The World Cup Story, Part 3: ‘FIFA, What Have You Become?’

Summary

The Journal. – "The World Cup Story, Part 3: ‘FIFA, What Have You Become?’"

WSJ & Spotify Studios | Hosts: Ryan Knutson & Jessica Mendoza | Air Date: July 17, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into the dramatic and transformative 2026 North American World Cup – examining how its unprecedented scale, controversial moments, and commercial ambitions have forever changed global soccer. Using the tournament’s biggest controversies, commercial successes, and culture clashes, the hosts and guests interrogate FIFA’s evolution from a sporting body to a global entertainment powerhouse, raising core questions about power, money, and the very soul of the game.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Scale and Feel of the 2026 World Cup

• The tournament expanded to 48 teams (from the traditional 32), unleashing an “epic” and “super-sized” event sprawling across multiple countries and time zones.
• Joshua Robinson: “It’s never been this big, it’s never been this ambitious, and it’s never been this unapologetic about itself as a commercial enterprise.” [02:30]
• The expansion allowed smaller nations like Cape Verde, Curacao, and Norway to become “darlings” of the tournament, democratizing the World Cup experience and creating new stories. Cape Verde, especially, became a fan favorite for its unexpected run and positive play. [05:35–06:14]
  • Jonathan Clegg: “Cape Verde, thank you on behalf of the world. You made us dream and watch your dreams lived out in real time.” [06:04]

2. The Impact and Controversy of VAR (Video Assistant Referee)

• VAR became a central, divisive character of the tournament, with highly consequential interventions and a perceived overreach influencing key outcomes.
• Notable example: Egypt’s crucial goal against Argentina was disallowed for a foul 90 yards away, fostering outrage about the system's remit. [08:23]
  • Clegg: “Did Egypt just get robbed?” [08:31]
• The discussion explores the psychological shift VAR has introduced: the celebration of goals undermined by constant doubt.
  • Clegg: "Soccer was something of a Luddite... And now, 15 years later, we are litigating the smallest decisions in slow motion replay." [09:34]
• The panel debates whether this “arbitrary unfairness” is part of soccer’s unique emotional rollercoaster or stifling its appeal.
  • Ryan Knutson: “It has honestly turned me off. It makes me think that maybe I need to be careful before, before falling too in love with this sport.” [10:30]
  • Clegg: "A lot of soccer fandom... is the long wait for that fleeting moment of ecstasy... and to take that away does feel... more emotionally difficult..." [11:45]

3. The Balogun Red Card and Unprecedented Political Intervention

• The defining controversy: U.S. star Folarin Balogun received a red card after VAR review in a critical match, sparking massive debate about intent and fairness. [12:22–13:07]
  • Knutson: “Did he deserve a red card? ... I thought, this doesn't seem like it was intentional.”
• Former President Donald Trump personally intervened, calling FIFA President Gianni Infantino to discuss the call. Subsequently, FIFA’s disciplinary committee decided to suspend Balogun’s punishment, allowing him to play the next match—a move with no modern precedent. [15:39–16:22]
  • Robinson: “I never thought I'd see the day that a U.S. President involved himself in something that happened on the field at the World Cup.” [14:00]
  • Clegg: “The idea of head of state, the US President, the leader of the free world, getting involved... is certainly without precedent.” [16:37]

4. FIFA, Football, and Fairness—"FIFA, What Have You Become?"

• The decision set a precedent: other nations immediately began appealing red and yellow cards, knowing now there’s a window for political or administrative intervention.
  • Clegg: "Once that window has been jammed open even a sliver, you know that these things will continue to happen." [17:53]
• Sepp Blatter, former FIFA President, tweets the Latin phrase: "Quo vadis, FIFA?" ("FIFA, what have you become?") [19:16]
  • Robinson: "If you've outraged Sepp Blatter and his sense of what is proper, then you know, you've gone a little bit far." [19:31]
• FIFA, once insistent on keeping political interference out of football, has now “completely blown that up.” [19:57–20:02]
• Clegg: "The fact that they were willing to row back... to placate the US President... is really a major moment in the organization's history... [FIFA] is now less a... sporting organization and more the sort of content factory, like an entertainment conglomerate." [20:32]

