The World Cup is healing us

Summary

Today, Explained — "The World Cup is Healing Us"

Date: June 29, 2026
Hosts: Sean Rameswaram & Noel King
Guests: Constance Grady (Vox Senior Culture Correspondent), Roger Bennett (Men in Blazers)
Main Theme:
Exploring how the 2026 Men's World Cup, despite political tensions and controversies, has become a source of unexpected optimism, uniting fans and reviving America’s soft power, even as commercial and cultural fault lines appear in the “Americanization” of the global tournament.

---

Episode Overview

This episode takes a close look at the 2026 Men’s World Cup hosted in North America, focusing on surprising moments of joy, cultural connection, and soft power at play amid a divisive political climate in the United States. The hosts and guests discuss the positives—such as worldwide affection for American everyday life—and the controversies, including strict visa policies, global criticisms of "hydration breaks," and the commercialization of the event. Throughout, they highlight how the World Cup has provided a rare, uplifting experience that counters both domestic pessimism and America’s fraught global image.

---

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. A World Cup Shadowed by Controversy but Surging with Positivity

• Political and Social Backdrop:
  • Host Sean Rameswaram sets the tone by acknowledging the expectation that this World Cup would be problematic—due to U.S. political tensions, exclusionary policies (such as denying entry to the Cape Verde goalie’s mother and Senegalese fans), and military conflicts involving participant nations. Yet, despite these negative circumstances, the general "vibes at this World Cup are mostly positive" (00:00).
• Memorable Quote:
  • “Missiles aren’t the problem, but somehow the vibes at this World Cup are mostly positive. The World Cup might just be healing us.” — Sean Rameswaram (01:10)

---

2. Why is the World Cup Culturally Uplifting?

Constance Grady’s Cultural View:

• Social Joy Over Sports Knowledge:
  • Constance Grady, not a typical sports fan, explains her fascination with how the World Cup fosters widespread happiness and collective excitement. (02:35)
• Charmed by World Cup Tourists:
  • Social media is filled with videos of foreign fans marveling at American sights—fire trucks, endless soda refills, giant supermarkets—which she finds both delightful and revealing. (03:59–04:50)
• America as a Pop Culture Dream:
  • “They look at a yellow school bus and they say, well, I’ve seen that on The Simpsons. This is like walking into a fictional universe.” — Constance Grady (05:05)
• Soft Power, Despite the Politics:
  • These interactions highlight the enduring power of “America” as an idea, showing a resilience in cultural influence even during politically tough times.
  • “I think that these videos...show how deeply embedded the idea of America is across the world.” — Constance Grady (05:10)

---

3. Soft Power: What the World Cup is Reviving

• Definition and Context:
  • Grady explains "soft power"—a country’s influence through attraction and cultural pull—as something the US has historically excelled in, which has been undermined by the Trump administration’s policies and rhetoric. (06:32–07:20)
• Presidential Approach:
  • Trump, focused on “hard power”, has dismissed the importance of attraction, stating, “Real power is...the word is fear.” — Roger Bennett quoting Trump (08:35)
• Unintentional Rehabilitation:
  • The global, multicultural joy around the World Cup is rebuilding some of America’s soft power, not through policy but through the grassroots hospitality and excitement shown by ordinary Americans.
  • “A lot of people in America have been very welcoming to these tourists from around the world and excited to show them the country.” — Constance Grady (08:55)

---

4. Who’s Left Out?

• Limitations of Access:
  • Grady notes a reality check—the most visible happy tourists are mostly Europeans, who face fewer barriers to entry. Still, the desire to see “America” endures, reinforcing its pop culture mythology. (09:53)

---

5. Is America’s Soft Power Here to Stay?

• Potential for Recovery:
  • “I think it shows that we still have a fighting chance...[but] so much depends on what directions we move in after the end of what’s going to be Trump’s final term in office....What gives me hope about the World Cup is how much it shows that a genuine interest in and respect for people from other countries ... is also still part of the story of America.” — Constance Grady (10:58)

