Chapter 1: What major sporting event is coming to North America?
The biggest sporting event in the world is coming to the US. No, not the Olympics. The FIFA Men's World Cup. 48 national teams, 16 host cities, and the final right here at MetLife Stadium. Now, if you're going, don't tell me, because I will either die of jealousy or make a stupid financial decision. The World Cup is my Super Bowl.
And in fact, it's way bigger than the Super Bowl, with nine times the global viewers. It's also expected to attract a million tourists to the U.S. this summer. This, of course, has caught the attention of one President Trump, who is already seeking to shape the tournament in his image.
You look at the numbers, nobody's ever seen anything like the kind of numbers we're doing. The early ticket sales are through the roof.
So how and why did Donald Trump come to love soccer? That's coming up on Today Explained from Vox.
This is Today Explained.
My name's Adam Crafton, and I'm a reporter at The Athletic, primarily covering soccer, the business of soccer, the politics of soccer, the money of soccer, and all the stories that come with that.
Can you remind us just about the bidding process here? How did the U.S. and, of course, Canada and Mexico in conjunction even get these games in the first place?
The way it works is nations bid, and they bid quite a long way out. The process for this was kind of around 2017. It was actually during Trump's first presidency.
Well, thank you very much. We very much appreciate The fact that we have won a very important event, the World Cup in 2026, and we'll be hosting it along with Mexico and Canada.
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Chapter 2: How did the U.S., Canada, and Mexico secure the World Cup?
So the bid during Trump's first presidency, Infantino kind of got himself into the Oval Office a couple of times. That was how it started. But what actually happened was, whereas... A lot of people obviously turned on Trump kind of towards the end of his first presidency and certainly after January the 6th. Infantino didn't.
There was no point where Infantino publicly distanced himself from Trump. He played a pretty judicious game where he kind of, either because he liked Trump or because he was a smart political animal and recognised that there was a chance he might have to work with him again. He stayed close. You know, he went to Mar-a-Lago.
When Trump was out of office.
Yeah. He maintained that relationship. And actually, there was a pretty memorable moment at Davos. This was when I think Trump was still in power, but it was the week where the ground rules were being laid for the Senate's, I think, the first impeachment hearing.
And it was around that time, and Infantino actually introduced Trump to speak at Davos and spoke about him in these glowing terms, described him as a fighter, almost like a gladiator, compared him to one of the great soccer players.
I am a
And I think Trump, you know, whatever people think of him, he's clearly someone who remembers those who are loyal to him and doesn't like those who turn on him. And when Trump was then out of office, FIFA found it really difficult to penetrate the White House. You know, there was no picture with Joe Biden in the Oval Office.
There was no even visit to the Oval Office for Infantino during that time. And FIFA were finding it hard to get stuff done during that period. And then when Trump wins power last November, Infantino is immediately on the front foot. I mean, like on Instagram every other day, praising Trump, what a fantastic victory. He went to his pre-inauguration rally and Trump would like keep name checking him.
at these events.
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Chapter 3: What is the significance of Donald Trump's relationship with FIFA?
You know, there's like eight, I think it's seven or eight games in New York, right? That's not that many people to actually be able to go to games when you bring in diasporas and when you bring in travelers from outside of the country. And that creates this incredible demand.
Can we put some numbers on it? Like, what are we talking about in terms of the early run of ticket prices that we've seen? Is this like NFL ticket level? Are we talking about Super Bowl ticket prices? Like, what's the numbers?
Well, I guess, you know, the Super Bowl comparison would be the final, right? So the prices released by FIFA a couple of weeks ago, three categories. Category one, $8,680.
Oh, I'm already out.
Right?
Category two, $5,575. Category three, $4,185. However, since then, there has been such a strong backlash that they have now introduced basically a fourth category of $60 tickets.
FIFA just announced it's slashing the price of some World Cup tickets for teams' most loyal fans. The organization says a $60 ticket option will be made available for every game at the tournament in North America.
Which will be only for 1.6% of tickets per game, but for every game. But those tickets won't be for your casual fan in America, they will be given, they will be split evenly between the two nations that are competing to the federations of those nations. So say, for example, the final is England against Brazil.
0.8% of those tickets will be given to the English Federation to distribute to their most loyal fans, i.e. the fans who have been to every qualification game in Albania, Serbia, blah, blah, blah, during the qualification. And the same to Brazil. But that's kind of as good as it gets.
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