5. FIFA's Commercial Ambitions and the "Content Factory" Turn

• The "Club World Cup" incident foreshadowed the current approach: FIFA bypassed rules to ensure Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami participated, disregarding sporting merit for star quality and commercial appeal. [21:15]
  • Clegg: “That was purely to ensure that Messi would take part... because they know Messi is box office...” [21:28]
• 2026’s tournament shattered expectations for profitability (target: $11–15 billion). With sell-out crowds, merch sales, and record-breaking ratings, it was a financial bonanza.
  • Robinson: “Everywhere we've gone, we have seen fans spend money like drunken sailors. Everyone's got a giant bag full of merch.” [23:01]
  • Clegg: “They've kind of equaled what they made in advertising from the last World Cup just in the ads... during the hydration breaks.” [23:25]

6. ‘Americanization’ of the Tournament

• Features like hydration breaks (essentially TV timeouts) and talk of a halftime show drew comparisons to the Super Bowl and NBA, changing the traditional flow of play.
  • Knutson: “The hydration break is like, no, let's stop the action so we can make room for capitalism.” [23:49]
  • Clegg: “It really does feel like the soccer game is now happening in quarters.” [24:04]
• Despite initial fears, fans and teams embraced an “American hospitality” and pageantry that unexpectedly became a core memory of the tournament.
  • Robinson: “The Tartan army drinking Boston Dry... wherever they went, they left not a beer unturned. And that was kind of the legacy of at least the first few weeks of this party.” [26:09–26:12]

7. The Inevitable Future: More, Bigger, Pricier

• Dynamic pricing, expensive tickets, and high-cost infrastructure are here to stay; successful models will prop up future tournaments.
  • Clegg: “If something has made money for FIFA, they are not going to go back to the way it was before.” [27:42]
• Discussion on plans to increase the World Cup to 64 teams—FIFA may never stop searching for new ceilings.
  • Clegg: “There is no such thing as peak World Cup. They maxed this thing out... and people just ate it up. And so... they will just see more equals good and... lean into the more.” [27:52–28:14]
• Robinson: “No matter what the chatter is in the buildup... the big narrative ceases the moment the football starts. And then it just becomes this insane kind of tidal wave of soccer that dominates everything else.” [28:14]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Joshua Robinson:
  “It’s never been this big, it’s never been this ambitious, and it’s never been this unapologetic about itself as a commercial enterprise.” [02:30]
• Jonathan Clegg:
  “Cape Verde, thank you on behalf of the world. You made us dream and watch your dreams lived out in real time.” [06:04]
• Clegg (on VAR):
  “Did Egypt just get robbed?” [08:31]
• Ryan Knutson:
  “It has honestly turned me off. It makes me think that maybe I need to be careful before, before falling too in love with this sport.” [10:30]
• Clegg (on the U.S. President’s call):
  “The idea of head of state, the US President, the leader of the free world, getting involved... is certainly without precedent.” [16:37]
• Sepp Blatter (tweeted):
  “Quo vadis, FIFA?” (Latin: “FIFA, what have you become?”) [19:16]
• Clegg:
  "FIFA is now less a sporting organization... and more the sort of content factory, like an entertainment conglomerate." [20:32]
• Robinson:
  “Everywhere we've gone, we have seen fans spend money like drunken sailors. Everyone's got a giant bag full of merch.” [23:01]
• Clegg:
  “There is no such thing as peak World Cup. They maxed this thing out... and people just ate it up.” [27:52]

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Important Timestamps / Segments

