd that will be completely unhinged, hopefully not just at first. The odds are still long…
| Team | Approximate Odds to Win |
| Spain | 5/1 |
| France | 5/1 |
| England | 6/1 |
| Brazil | 8/1 |
| Portugal | 8/1 |
| Argentina | 9/1 |
| Germany | 11/1 |
| USA | 50/1 |
A quarterfinal run for the US is realistic. A semifinal would be historic. The bracket, now expanded to 48 teams, creates more paths and more chaos than any prior tournament.
The Rise of American Soccer: Early 1990s vs. Today
The Fun Part, The Voices of the Game
Part of what makes the World Cup different from every other sporting event is the announcing. Soccer commentary is not play-by-play in the American sense. It is performance. Cultural expression. Here are some notable ones…
Andrés Cantor — Telemundo, USA (Spanish) Legendary for holding a single vowel for 30-plus seconds with full conviction. The emotional thermometer for every goal in the Western Hemisphere. “Gooooooooal!” Calling 92 of 104 matches at the 2026 World Cup.
John Strong — Fox Sports, USA (English) Calm authority with genuine passion underneath. Builds the moment before it arrives. No hyperbole, just exceptional timing.
JP Dellacamera — Fox Sports, USA (English) One of the most experienced international voices in American broadcasting. His philosophy is simple: “Don’t be bigger than the moment.” His goal call is often just one word “Goal.”
Ian Darke — Fox Sports, UK (English) Made his American reputation on a single call. Landon Donovan. Algeria. 2010. 91st minute. “And Donovan has scored! Oh, can you believe this! Go, go USA! You could not write a script like this!” Landon Donovan himself said: “It is iconic because of Ian’s call. It was perfect.”
Ray Hudson — Various, USA. The most theatrically entertaining secondary voice in the game. Every compliment is a short film. A small sample…
- “You could drop a tarantula down his shorts and he’d still be super cool.”
- “Defenders try to follow him on Facebook and he comes out on Twitter.”
- “Magisterial! Stupendous! He’s a genius from another planet!”
Soccer Terms You May or Should Know, or Will Enjoy
The World Cup is the perfect time to stop nodding along and actually understand what everyone is saying. Two sections: the terms you may need, and the ones the British mostly invented.
The Terms You Actually Need
| Term | Definition | Why It Matters |
| Offside | A player is caught offside if they are closer to the opponent’s goal line than both the ball and the second-to-last defender (goalie counts) at the exact moment the ball is passed to them. Another detail, changes based on the offensive player in their half. Too hard to simply explain. | Everyone claims to understand this. Nobody fully does. The linesman’s flag goes up, play stops, half the stadium argues. You are now qualified to argue with them. VAR has taken some of the “fun” away. |
| Hat Trick | Three goals by one player in a single match. | Named after a cricket tradition from the 1800s. Carli Lloyd scored one in the first 16 minutes of the 2015 Women’s World Cup Final. |
| Clean Sheet | When a goalkeeper allows zero goals in a match. | The American equivalent is a shutout. |
| Nil | Zero. | 2-nil means 2-0. You will hear this on every broadcast. Embrace it. |
| Stoppage Time | Extra minutes added at the end of each half for time lost during injuries, substitutions, and celebrations. | A fourth official holds up a board with a number. Could be 2 minutes or 10. It is a mystery, and everyone panics regardless. |
| Brace | Two goals by one player in a single match. | Americans have no word for this. Sorry. |
| Pitch | The field. | Not the field. The pitch. One word. Sound like you belong. |
| Keeper | The goalkeeper. | The only player who can use their hands, in their own penalty area. |
| Form | Recent performance. | Teams go cold. Players go hot. Their Form. |
| Aggregate | The total score from two matches played between the same teams. | If game one ends 1-0 and game two ends 1-1, aggregate is 2-1. |
Some Extras
| Term | What It Actually Means | American Translation |
| Nutmeg | Putting the ball cleanly through a defender’s legs to get past them. | Produces personal humiliation in front of 70,000 people. |
| Worldie | A goal so technically spectacular it belongs in a different conversation. | A screamer is impressive. A worldie is better. |
| Screamer | A hard, fast shot likely into the upper corner. Upper 90. Another term. | The kind of goal you replay 40 times. |
| Howler | A catastrophic individual mistake, almost always by the goalkeeper. | Going viral before the second half starts. |
| Park the Bus | Packing all 11 players into your own half and generally refusing to attack. | The tactical equivalent of playing prevent defense for the entire game. |
| Panenka | A penalty chipped softly down the middle. Keeper dives other way. Looks silly. | The most audacious act in soccer. When it works, it’s art. When it fails, it’s humiliation. |
| Hospital Pass | A slow, telegraphed pass that sets up your teammate for a turnover or injury. | Teammate will have words for you. |
| Fox in the Box | A striker who rarely tracks back to help on defense but positions perfectly near goal for close-range tap-ins. | Often the highest-paid player. |
The 2026 World Cup
The World Cup runs from June 11 through July 19. There are 104 matches. Billions of people around the world will engage with the tournament, making it the largest sporting event on the planet. The 2026 World Cup will have a profound economic impact.
The U.S. Men play tomorrow. The women’s team built the foundation. The youth soccer pipeline built the talent pool.
The World Cup didn’t create American soccer culture. It revealed how much of it was already here.
Now the world is coming to us.
Tell me, where will you be watching the games?
Rob Sternot — STE Advisors
The rise of American soccer was never really a sports story — it’s a case study in how value compounds when an ecosystem matures: infrastructure, capital, talent, and media all reinforcing one another over three decades. Recognizing that kind of inflection early, and helping owners and investors act on it, is exactly what we do at STE Advisors. If you enjoyed this lens on sport and business, you’ll likely appreciate Simple Lessons from Soccer for Business Success. And if you’re weighing your own company’s next chapter — a sale, an acquisition, or a transformation — start a confidential conversation.