This PERSPECTIVES Special previews the Football World Cup 2026, which represents a structural break in the history of the tournament, being hosted across 16 cities in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, thus making it the first truly tri-national and geographically dispersed World Cup.
We assess the World Cup’s potential impact on GDP, jobs, tourism and services activity in the individual host nations and its capacity to act as a short-term demand catalyst for select equity sectors. Significant but limited short-term economic and sectoral benefits are likely across North America, with the deepest market relevance in Mexico and the most limited index effect in Canada and the US.
As the formal review of the USMCA free trade agreement between the US, Canada and Mexico coincides with the tournament we also examine how the World Cup could help the global positioning of the USMCA region as a more integrated economic bloc.