• 00:11 – Scenes from the tournament: highs, heartbreaks, and the politics overlaying the soccer spectacle
• 02:01–02:45 – First impressions: “epic,” “super size,” unprecedented scale
• 05:13–06:28 – 48-team format proved surprisingly competitive; new nations provided fresh narratives
• 06:58–09:34 – The rise and controversy of VAR and its impact on soccer emotions
• 12:22–13:32 – The Balogun red card, intention vs. rules, and American vs. Bosnian perspectives
• 15:39–17:28 – Trump’s intervention, FIFA reverses red card, creation of a new precedent
• 19:16–20:32 – Sepp Blatter’s critique, FIFA’s core principle shattered
• 21:15–21:55 – The Messi/Inter Miami Club World Cup invite—entertainment over sporting merit
• 22:19–23:49 – Merch sales, TV ratings, hydration breaks—FIFA’s financial windfall and the intrusion of commercials
• 24:58–26:44 – How “American” the World Cup felt: halftime show, pageantry, hospitality
• 26:44–27:42 – Dynamic pricing, future of tournament economics
• 27:42–29:00 – Legacy: “no such thing as peak World Cup”—more, bigger, costlier, and the irresistible pull of the sport

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Episode Summary

The 2026 North American World Cup was not just a sporting event but a seismic shift in global football’s culture and business. The expanded tournament, while feared to dilute quality, gave rise to new soccer fairy tales and unprecedented mass appeal. The omnipresence—and overreach—of VAR placed technology and fairness debates front and center, culminating in an unprecedented political intervention when a U.S. president influenced FIFA’s on-field decisions. FIFA’s shift towards maximizing commercial and entertainment value, even at the expense of tradition and transparency, was unmistakable. The tournament’s success—financial, viewership, and cultural—sets a new, arguably irreversible standard: for FIFA, there is no upper limit, and the World Cup has become both sport and spectacle, with all the tensions that entails.

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Listen If...

• You want a sharp analysis of how money, politics, and culture are reshaping world sports.
• You care about the soul of soccer—its magic, its fairness, its future.
• You’re curious about what happens when business ambitions collide with century-old traditions.

Transcript

[A]

We've had five solid weeks of World cup fever.

[B]

Infield it goes. There's the equalizer. A sensation in Miami at the World Cup.

[A]

High highs and low lows.

[B]

Oh, no, no, no, no, no. What are we doing? No.

[A]

There was politics.

[C]

The president called the head of FIFA to discuss the controversial red card. FIFA on Sunday shocked the tournament by

[A]

sidelining the suspension controversy on the field.

[C]

Surely this is not within VAR's remit to review this. It's the full length of the pitch

[A]

away, foreign fans discovered American delicacies.

[B]

Ranch.

[C]

I love Ranch.

[A]

I tasted here. It's delicious. But even all the ranch dressing couldn't drown out that quintessential soccer emotion. Heartbreak. Joshua Robinson, Jonathan Clegg, both of your teams got knocked out in the semifinals. France and England. I'm so sorry.

[C]

Fortunately, you know, 40 years of experiencing this heartbreak over and over and over and over again has sort of inured me to the crushing disappointment.

[A]

I mean. And Josh, I feel like, you know, France was one of the favorites.

[D]

Yeah. But it was a distinctly French thing to do, which is produce the most beautiful thing imaginable for most of the tournament and then revert to a completely different French emotion.

[A]

Which is what?

[D]

Which is utter disgust and contempt.

[A]

Now the tournament is down to just two teams, Spain and Argentina. They face off on Sunday ahead of the final. I got back into the studio with Josh and John to talk about the World cup so far. What are some words that you would choose to describe this year's World Cup?

[D]

The word I'd use is epic in every sense of the word, simply because of the size and scale of this whole thing, whether it's the sheer number of teams who are in this, the sheer number of fans who came over.

[A]

What about you, John?

[C]

Super size. In keeping with the American setting for this World cup, it's just been enormous, sprawling. Different countries, you know, different time zones. But a spectacular run of games has made it a huge success.

[D]

We're going to look back at the 2026 World cup as a kind of BCAD moment in the history of the tournament. It's never been this big, it's never been this ambitious, and it's never been this unapologetic about itself as a commercial enterprise.

[C]

It was the World cup where they realized that there is not enough. There cannot be enough World Cup. There always needs to be more.

