Who Profitted from FIFA Worldcup 2026 ?
World Cup 2026: The Financial Winners and Losers
A Beewise Insights briefing, based on reporting by BBC News (Michael Race, 17 July 2026)
This year’s World Cup is the biggest the tournament has ever been. A 48-team format and record match count have meant more attention, more money moving, and more commercial opportunity than any prior tournament. But as with most big events, the gains have not been shared evenly. Some parties are having a very good summer. Others are footing the bill.
Here’s how it breaks down.
The Winners
FIFA
Football’s governing body remains, by a wide margin, the biggest financial winner of the tournament. FIFA generated a record $7.6bn (£5.6bn) from Qatar 2022, and this year’s expanded 48-team format is expected to push that figure even higher. According to Deutsche Bank Research strategist Marion Laboure, FIFA’s total revenue across the current four-year cycle is approaching $13bn, drawn from broadcasting rights, licensing, hospitality packages, sponsorship deals, and ticket sales. FIFA has also begun taking a cut of the resale market itself, charging a fee to both buyers and sellers on its official resale platform. With expansion to a potential 64-team tournament already under discussion, this revenue model looks set to keep growing.
Broadcasters and Sponsors
Broadcasters paid enormous sums for the rights to air this tournament, but strong viewership numbers mean they’re positioned to profit handsomely from advertising. The introduction of in-match hydration breaks, three-minute pauses framed as a player welfare measure, has doubled as a new and valuable advertising slot, reportedly sold as sponsored placements by broadcasters like Fox Sports. Industry estimates put the cost of a 30-second advert during the tournament at $200,000 to $300,000, rising as high as $750,000 during the closing stages of US matches. UK viewers on the BBC and ITV were largely shielded from this particular commercial trend, thanks to the BBC’s no-advertising model and ITV’s regulatory limits on ad volume. Official sponsors such as Adidas and Coca-Cola have also benefited from heavy on-site brand visibility, while FIFA has taken steps to suppress unofficial brand exposure, including covering competing logos near stadiums.
David Beckham
Beckham may be over a decade retired, but this tournament has reinforced his status as one of football’s most bankable commercial assets. He has appeared in a wide range of campaigns this summer, from Adidas (including an AI-generated version of himself) to Home Depot and Bank of America. Inter Miami, the Major League Soccer club he co-owns, is now estimated to be the league’s most valuable franchise at $1.45bn. He didn’t win the tournament on the pitch, but by most measures, he’s winning it commercially.
Merchandise Sellers
Fan enthusiasm has translated directly into kit sales. Nike reports that national team kit sales this year are more than double what they were during the 2022 tournament, with England its top-selling shirt, followed by France, Brazil, the Netherlands, and the US. Adidas saw Mexico’s jersey perform best. In the UK, JD Sports reports a record-breaking year for England shirt sales, though Scotland’s jersey ultimately outsold every other nation’s kit in the UK market. Industry commentary points to football shirts becoming an everyday streetwear staple, with strong Gen Z demand for retro and custom designs. The flipside: rising demand has also fuelled a steady market in counterfeit merchandise.
Betting Companies
This tournament is on track to be the largest sports betting event in history, with an estimated $50bn wagered globally, roughly $500m per match, according to financial services firm Macquarie. The bigger 48-team format, and the resulting jump to over 100 matches, is the primary driver. Flutter Entertainment, which owns Paddy Power, Betfair, and Sky Bet, forecasts total bets placed will be double the previous tournament’s, driven largely by growth in the US and Brazil. In-play betting, wagering in real time as a match unfolds, has overtaken the traditional pre-match bet as the dominant style of play. In US states where sports betting remains illegal, prediction markets (a separate, fast-growing category not classified as gambling) have picked up much of that demand instead.
The Losers
Fans
For the people the tournament is ultimately for, this has been an expensive summer. Ticket prices, and FIFA’s dynamic pricing model in particular, have drawn heavy criticism. Final tickets at MetLife Stadium were officially priced as high as $32,970, with resale listings exceeding $2m. Even US President Donald Trump reportedly said he “wouldn’t pay” the asking price for a $1,000 ticket to the US’s opening match. Everyday costs added up too. A New Jersey Transit train fare to MetLife Stadium rose from its usual $12.90 to $150 during the tournament, before public backlash forced a partial reduction, though prices remained elevated. Add in inflated flight, food, and accommodation costs, and it’s fans who have absorbed much of the tournament’s financial weight.
Host Cities
Host cities have seen a genuine influx of visitors and short-term hospitality demand. But according to Alexander Budzier, a fellow in management practice at Oxford University and CEO of Oxford Global Projects, the long-term economic case for hosting major tournaments rarely holds up. Host cities often see a net drop in regular visitors during the event, as locals and typical tourists avoid the disruption. Hiring does pick up, but Budzier notes it is concentrated in lower-paid hospitality roles. It creates jobs, in his words, but it doesn’t create lasting wealth. The exception, he argues, is when a tournament drives genuine infrastructure regeneration, as London’s Stratford saw after the 2012 Olympics. Because this World Cup relies mostly on existing stadiums and infrastructure across the US, Canada, and Mexico, that kind of lasting development benefit is largely absent.
Hotels
Anticipated hotel demand simply hasn’t materialised at the scale expected. The British Columbia Hotel Association reports that bookings in June and July, despite Vancouver hosting seven matches, are pacing behind previous years. The American Hotel and Lodging Association has accused FIFA of block-booking excessive rooms for its own use, artificially inflating perceived demand, an accusation FIFA disputes. Deutsche Bank’s Marion Laboure notes this pattern isn’t new: the same overestimation happened during France’s 1998 tournament. By April this year, 80% of surveyed US hotel operators reported bookings tracking below forecast, with roughly two-thirds of New York hoteliers and nearly 80% of Seattle operators describing softer-than-expected demand, some going as far as to call the tournament a non-event for their bookings.
The Takeaway
The pattern here is a familiar one for any major global event: the organisations and individuals with the leverage to set terms (FIFA, broadcasters, established brands) capture the greatest share of the value, while the people and places footing the ground-level costs (fans, host cities, hotels) often see the smallest, or even negative, return. For business owners watching this play out, it’s a useful reminder that “the World Cup effect” is not one single story. It depends entirely on which side of the transaction your business sits on.
Source: BBC News, “The financial winners and losers from the World Cup,” Michael Race, 17 July 2026.