"Nobody is watching 90 out of 104 games. It's just too much." That's football historian Jonathan Wilson, and he's not wrong — but FIFA is betting $9 billion that he is.
The 2026 World Cup, co-hosted across the United States, Canada and Mexico, kicks off with the most bloated format in the tournament's history. Forty-eight teams. One hundred and four matches. Nearly six weeks of football. The question isn't whether FIFA will make money — they will, obscenely so. The question is whether the spectacle survives the expansion.
The group stage is basically pre-season now
Here's the structural problem: with 48 teams split into 12 groups and the eight best third-place finishers advancing, the traditional "group of death" is effectively extinct. The jeopardy that made early knockout scenarios so compelling — where a single slip could end a nation's tournament — doesn't really exist until the round of 16.
Clint Dempsey put it plainly: "It's almost like it doesn't start until the round of 32." For a tournament that once felt urgent from minute one of day one, that's a genuine problem. The group stage used to be where giants could fall. Now it's where giants warm up.
That shift matters beyond aesthetics. With the early rounds stripped of meaningful stakes for the top sides, odds on group-stage results become murkier — there's less incentive for already-qualified teams to push in final group games, which historically produces some of the more unpredictable outcomes of any tournament.
Players are paying the price
The fixture congestion is no longer just a talking point — it's showing up in medical reports. Chelsea saw a 44% spike in injuries after the Club World Cup, according to global players' union FIFPRO. Rodrygo, Éder Militão and Estevao have all been ruled out of this tournament after recent injuries. Brazil, already one of the pre-tournament favourites, are heading in with a squad that's been bled dry by a relentless calendar.
"I think the top players get treated a little bit like cattle," Jamie Carragher said. It's a harsh framing, but after this World Cup many of the top stars will have played three consecutive off-season major tournaments — the Euros, Copa America and the expanded Club World Cup all stacking up since 2024.
Maheta Molango, chief executive of the PFA, has been making a more analytical argument: the NFL generates nearly $11 billion annually from media rights with teams playing just 17 regular season games. The Premier League — the world's richest domestic competition — plays 38 games a season and its combined domestic and international broadcast revenue still doesn't reach half that figure. Scarcity has value. Football keeps ignoring it.
The other side of the story
There are genuine feel-good elements to this expansion that deserve acknowledgment, not dismissal. Curacao — the smallest nation by population ever to qualify for a World Cup — are here. So are Jordan, Cape Verde and Uzbekistan, all making their debuts. Haiti are back for the first time since 1974. Josué Duverger, a Haitian goalkeeper playing regional football in Germany, will now share a pitch with Vinícius Júnior and Neymar. New Zealand called up Tommy Smith from Braintree Town, who were relegated from the fifth tier of English football this season.
These aren't filler stories. They're exactly what FIFA's expansion argument is built on — that widening access creates pathways, inspires investment in grassroots football, and brings genuine newcomers into a sport that previously kept its biggest stage exclusive.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino frames this as making football "truly global," and in terms of participation, that's hard to argue against.
- Four nations making their World Cup debut: Curacao, Jordan, Cape Verde, Uzbekistan
- Haiti qualifying for the first time since 1974
- 104 total matches across the tournament
- Ticket prices ranging from $140 to $32,970 face value for the final
- Four tickets to the final listed on FIFA's resale platform at $2.3 million each in April
- FIFA projecting over $9 billion in revenue from the 2026 tournament
The money is real, the reach is real, and Nielsen data shows international football interest in the US is growing. FIFA struck broadcast deals with 180 territories before the tournament even began.
But revenue and quality aren't the same thing. And if the group stage becomes a prolonged formality that even dedicated fans tune out of, the long-term damage to the tournament's identity could outlast the short-term financial surge. As Wilson put it: "A World Cup game should feel almost must-watch." Right now, a significant chunk of them simply don't.