[A]

Welcome to the Journal, our show about money, business, and I'm Ryan knudsen. It's Friday, July 17th. Coming up on the show, how this year's North American World cup has changed the game of soccer forever.

[E]

This episode is presented by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales using automation, analytics and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn [e-mail] Spotify this episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales using automation, analytics and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn [e-mail] Spotify.

[A]

How many games have you guys watched in person?

[C]

I think I've been to 10. Wow, 10.

[D]

So I've been to 17 games so far. 17 and I think taken 22 flights. I'm basically a flight attendant now.

[A]

That was before the semifinals when we first spoke. It's now gone up to 12 games for John and 20 for Josh. All right, well, let's talk about the football itself. This has been the biggest World cup ever. There's 48 teams instead of 32. How did that work out?

[D]

I think we were initially skeptical about the 48 team format and thought that it would create a lot of mismatches and a lot of teams that just didn't really belong at the World Cup. Pretty quickly we realized we were wrong about that. All of these teams, you know, the ones who are in that 32 to 48 space that wouldn't have made the World cup previously, they all delivered, right.

[A]

You're talking about countries like Cape Verde, Norway, Paraguay.

[D]

Exactly. They came and they were, you know, real teams of professionals who wanted to put their country on display. Think about Norway, for instance. That was a team that hadn't been to the World cup since 1998. And here they were led in by this extra room, an extra wiggle room in qualifying, and they became immediately one of America's darlings, and that's not to mention Curacao. And Cape Verde.

[B]

Cape Verde, thank you on behalf of the world. You made us dream and watch your dreams lived out in real time.

[D]

You know, Cape Verde, especially a team that managed to pull off a draw against Spain and play Argentina quite close in the knockout rounds. That was one of the feel good stories of this tournament and they would not have been in without 48 teams.

[C]

And I think it's no coincidence that the 48 team tournament is the first one where we've seen so many of the biggest stars in soccer, you know, hitting the heights and firing on all cylinders at the same time.

[B]

And of course, it's Lionel Messi, Mbappe, simply irrepressible. Erling Haaland meets the World cup. The World cup meets Sterling Haaland.

[A]

One of the other big storylines of this World cup was this instant replay system that they have, var. There were several controversial decisions that led to goals being disallowed or players being sent off after a or VAR review.

[D]

Well, we've seen the rapid rise of VAR across world soccer for the past five years or so. And what it's done is just created an entirely new sphere for fans to litigate every single decision.

[A]

I don't know what is happening, but I feel like VAR is actually ruining

[C]

this game and I watch it in football and there's just like this massive element of doubt over every little decision. They did not follow the right VAR protocol.

[D]

We have this meta debate now of when VAR should and shouldn't be used. It's also caused this crazy shift in the rhythms of the game where goals go in and you have no idea if it's a real goal or not, because it may need to be checked, where every penalty, every contact in the box immediately causes outrage among fans who are demanding a review. And we've seen a really quite heavy handed application of that at this World cup where VAR is being used seemingly with more latitude than ever before. And I think one of the best examples was the Egypt goal against Argentina where Egypt had a goal disallowed at a crucial point in the game for a foul that happened 90 yards away much, much earlier in the buildup.

[C]

Egypt felt that they were mistreated after a VAR intervention disallowed Mustafa Ziko's goal for a foul.

[D]

Did Egypt just get robbed?

[C]

I will say I think one of the reasons that there has been such pushback and such outrage about the way that VAR is used in soccer is that as recently as sort of 15 years ago, soccer was something of a sort of Luddite when it came to technology and sports. There was no instant replay. There was no sort of goal line technology to let you know whether the ball had bounced one side of the line or the other. Offsides were decided on by the linesman, you know, whether he raised his flag or not. None of that stuff was automated as it is now. And that all changed at the 2010 World cup at a game that I was at when England played Germany, the knockout rounds, and a guy called Frank Lampard struck a shot from outside the area that hit the crossbar and bounced about a foot beyond the goal line. Clear goal. Even clear. To me, watching from the press box, that definitely went over the line by a yard. It was clear that the ball had bounced beyond the line. But the referee was the one person in the entire stadium who hadn't seen that.