---

6. Hydration Breaks: American Capitalism Meets Global Football

• What Are Hydration Breaks?
  • A new rule during the North American summer: scheduled breaks halfway through each half for players to hydrate—officially explained as a "sporting matter." (16:35)
• But...Commercialization?
  • In practice, on Fox and other networks, these have become commercial breaks, angering football traditionalists worldwide.
  • “Hydration breaks...have done something that I thought was almost impossible in the football world, which is to unite the entire planet in anger against its very existence.” — Roger Bennett (16:12)
• Impact on the Game:
  • The breaks disrupt the game’s natural flow and momentum, serving as de facto timeouts for tactical resets, sometimes changing outcomes. (18:45–22:34)
  • “Anthony Robinson, the US Player, said he wanted to walk back onto the field and get back into his position. And one of the officials was like, no, sorry, the commercials are still playing. Stay where you are.” — Roger Bennett (21:27)
• Will They Stay?
  • The future of hydration breaks highlights cultural tensions between American sports’ commercial model and football’s global working-class heritage.
  • “Ultimately, the whole game of football is currently in a battle between its roots and its authentic essence and just the commercial imperative that comes from being as big as it is.” — Roger Bennett (22:57)

---

7. European Fans and America’s Productivity Conundrum

• Call of the World Cup:
  • Roger Bennett discusses the phenomenon of traveling European fans, whose dedication is seen as both enviable and mysterious by Americans. (24:45–27:25)
• Quote on Fan Culture:
  • “It is the spine to my life. When I meet someone and they tell me they met me in like 1997, my mind goes to the nearest World Cup, 1998.... So it’s a—it’s not a ‘should I go, can I go,’ it really is a compulsion.” — Roger Bennett (26:14)
• Joy in Collective Ritual:
  • The mass pilgrimage of Scottish, Norwegian, and Dutch fans becomes emblematic of the World Cup’s power as a cultural event, even if it means neglecting work and other obligations, which, Bennett jokes, is good for the world.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Wonder of Everyday America:

  • “They’re so excited about, like, the red fire trucks.” — Constance Grady (04:06)
  • “I love buggies. It's so cute.” — Sean Ramaswamy (04:45)

• On Soft Power and American Hospitality:

  • “It’s kind of serving that purpose in spite of [Trump]. I think in large part because, despite the xenophobia of Trump’s base, a lot of people in America have been very welcoming to these tourists from around the world.” — Constance Grady (08:49)

• Hydration Breaks as a Fault Line:

  • “Football is a working class game... Football is deeply historic and there’s an authenticity to it. The heat is terrible in the United States, but many of these stadia are indoors or air conditioned until you have this kind of ridiculous, surreal situation where footballers are taking a break in an air conditioned stadium.” — Roger Bennett (18:45)

• On European Fans:

  • “GDP plummets. Seriously in Europe during the World Cup at an enormous clip. These fans, by the way, many of them sell houses. They sell off everything, they save for this....It is the spine to my life.” — Roger Bennett (25:15–26:15)

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:00–02:30: Setting the stage—political controversies, surprising optimism
• 02:30–05:49: Constance Grady on cultural delight, America’s global pop-culture role
• 06:14–08:09: Explaining “soft power,” Trump’s antagonism toward it
• 08:09–09:53: World Cup as accidental American ambassador, hospitality stories
• 09:53–10:58: Acknowledging who’s left out—non-European tourists and structural barriers
• 10:58–11:50: Prospects for American soft power revival
• 16:12–22:52: Roger Bennett on “hydration breaks,” impact on football culture and gameplay
• 24:45–27:25: Celebration of European fan culture, vacation attitudes, wider meaning of fan rituals

---

Episode Tone and Language

The episode maintains a conversational, occasionally irreverent but ultimately optimistic tone, blending sharp cultural critique with warmth and humor. Sean and Constance inject wit (“I love buggies”), skepticism (“We let in like a million Vikings. I wonder what’s different about their fan bases.”), and hopefulness, while Roger Bennett delivers passionate, detailed commentary, grounded in fan experience and sports history.

