ARLINGTON, Texas — Editor's note: The video published above is a WFAA report from September 2022, which was the first time a report surfaced that claimed Dallas would host the World Cup Final.
Well ... it's happened again: Dallas is being billed as the favorite to secure the 2026 World Cup Final.
ESPN Deportes show Jorge Ramos y su Banda reported the following things on their show Friday:
- Mexico will open the 2026 World Cup, playing in Estadio Azteca in Mexico City
- The United States' first match will be played in SoFi Stadium in California
- Dallas is the leading candidate to host the 2026 World Cup Final
The video posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, has garnered more than 600,000 views. This is not the first time Dallas has been dubbed as the final host.
Back in September 2022, ESPN Deportes reporters Herculez Gomez and John Sutcliffe reported that AT&T Stadium would be the venue for the final match. Local officials and representatives of organizations involved in such a decision downplayed that report, saying they hadn't yet confirmed this information themselves.
FC Dallas owner Dan Hunt, who chairs the Dallas bid committee, told the Dallas Morning News that FIFA is expected to announce the site of the final and how many matches will be played at AT&T Stadium in the fourth quarter of 2023.
The Jorge Ramos y su Banda also reported that Los Angeles is not in contention for the 2026 World Cup Final, which corroborates a report in March from United Kingdom publication The Sunday Times that stated SoFi Stadium may not be able to meet the proper requirements.
According to the report, SoFi's field is too narrow, and widening it would remove seats that would drop the maximum capacity below FIFA’s minimum requirement of 80,000 seats.
AT&T Stadium has a similar playing field dimension issue, so Dallas' fix is to raise the field level to accommodate a wider playing surface.
Even with the elevated field, which would take some of the capacity out, the stadium's capacity still won't be an issue. AT&T Stadium is listed at 80,000 capacity but is expandable to 105,000. Cowboys sources confirmed to WFAA in December 2022 that they planned on making $295 million worth of renovations over the next couple of years.
The FIFA delegation visited Dallas on March 16 to tour AT&T Stadium, Dallas Sports Commission officials confirmed to WFAA, as part of its "regular check-in process" with host cities. FIFA representatives also visited Dallas in August of 2022.
Gomez, who made the original report back in September 2022, notably "reposted" a quote on X from another account that translated this new report from the Jorge Ramos y su Banda show into English. That post on X has 1 million views.
A feather in the cap that could sweeten the bid for Dallas in FIFA's eyes was the designation by the Sports Business Journal as America's top market for sports business. Dallas prevailed as the top dog in this report over the cities it's competing against for the World Cup final. New York finished second and Los Angeles came in sixth.
The 2026 FIFA World Cup is set to be the biggest one in history. FIFA approved a new format for the 2026 World Cup, increasing the amount of games that will be played. The organization created a 104-game schedule that will last nearly six weeks in the United States, Canada and Mexico. The 16 host cities — 11 in the United States, three in Mexico and two in Canada — now have 24 extra games to stage on top of the 80 they already had for the inaugural 48-team tournament.
The 2026 World Cup was already set to earn up to $3 billion in ticket and hospitality sales for FIFA, and massively increase the tournament attendance record.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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