[B]

Did it go in? No. The officials over the line or not? Yes, most definitely. It's well over. England are denied an equalizer.

[A]

Germany went on to win that game 4 to 1.

[C]

And FIFA's line at the time was that like, this is the way football is. Sometimes these things happen and they're not fair. But this is the human element of football. And officiating will always be done by humans. It's a sort of part of the game. Metaphor for life. Exactly. You have to take the ups and downs because the next time the luck, we'll go with you. And the fact that we have now moved so quickly in the space of 15 years to an environment where we are litigating the smallest decisions in slow motion replay to determine whether or not someone intentionally or accidentally stepped on the back of somebody else's ankle. Soccer fans are still sort of taken aback by how quickly this has happened.

[A]

After that controversial non goal, FIFA introduced goal line technology to help determine whether a goal had been scored. As a casual soccer fan who like, kind of really wants to be a soccer fan, watching this World cup and seeing how VAR has been applied, it has honestly turned me off. It makes me think that maybe I need to be careful before, before falling too in love with this sport.

[D]

But I think it would be much the same experience if you were tuning into the NFL today for the first time or the last three minutes of an NBA playoff game where we have no idea what is a catch, the last three minutes take 15 minutes because you have six reviews. I mean, it's the.

[A]

Although I actually think that it's, it's, it's a bit different because in football if you're at the 10 yard line and you score a touchdown and gets called back because there's a penalty, you know, you're still at the 10 yard line or you're moved back, you know, 5 or 10 yards, you get three more chances of the end zone. In soccer, they take back a goal and like that's it, you know, you're back to the drawing board. You don't get any kind of credit for that progress that you had made up until that point.

[C]

Yeah. And it's. It's a low scoring game. Goals are very rare. So the idea of one being chalked off for something that was not visible or notable in real time. Yeah.

[A]

That no human would have caught at all. You can see on the VAR or the sensor inside the ball that it grazed the Croatian player's head.

[C]

You know, and I will say a lot of soccer fandom is like the joy of it is the long wait for that sort of fleeting moment of ecstasy that happens when a goal hits the back of the net. And to take that away does feel, you know, sort of more emotionally difficult to sort of handle than it does when a catch is ruled, you know, incomplete or a completion. But I will say, if you're finding it to sort of get on board with soccer because of that, I would sort of argue that actually, all these things that we've seen, the seemingly arbitrary unfairness of instant replay, this is actually part of what makes soccer such an amazing game to follow. It is an outrageous game.

[A]

You're a masochist, John. I think you like pain. For many US Fans, the most painful and most replayed moment of this entire World cup was the Fuller and Baligan red card. Baligan, the top U.S. goal scorer, got that red card only after a long VAR review, a review that showed him stepping on the ankle of a Bosnian Herzegovina player.

[B]

The final decision is red card. Wow.

[A]

Getting a red card meant he had to leave the field immediately and he had to miss the next game. Did he deserve a red card? I mean, I was watching that game and thought, this doesn't seem like it was intentional. Yeah, he stepped on his foot, but it wasn't like he was trying to hurt him or making a play that wasn't just a soccer play.

[D]

You could argue it either way because the rules don't actually make a provision for intention. It remains a dangerous challenge. And so it wasn't a completely ludicrous call from the referee.

[C]

I think how accidental it was also depended a bit on whether you were watching it with American eyes or Bosnian eyes, because I'm sure they felt it was an outrageous challenge that was absolutely deserving of a red card.

[D]

And also at what speed? Because the more you slow it down and the more angles you see this thing from, the worse it looks.

[A]

But the call on the field wasn't the most shocking part. It was what happened next.

[F]

So I saw the play, and I'm a person that loves sports and was a good athlete. And I understand sports really well, really well. And that wasn't a foul. That wasn't even an infraction. That was two guys running.