---

Summary Takeaway

The 2026 Men’s World Cup, anticipated as a diplomatic and logistical nightmare, has become an unlikely source of American redemption—showcasing the nation’s enduring appeal, capacity for hospitality, and global cultural pull, even as the event exposes the tensions between sports tradition, American capitalism, and political division. The episode captures the magic, contradictions, and challenges of this singular global gathering, ultimately suggesting that, for all its faults, the World Cup is still a healing force—one that transcends leaders and policies.

Transcript

[Sean Ramaswamy]

No one could blame you if you thought this men's World cup was gonna be a disaster. The president of the United States isn't exactly a welcome mat for the world, and there have been plenty of embarrassing stories for the country. There was the mom of Cape Verde's goalkeeper who wasn't let into the United States to watch her son play until the team started doing well and people clamored for her entry. The team from Dr. Congo hadn't made a Men's World cup in 52 years and hardly made this one because the United States was supposedly worried about Ebola, Even though the no. 1 on the team had Ebola. If you were watching Senegal Norway last week and were wondering where all the Senegalese fans were, they weren't let into the country. But you probably noticed we let in like a million Vikings. I wonder what's different about their fan bases. Oh, and who could forget were literally bombing one of the countries that up until Friday was playing here. Missiles aren't the problem, but but somehow the vibes at this World cup are mostly positive. The World cup might just be healing us on Today Explained from Vox Support for this show today comes from Anthropic, the team behind Claude. Claude is the AI for minds that don't stop at good enough. It's the collaborator that actually understands your entire workflow and thinks with you. Whether you're debugging code at midnight or strategizing your next business move, Claude extends your thinking to tackle the problems that matter with deep research. Claude's research capabilities go way deeper than basic web search, comprehensive research, reliable analysis with proper citations, turning hours of research into minutes for problems worth solving. You can get started with Claude at Claude AI todayexplained. That's Claude AI todayexplained. Support for Today Explained comes from Fetch. Fetch is pet insurance, if you hadn't figured it out. Do you have a pet? According to a study from a pet insurance company from a few years ago, every six seconds a pet owner in the US gets hit with a vet bill over $1,000 and it almost never comes at a convenient time. So check out Fetch. You get paid up to 90% of vet bills. You can use Fetch for any vet in the US and Canada. Every vet is in network. Go to fetchpet.com save right now for your free quote. That's fetchpet.com sa.

[Announcer]

Explained.

[Constance Grady]

My name's Constance Grady and I'm a senior correspondent on the culture team at vox.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Constance, are you a big fan of the footy?

[Constance Grady]

Oh man, I would not say I am a sports knower per se. I would say I am an appreciator of, like, things that make people all get together and be like, really happy and excited and bond in a big group.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

But this is why you ended up writing a piece for Vox titled the World cup is showing what Trump can't destroy about America.

[Constance Grady]

I think that the World cup has been such an unmissable story in the culture for the past few weeks, even for non sports knowers like me, and trying to figure out why and how is really, really exciting and interesting to me.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

And what are you seeing that has piqued your interest? Because from what I'm getting, it isn't like Messi's hat trick. De Messi or Messi breaking the all time World cup scoring goal.

[Constance Grady]

Messi. Messi.

[Child Actor]

Messi

[Sean Ramaswamy]

or Messi, you know, like, staking his claim for a second consecutive World cup for Argentina.

[Constance Grady]

Sean, are you a Messi fan? No. For me, what has really taken over my social media feeds for the past little while has been all these videos of World cup tourists from overseas coming to America and just, like, loving it. Like, they're so excited about, like, the red fire trucks.

[Roger Bennett]

I've just gone to war, but there's a fire station right outside. I'm gonna go ask if I can go have a look at the fire engines. And they've let me in and, like,

[Constance Grady]

endless soda refills at restaurants and really big grocery stores.

[Roger Bennett]

Okay.

[Constance Grady]

I'm here in Florida.

[Roger Bennett]

This is West Palm, I think. And that is Publix.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

I love buggies. It's so cute. I love this cookie.

