Dallas can score big with the next World Cup

The World Cup begins Sunday in Qatar. This is the most-watched sports competition in the world, with billions tuning in to root for international soccer powerhouses. It’s a big party that takes place every four years, and the beginning of one World Cup starts the countdown for the next one.
North Texas should watch closely. We’re next.
Sixteen metropolitan areas in North America, including ours, will host the 2026 World Cup. FIFA will announce decisions about those areas’ specific hosting duties next year.
The Dallas bid committee, which includes leaders from across North Texas, has big plans that include hosting at least four World Cup matches, possibly even the inaugural game or the final. The group also wants to host the media center and the headquarters for FIFA, the governing body of international soccer.
We like that this ambitious plan is expected to have little impact on taxpayers while the economic and social benefits could have ripple effects for years, much like the 1994 World Cup. That event led to an explosive growth in soccer fandom in the U.S. and the creation of Major League Soccer.
Unlike Qatar, which had to build everything from scratch for the big event, the Dallas-Fort Worth area already has everything it needs: a world-class stadium, an abundance of hotels, state-of-the-art training facilities and a major international airport.
Besides AT&T Stadium, which can hold up to 90,000 spectators for World Cup matches, North Texas has several options for training venues for national teams: the Cotton Bowl, MoneyGram Soccer Park and Southern Methodist University in Dallas; Toyota Soccer Center in Frisco; the University of Texas at Dallas and more.
Fair Park served as FIFA’s media center in 1994, and it can do so again. In Qatar, 12,300 journalists will have media credentials.
Dan Hunt, chairman of the Dallas bid committee, told us the proposal to have Fair Park host the media center just got a boost after Dallas voters approved a proposition to increase hotel taxes and direct some of that revenue to upgrade the fairgrounds.
A challenge for North Texas is transportation. Thousands of international soccer fans will be coming to a region that has limited public transit options.
But the Dallas bid committee is devising a plan to give World Cup ticket holders free transportation to stadiums on event day. Hunt said details are still being worked out with regional transportation agencies.
The organizing committee can also tap into the state’s Event Trust Fund Program, Hunt said. This program can help cover allowable expenses, an investment that is offset by the local and state taxes generated by the soccer event.
This is about more than just the tourism dollars that North Texas will reap from the tournament. The Dallas bid committee is also betting on the long-term buzz that it can create for the region. The actual matches will have winners and losers, but for North Texas the World Cup is a win.
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