[D]

I never thought I'd see the day that a US President involved himself in something that happened on the field at the World Cup.

[A]

After the break, Trump's intervention and what it means for the future of the World cup plus FIFA's cash bonanza.

[G]

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[H]

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[A]

After the game where Baligan got that red card, President Donald Trump called the head of FIFA, Johnny Infantino, a man he knows well. You can hear all about their relationship in our last World cup episode.

[D]

Yeah, I did.

[F]

I spoke to Johnny, who's highly respected.

[D]

Donald Trump calls his personal friend Johnny Infantino and simply asks him to look at this decision. He says that he doesn't explicitly ask him to overturn it.

[A]

FIFA says its disciplinary committee revisited the decision and decided to suspend Baligan's punishment, meaning he'd be able to play in the next match, the quarterfinal against Belgium. How big of a moment do you think this will be in the history of FIFA World Cups?

[C]

I mean, I think huge. I think it is honestly like a line in the sand that there will be a before and after the Baligan decision.

[A]

Has anything like this ever happened before where there was this kind of intervention at this high of a level in

[C]

the modern history of soccer, if you get a red card, you miss the next game. And that's just the way it goes. So there had been no sort of precedent for that in terms of the on the field decision and the off the field decision. The idea of head of state, the US President, the leader of the free world, getting involved in something as sort of mundane as whether a player will be available for a World cup game is certainly without precedent. But you will recall from when we spoke the last time that Gianni Infantino has spent the previous decade sort of cozying up to Trump and visiting the Oval Office numerous times, accompanying Trump on his many, you know, trips around the world for matters that have zero relevance to professional soccer. But this is the time when that relationship that Infantino has spelt so long carefully building really comes into its own.

[A]

In the end, Belgium beat the US 4 to 1. In a statement, FIFA's disciplinary committee said, quote, reviewing the legal consequences of red cards in football is nothing new in the modern game. After their win, which eliminated the U.S. the Belgian team posted a message on social media, overturn this.

[D]

And the players celebrated by doing the Trump dance.

[C]

The fact that there is now a precedent for a red card to be overturned, you saw it immediately in the days afterwards, and other players who had been red carded or yellow carded, immediately their national federations started appealing to FIFA, requesting that those decisions also be overturned. The fact that that precedent now exists means that there will always be that sort of gray area or window for FIFA to step in and intervene. And once that window has been jammed open even a sliver, you know that these things will continue to happen. I think that this also marked a sort of sea change in how FIFA involves itself in the actual game that happens on the field. You know, we have talked a lot about FIFA's long history of corruption and under the table dealing in our previous episodes. But all of that was really concerned the stuff that happens around the World cup. Where will the games be played, which country gets to host it, how many teams will be involved. It's all really like about the sort of economics or logistics of putting on the World Cup. And this was the first time that FIFA had really intervened to affect what happens on the pitch. And that I think is a seismic change in what they were able to do. And one that Even figures from FIFA's scandal ridden past felt had sort of crossed the line.

[A]

The former head of FIFA set Blatter, who stepped down after FIFA's corruption scandals but was never charged, spoke out about the Baligan decision. He tweeted, quo vadis, FIFA, Latin for FIFA, what have you become?

[D]

And if you've outraged Sepp Blatter and his sense of what is proper, then you know, you've gone a little bit far. FIFA as an organization has always, always preached this idea that they resist any political interference, any political messaging, even within the white lines of the pitch that is sacred to them. And in one fell swoop, they've completely blown that up.

[A]

How would you answer that question that Seb Blatter posed? What have you become FIFA?

[D]

I think it just leaves the door open now to more interference, more intervention and dense FIFA's legitimacy. I know it sounds crazy, but dense. It's in a way that it hadn't been before. You know, I don't think that it will affect Gianni Infantino's election prospects, but it does make it harder for him. We know that also anytime he now preaches this idea of non political intervention, that it's not true. It's simply not anything he can defend anymore.