[Constance Grady]

And it's just. It's so charming and delightful to watch. And I kind of wanted to feel like, well, why am I so delighted by these things? What I ended up deciding is I think that these videos are really exciting because they show how deeply embedded the idea of America is across the world. Right. People around the globe grow up watching American TV and movies. Like they look at a yellow school bus and they say, well, I've seen that on the Simpsons. This is like walking into a fictional univers.

[Child Actor]

Hey, dad, how come you never taken

[Sean Ramaswamy]

us to see a soccer game?

[Constance Grady]

I don't know. And I think that's a real reminder of something that America has kind of struggled with under this presidential administration, which is people from other countries liking us. That's something that we used to actually be really good at.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

What a lot of people see and like about this World cup right now, not just in the United States, but Canada, Mexico, is. Is the cultural Exchange. It's like Mexicans dancing with Koreans. It's a Japanese guy giving an interview to, like, an American broadcaster in Dallas.

[Roger Bennett]

Okay.

[Child Actor]

Okay.

[Roger Bennett]

Usa.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Usa.

[Child Actor]

Amen.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Japan and usa. I love it.

[Constance Grady]

Okay, we love you, too.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

But you write about soft power specifically and how it relates to the president and how this World cup is offsetting that relationship. Tell us about that, I guess, starting with el presidente.

[Constance Grady]

So soft power is this idea that one of the ways a country can get other countries to do what it wants to do is not just through economic force. It's not just through the military, but it's through powers of persuasion and attraction. And that's something that the US has historically been really good at. We're kind of the case study for soft power in political science. That's because of a few different assets we have, most of which Trump has been attacking pretty aggressively, especially over the course of his second administration.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

We have the most powerful technology on Earth. We have the greatest culture on Earth,

[Roger Bennett]

and above all, we have the greatest people on Earth. Greatest.

[Constance Grady]

We have this university system that people come to from all over the world. They're some of the most prestigious colleges around the world here. And that has been something that Trump has really pushed against with lawsuits and defunding. We also do a lot of humanitarian work. You know, in the days before Doge, US foreign aid saved around 3.3 million lives per year. Obviously, Doge dismantled US aid. So these are all reasons that the rest of the world has had to like us, and they are reasons that Trump has really been like this. This is not a thing we're prioritizing. This is not something that America is doing anymore.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

And the World cup is intentionally or unintentionally offsetting what we've lost in American soft power during the two or six or ten years of Donald Trump.

[Constance Grady]

Yeah, I don't think this is something that Trump is doing intentionally. Trump has been quite vocal about not particularly being interested in the idea of soft power. Trump said to Bob Woodward at one

[Roger Bennett]

point, real power is. I hate to use the word, but the word is fear.

[Constance Grady]

He very much is most interested in hard power. Soft power. He seems to consider, like, not very masculine enough. I don't think that he's thinking of the World cup as, like, a thing that's going to make the rest of the world like America more. That's just not a priority for him, but it's kind of serving that purpose in spite of him. I think in large part because, despite the xenophobia of Trump's base, a Lot of people in America have been very welcoming to these tourists from around the world and excited to show them the country.

[Roger Bennett]

I want to say thank you to Team Algeria for choosing our hometown, Lawrence,

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Kansas, to come here. And so welcome.

[Roger Bennett]

If you were in Texas right now for the World cup, we want to host you.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

We want to show you all the real Texas experience we got.

[Constance Grady]

It's worth noting that a lot of the, like, really excited videos we're seeing from World cup tourists are from European tourists who are more able to get over here right now. But I think it's also worth noting that these people do still have the desire to explore America, even when we're really doing the most to alienate other countries. And I think that speaks to the incredibly outsized role of importance the US has played in popular culture around the world. Everyone grows up knowing what America looks like on their screens and in their living room, and now they want to see it in person.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Do you think it's a sign that America can get back to the place it held in terms of soft power around the world, in spite of all these cuts to humanitarian aid, in spite of all the bullying, in spite of telling everyone else to deal with the Strait of Hormuz being shut down?

