Analysis by David Goldman, CNN

(CNN) — It was a beautiful, enjoyable, and unifying event. But was the World Cup worth it for the United States? This question is usually answered in financial terms: by weighing the economic benefits generated by the tournament against the costs spent on organizing it. If the result is positive, the games were worthwhile; if negative, they were not.

By this standard, the World Cup was likely a failure.

There is little evidence to support the theory of any tangible U.S. financial gains from hosting the tournament; the expected job growth did not materialize, hotel prices did not see a significant rise, and retail sales growth showed a significant decline in June compared to May. Airline ticket prices remained stable compared to May levels, as did overall tourism traffic.

However, measuring economic return is a complex calculation; how can one isolate the momentum generated by a massive event like the World Cup from the rest of an enormous economy like that of the United States? Here, the evidence becomes subject to subjective interpretation.

But what if the answer is not measured merely in dollars and cents? Is there a reasonable price to pay for enjoyment?

There is no objective metric for this question because the issue of whether a massive soccer tournament is "worth it" is inherently personal.

Little Economic Evidence

Since taxpayers are typically the ones bearing the costs of mega-sporting events—such as the Olympics or the World Cup—which require billions of dollars to organize, organizers rely on armies of economists to build financial justifications for them.

FIFA made significant efforts to clarify the benefits the United States would reap from hosting the 2026 World Cup. In a report issued in March 2025, FIFA estimated that the cost of organizing the tournament would reach $13.9 billion (with the U.S. bearing $11.1 billion of that) and that it would generate $80.1 billion in global economic benefits, with $30.5 billion for the United States. FIFA also claimed the tournament would provide the equivalent of 185,000 full-time jobs in the United States.

If that economic boost was real, it was difficult to detect in the data.

Tourism traffic to the United States remained virtually flat in June compared to the same month last year, recording a slight increase of just 0.2%, according to the U.S. National Travel and Tourism Office. Most of this increase came from Africa (13.8%) and South America (4.7%), while visitor numbers from Europe decreased by 1.2%, and Asian tourism fell by 5.6%.

The inflation report released last week showed a smaller-than-expected impact from the World Cup; hotel prices fell by 2.8%, airfare saw only minimal change, while prices for recreational services rose by just 0.5%.

The jobs report for June showed a sharp decline of 61,000 jobs in the leisure and hospitality sector; a figure so surprising that economists widely expect it to be revised. The U.S. economy also lost about 5,000 jobs in the general merchandise retail sector that same month, clearly indicating a decline in souvenir purchasing. While some hospitality workers may have been asked to work longer hours for higher pay during the tournament, that would not be noticeably reflected in the jobs report.

Retail sales rose by only 0.2% nationally in June, missing economists' expectations and falling below the 1% growth rate recorded in May. The increase in spending at restaurants and bars also did not exceed 0.1% last month.

Local data shows some signs of a recovery spurred by the World Cup; small business sales in host cities rose by 4.1% during June, compared to an increase of 1.8% in major cities that did not host matches, according to Fiserv, a company specializing in financial services for small businesses.

Boston was the biggest beneficiary, recording a 7.6% increase in small business sales, though the Federal Reserve noted that a significant portion of this increase was due to a massive surge in beer sales; likely because Scotland fans consumed almost the entire city's inventory. However, the Federal Reserve noted that Boston hotels initially reported booking rates below expectations during the World Cup, but recovered to normal levels once discounted rates were offered.

Joe Brusuelas, chief U.S. economist at RBS, pointed out that although the World Cup may have boosted general economic activity in host cities, the matches coincided with the war in Iran; a war that led to higher consumer prices and stifled some demand. He added that these two factors—neither of which was overwhelmingly strong—might have offset each other.

"The aggregate (macroeconomic) support from the tournament was not as strong as expected," Brusuelas said.

Accounting Problems

It is difficult to measure the scale of the economic recovery achieved by the United States thanks to the World Cup, due to a long list of unknowns. For example, how much money would have been spent anyway in the absence of the tournament? How does one calculate the losses in productivity caused by commute disruptions and employees being distracted by matches instead of doing their work? And how can one even measure the total cost of organizing these matches?

For instance, FIFA promoted the idea that the infrastructure cost for this version of the World Cup was practically "free," given that Canada, the United States, and Mexico did not need to build any new stadiums, unlike Qatar, which spent billions of dollars to build multiple stadiums for the 2022 tournament.

However, taxpayers bore the cost of those stadiums at some point, likely under the expectation that they could be used for a variety of events, including potential World Cup matches. How much of that cost should be taken into account?

"There are so many confounding variables and so much noise in the data, it's really hard to pinpoint specific gains resulting from these events," said Michael Edwards, a professor of sports management at North Carolina State University.

Who definitely benefited?