[C]

The fact that they were willing to row back on essentially their most fundamental principle to placate the US President and get an American player suspension put off is really a major moment in the organization's history. It also adds to the impression that FIFA is now less a sort of sporting organization, an organization of sports administration, and more the sort of content factory, like an entertainment conglomerate.

[A]

John says this impression really started to emerge two years ago during something called the Club World cup that was supposed to be a tournament of all the champions from the various leagues around the world, as in the champion of the Spanish league plays the champion of the English league, et cetera.

[C]

And they promised to invite the champion of the U.S. the champion of Major League Soccer. But when it came to it, they actually did not invite the champion of Major League Soccer. They invited Lionel Messi's into Miami, who had finished the regular season with the best record but had not won the championship. They were knocked out in the playoffs. Now, FIFA specifically found a loophole by saying that all the other champions who were invited were the teams who finished at the top of their table. But American sports does not work like that. The regular season does not decide who is the champion. The champion is decided by the playoffs. FIFA overlooked that, decided to invite Lionel Messi, and that was purely to ensure that Messi would take part in the tournament, because they know Messi is box office and people will pay through the nose to watch Messi play in those games. And I think that was really the first sign of how far Infantino is willing to go to sort of put his thumb on the scale to make sure that the product, the games on the pitch adhere to the sort of vision he has for FIFA. Rather than letting the sports stuff happen and administering everything outside of that.

[A]

So let's dig in on that entertainment value and the money that FIFA makes from that. We talked in our earlier episodes about how this tournament was expected to be super lucrative for FIFA. They're talking about it as like 104 Super Bowls. Is it possible to get a sense of how profitable this tournament has been so far? Has it delivered on that?

[D]

We won't know for sure until FIFA releases the numbers. The target was $11 billion. There was talk of it hitting $15 billion. And based on the games we've been to, nearly every game has been a sellout. None of these fears about tickets being too expensive to actually fill the seats came to pass. You know, everywhere we've gone, we have seen fans spend money like drunken sailors. Everyone's got a giant bag full of merch.

[A]

Everybody's in debt now.

[D]

Everybody's in. The ratings have been insane. The record for the most watched soccer game in US History has been broken, I think at least twice. We had England, Mexico, from the Azteco, which was incredible. We also had the US Belgium game that instantly became the most watched US game. So I think by all accounts, FIFA will claim this as a massive, massive success.

[C]

Yeah, I think the number is going to be enormous and I think it will exceed the 11 billion figure that they hoped for. And everyone's making out here, the broadcasters, we know that even the amount of ads they've sold in the hydration breaks, they've kind of equaled what they made in advertising from the last World cup, just in the ads that they've sold during the hydration breaks. So it's definitely been in that side of things. It's been a monumental success.

[A]

The hydration breaks also feel like another area where FIFA is changing the actual game itself. Because when I watch soccer, I can't take my eyes off it because a goal can literally happen in seconds. And so the hydration break is like, no, let's stop the action so we can make room for capitalism.

[C]

Yeah, the hydration breaks really make a huge difference. I know it seems crazy that a three minute drinks break in the middle of a half would change it, but it really does feel like the soccer game is now happening in quarters. Even just discussing it with Josh, I'll be like, oh, you remember in the third quarter we had this happen that sort of has definitely changed the way that we experience the games. So much as soccer is because the scoring is relatively low. So much of it is about the momentum and the sort of slow Ratcheting up of tension where one team is suddenly having more and more of the ball and the other teams really feels pending the fact that that is then disrupted by, you know, this break. And then the coach gets to explain, no, no, no, you need to do this, you need to do this.

[D]

And for the teams under pressure, it also acts kind of like an emergency NBA timeout where it just gives them a breather. And suddenly that moment, the buildup, the like constant pounding of crosses and passes into the box stops for a moment, and then they're going to be okay.

[C]

Yes, like the bell at the end of the round.

[A]

FIFA says the hydration breaks are a way to prioritize player welfare. We talked in the last episode about how sort of American this tournament might feel with these hydration breaks for more commercials. Is the final having a halftime show? Has that, has it felt sort of American in the way that you were anticipating?