[Constance Grady]

I think it shows that we see still have a fighting chance. But, you know, so much depends on what directions we move in after the end of what's going to be Trump's final term in office. Trump is part of the story of America, whether we like it or not. And so are the impulses he's harnessed of xenophobia and isolationism and fear of others. What gives me hope about the World cup is how much it shows that a genuine interest in and respect for people from other countries and a desire to share with them and socialize with them and be hospitable is also still part of the story of America and maybe can continue to be so.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Wow, Constance. I feel so warm and fuzzy. But how do we feel about the hydration breaks?

[Constance Grady]

The consensus on that is that it's partially dark evidence of global warming and partially capital in action. Adding more ad breaks.

[Roger Bennett]

Right?

[Sean Ramaswamy]

And it's bad. It's bad.

[Constance Grady]

I'll take your word for it, Sean.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Okay, we're gonna do that next on Today. Explained. Support for the show comes from upwork. At some point in your life, you decided that you wanted to run a business if this applies to you. And when you did, you quickly learned that running that business was not going to be a solo endeavor. You can't do everything by yourself. That's why there's Upwork. It's a one stop platform to find and hire and even pay expert freelancers across web and software development, data and analytics, business operations and more. Upwork also helps grow your business by giving you fast access to specialized talent across 125 plus categories so you can fill skill gaps, launch projects faster and scale support up or down without committing to a full time headcount. Thousands of growing businesses already trust Upwork to hire flexible, high quality freelance talent. Visit Upwork.com right now and post your job for free. That's Upwork.com to connect with top talent ready to help your business grow. That's up w o r k.com Upwork.com.

[Child Actor]

Support for Today Explained Comes from Shopify when you're starting a new business, it's easy to doubt. You might ask yourself should I? Should I really? What if no one cares? Maybe a better way to think about it is what if this is a great decision. Shopify wants to help you answer that question. Shopify is a commerce platform powering millions of businesses worldwide from established brands such as Mattel and Converse to companies just getting started. Their design tools make it easy to help build the online presence you're imagining. With hundreds of ready to use templates to choose from, everything is all in one place, helping make your life easier and your business operations smoother. And with built in marketing tools, you can create full email and social campaigns in just a few clicks so you can reach your customers wherever they are. If you get stuck, Shopify is always around to share advice with their 24. 7 customer support. You can turn those what ifs into With Shopify today you can sign up for your $1 per month [e-mail] explained. You can go to shopify.com explained. That's shopify.com explained.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Support for the program comes from pipedrive. Sales teams can often spend a huge chunk of their time on administrative tasks rather than selling, building relationships and closing deals required to maintain a strong business. That's where pipedrive comes in. A simple, intelligent CRM tool for small and medium businesses with smart automations that handle repet stuff like follow up reminders, deal updates and activity logging. Plus you can customize these automations to fit your unique sales process and AI features will analyze your pipeline. It'll flag, stall deals, surface what needs attention and tell your team what to do next without having to go looking for it. You can switch to a CRM built by salespeople for salespeople and join the over 100,000 companies already using Pipedrive. With this link, you can get an exclusive 30 day free instead of the usual 14 day trial. No credit card or payment needed. Just head to pipedrive.comexplained to get started. That's pipedrive.comexplained. and you can be up and running in minutes. Okay, so the vibes of the men's World cup are mostly positive. But if you're lucky enough to catch some World cup in person, or if you just watch it on Telemundo where they don't cut to commercials as much, you'll notice some serious negativity. Twice in every match.

[Roger Bennett]

We're talking about the hydration breaks, which have done something that I thought was almost impossible in the football world, which is to unite the entire planet in anger against its very existence.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

We asked Roger Bennett from the Men in Blazers cinematic universe to explain how hydration breaks did the almost impossible.

