Bread and Roses

Off-field, the 2026 World Cup highlights vulnerabilities in mega-event hosting, while opening spaces for workers in the US and Canada to demand fairness, affordability and safety.

This World Cup has exposed the weaknesses and contradictions of hosting global sporting events, while also creating opportunities for workers and local communities to win changes that make the tournament more accessible, affordable, and safe.

Among international sporting bodies, FIFA’s reputation is widely criticized as among the most corrupt, inflexible, and profit-driven of largely unregulated institutions.

The 2026 World Cup has exposed deeper worker and labor issues, particularly around accountability for the fan and local experience. FIFA has shifted responsibility for public transportation, security, and infrastructure onto host cities while retaining the majority of matchday revenue through ticketing, concessions, and parking. Across the US and Canada, host city agreements – often signed under prior elected administrations – have locked in terms that favor international officials and corporate partners over taxpayers, budget planners, and frontline hospitality workers. The resulting tensions among policymakers, hospitality workers, and FIFA have highlighted structural vulnerabilities in hosting mega-events, while also creating space for workers and local communities to push for greater fairness, affordability, and safety in the delivery of the World Cup.

At Los Angeles Stadium at Hollywood Park in Inglewood, California (SoFi Stadium), workers have leveraged the start of the Cup to win a new contract and protections against ICE. UNITE HERE Local 11 announced its willingness to strike in the lead-up to matches kicking off, but announced that they had reached a tentative agreement last week: “The tentative agreement secures massive wage increases, landmark job protections, and groundbreaking privacy rights. Notably, it includes an explicit right to strike if ICE or Border Patrol activity at the worksite threatens worker safety.”

Similar willingness to strike was also announced by UNITE HERE Local 8, representing hotel workers in the Pacific Northwest, with workers bargaining for similar protections, including, like those in Los Angeles, a right to strike if worker safety is threatened by federal immigration enforcement. Citing progress in negotiations and alluding to potential concessions won, UNITE HERE LOCAL 274 in Philadelphia postponed strikes in advance of the June 12th deadline for their hotel, room attendants, cooks, servers, bartenders, dishwashers, and banquet staff.

The magnitude of the tournament's return to the United States for the first time in 32 years represents an opportunity for matchday and hospitality workers with expiring or lapsed contracts to bargain for unprecedented wins.

Media coverage of ticket prices and hotel block cancellations by FIFA increases pressure, alongside the time pressure of the start of the tournaments, highlighting the strategic importance of timing and climate in negotiations with management, even if FIFA claims it is not directly involved.

The tournament, like many international sporting tournaments, is touted by FIFA and partnering political leaders as a unique, one-in-a-lifetime, business and revenue opportunity. A host country is promised increased tourism and quarterly and annual revenue projections, jobs, and infrastructure projects. But it has now been proven that the World Cup doesn’t come with any of these. Much of the cost is borne by local taxpayers, while FIFA and partnering corporate entities rake in the majority of the resulting revenue.

To offset taxpayer costs, city and state governments in the US and Canada purchased tickets directly from FIFA for resale, reducing the financial burden of hosting the tournament. In Toronto and Vancouver, where matches will be played at Toronto Stadium (BMO Field) and BC Place, Vancouver Stadium (BC Place), city governments are selling packages to corporations and donors. Media coverage of record-high average ticket prices serves as marketing, but recent coverage of the collapse of FIFA’s ticketing release scheme and of ticket prices calls into question how profitable the scheme might be.

In New York and New Jersey, the city and state governments, respectively, have released limited numbers of tickets available through lottery or targeted groups.

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced $50 tickets for 1,000 NYC residents with free round-trip bus tickets to and from the stadium. New Jersey countered by offering free tickets to 770 residents from specific community groups identified by the state. But all these efforts, while media-friendly, make little difference to the ticket fiasco.

This comes as ticket prices have plummeted from initial release prices, and fears of empty stadiums came to fruition on Mexico’s opening day.

For fans unlucky enough to score a city- or state-level ticket and unwilling or unable to pay record prices, FIFA and host cities are also offering official Fanfests. These fanzones offer large festival-like viewing experiences: “fans will gather for live match broadcasts on large-scale video boards, immersive fan activations, and daily entertainment.” Many of these Fanfests are free to enter but require pre-reserved tickets, which are appearing on the secondary market at prices higher than the match tickets offered by the NYC lottery. The Fanfests’ appeal is simple: the next closest thing to being in the stadium. Attendees can reasonably expect to hold a ticket, not bring in outside food or drink, experience fans and free entertainment/performances, and watch the match. Early concession prices appear similar to those at stadiums, and many matches are viewed in standing-only areas, although in some locations seated tickets are still available at a price closer to the “get-in price” at a host stadium.

Fans in Boston traveling to the Boston Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts (Gillette Stadium), can expect to pay $80 for a round trip on matchday. Although the stadium size hasn’t increased from an NFL Sunday when fans travel to watch the New England Patriots, the price has ballooned 400% from the $20 round trip.

An NJ Transit train ticket from New York Penn Station to MetLife (renamed “New York/New Jersey Stadium” per FIFA regulations) costs $12.90 on non-matchdays throughout the summer. The same trip will cost ticketholders $105 on matchday throughout the 2026 World Cup. This is down from the initial price of $150, thanks in part to a partnership NJ Transit announced with the delivery app DoorDash to adorn the trains with its branding. Many of America’s public transportation authorities face budget shortfalls and degrading infrastructure. Increasing the matchday price for ticket holders is seen by officials as an additional opportunity to recoup costs associated with operations and matchday security.

The small town of Foxborough successfully took FIFA to task publicly over security funding. It withheld the necessary licensing to play in the “Boston Stadium” until it was received, again through a private partnership.

FIFA is also offering fans an opportunity to own a commemorative edition FIFA 2026 World Cup jersey for $375 - the price of a secondary market, last-minute match ticket. The limited-edition shirts are city-specific and meant to commemorate the host cities through an artistic expression of local iconography. There is no partner branding or local manufacturing on these, and they can only be purchased directly from FIFA or on the secondary market.

New York City is offering a locally sourced $50 alternative official limited-edition version that has locals lined up for its release. The jerseys were handmade in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, and are available in three colors at the official NYC City store on a first-come, first-served basis, offering an alternative public-private cooperative model centered on locality, authenticity, and affordability. Offering an alternative to the official FIFA iteration of anything seems to be a political-cultural win for football fans or locals wanting to engage with a World Cup insistent on trying to price them out.