[D]

Felt so American.

[A]

How so?

[D]

I think what's amazing about this tournament is how worried we all were before that politics would interfere in it, that people wouldn't feel welcome, that people would come to America and think, hang on, this whole thing is a giant pastiche of a World Cup. What we saw instead was 40 something countries coming to America and seeing a different kind of America. It's not the product that World cup organizers thought they were gonna give them. It wasn't, hey, come look at our lavish NFL stadiums and eat our popcorn and drink our beer. They kind of showed up, discovered a form of American hospitality in the most unlikely places. I think back to the Algeria team partying with people in Lawrence, Kansas. The Tartan army drinking Boston Dry.

[A]

In New York when they came to play here.

[D]

Exactly. Wherever they went, they left not a beer unturned. And that was kind of the legacy of at least the first few weeks of this party.

[C]

I think I thought beforehand that there might be times when this felt like a sort of, you know, foreign sport that happened to be being played in the US But I think what's inarguable is that America has sort of managed to put its imprint on this tournament. And I think in that sense, the US succeeded in sort of making this an American World cup, which, you know, I wasn't really sure how well they would be able to do that beforehand.

[A]

So do we think that, like the economic things, so to speak, dynamic pricing, the high prices, you know, the cities that were charging exorbitant amounts to take public transit out to these stadiums, are those things going to be here to stay for Future World Cups?

[C]

100%, yes. FIFA is not going to roll back from. From that. Yeah. Now, I think there is a. There are questions to be asked about how well some of those models will work when the World cup moves to, you know, less affluent hosts than North America. But again, you know, who knows what their plans are for which countries can host this tournament in the future. We've already heard from Gianni Infantino about his plans to increase the tournament to 64 teams, which was something that we, you know, foreshadowed heavily when we discussed this, you know, before the tournament started. Would it surprise anyone if that happened as soon as the next World Cup? It could easily happen by then. But one thing is for sure is that if something has made money for FIFA, they are not going to go back to the way it was before.

[A]

It sounds like this World cup has shown us that FIFA, the tournament, and even the sport itself are changing. Is that the legacy, do you think, of this World Cup?

[C]

Yeah, I actually think if there's a legacy that Infantino and FIFA will take from this, it's actually that there is no such thing as peak World Cup. They maxed this thing out as big as they possibly could and people just ate it up. And so I think that they will just see more equals good and just lean into the more.

[D]

And I think for us, it also confirmed that this thing that we've kind of known from covering previous World Cups, which is that no matter what the chatter is in the buildup, no matter how scandal ridden or potentially disastrous it is, and we're talking about human rights in Qatar, it was geopolitics. In Russia, it was ticket prices. Here, the big narrative ceases the moment the football starts. And then it just becomes this insane kind of tidal wave of soccer that dominates everything else.

[A]

That's all for today. Friday, July 17th. This episode was produced by Max Green with help from Evelyn Fajardo Alvarez. It was edited by piagetkari. By the way, this Sunday we have another episode in our special series about all the ways work is changing. Last Sunday's episode is about AI, and this week it's about influencers. I hope you'll check it out. The Journal is a co production of Spotify and the Wall Street Journal. The show is made by Laura Benchoff, Catherine Brewer, Sophie Kodner, Matt Kwong, Colin McNulty, Jessica Mendoza, Laura Morris, Enrique Perez de la Rosa, Sarah Platt, Allen Rodriguez Espinosa, Heather Rogers, Pierce Singh, Jeevika Verma, Kathryn Whalen, Tatiana Zamis, and me, Ryan Knudsen. Our engineers are Griffin Tanner, Nathan Singapak, and Peter Leonard. Our theme music is by so Wylie and remixed in today's episode by Peter Leonard. Additional music this week from Katherine Anderson, Peter Leonard, Billy Libby, Bobby Lord, Emma Munger, Nathan Singapok, Griffin Tanner, so Wiley and Blue Dot Sessions. Fact checking this week by Nicole Fasolka. Thanks for listening. We'll see you Sunday.