[Roger Bennett]

I'm not exactly sure what is going on, to be candid, but what has occurred is that football is just at its heart, a very simple game. It is two halves of 45 minutes. That is the way it is. It's the way it's always been. Crucially, it's the way it is at the elite professional level, and it is the way it is at an under seven game in Alaska. Like, it's pretty critical and fundamental to football that the game at all levels is exactly the same. That is, until the World cup came to North America this summer, where this is one of the hottest in global football history. And so Gianni Infantino, who your listeners may have seen, he's the head of FIFA, he just imposed a new rule where they would have hydration breaks, which he said was part of a focused attempt to ensure the best possible condition for players drawing upon the experiences of previous tournaments. And they said they're purely a sporting matter. And I want to stress this because I hear as well it's about money or things like it is not. We don't make $1 more revenues in FIFA with these hydration rates. So it's boiled down to Every half the 45 minutes it breaks in the middle now for an extended period, 4 minutes and 20 seconds per game, which runs to about 7 hours, 30 minutes, 40 seconds. But who's counting across my lifetime that I have to watch these in the tournament? And what it does on Fox in America, in that moment, as the players amble to the side, they now just, just talk about it as if it's a routine part of the game. They say, oh, we've Hit the water break and then boom, we're in commercials. And that will take us to our

[Sean Ramaswamy]

match break, sponsored by Lenovo. Now, the, the, the football fans, the American football fans, I should say the, the NBA fans out there, the WNBA fans out there, they might be saying, what's the big deal? There's constant commercials when I'm watching a, a game or, or a match or whatever it might be. But this has really triggered the football purists out there.

[Roger Bennett]

Yeah, look, football is a working class game. Football is a game of fan devotion, connection. Football is deeply historic and there's an authenticity to it. The heat is terrible in the United States, but many of these stadia are indoors or air conditioned until you have this kind of ridiculous, surreal situation where footballers are taking a break in an air conditioned stadium, ambling over to the side. And what it's done is give coaches essentially a timeout in the middle of the game, reset. You have players having a break, exhausted players who are being run down by a superior opponent have a chance to catch their breath. We've seen game after game be utterly transformed by the momentum shift. You know, it's a weird, surreal kind of purgatory world where this thing, which was meant to be because of the heat in Miami, meant to be because of the heat in MetLife. And when you see the figures that the broadcasters are making, said to be 250 million in terms of the commercials that they're running in those slots, it's a very odd moment in time where people are wondering, what is this? Why is this? And is this just for this World Cup? Or in dismal England in rainy November, will the Premier League start to take water breaks? And we'll cut to Coca Cola commercials, right?

[Sean Ramaswamy]

I mean, you're saying it's without a doubt having an impact on the actual play. Teams might be winning now because they got a little timeout, they had some counsel from their coaches, and now they're playing a stronger game after a hydration break. Does that mean that coaches and players like them or are they complaining too?

[Roger Bennett]

Yeah, there's a couple of different opinions. Almost everybody hates them. A lot of the players talk about how hard it is to find a rhythm in a game and then you're stopping and going over to the sideline. And just from an ex players perspective, we know what it's like when you're in that mode, when you're fighting for your life and trying not to concede a goal, or when you've got a team under so much pressure that you know you're going to get a goal and a water break happens.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

If it's really hot, obviously it would be good to put them in. But I think you have to look at it in every game separately. In my opinion, the opponent is going to try to take advantage, to fix or to encourage or to do maybe things that you cannot do when you are in the touchline and the game is running.

[Roger Bennett]

By the way, at the beginning, the water break was just a water break. And they would come back, and often Fox at the beginning was caught in commercial. They come back to the game and it would be on and people would lose their mind. And so what they've done, they've made it even more American. It's almost like a TV timeout in the NFL now, where the official keeps the players on the sideline until they know the commercials are run, and then they let them on. Anthony Robinson, the US Player, said he wanted to walk back onto the field and get back into his position. And one of the officials was like, no, sorry, the commercials are still playing. Stay where you are. So this is the kind of surreal reality we're in. Most of the coaches detest it. Most of the players, the European players, have spoken out about it. A couple of the coaches have admitted that they won games because they were able to take complicated tactical changes and communicate them. Germany were playing Curacao, tiny Curacao, who just tied the game up. 1 1. One of the most delirious moments of this World cup.

[Constance Grady]

And there's a goal for Curacao. Can you.

[Roger Bennett]

And the young German coach admitted afterwards that he was able to adjust to playing against the diamond midfield shape that he didn't expect. And Germany ended up winning 7 1. And it was just. If you watch the game, it was like it's flicking over radio stations, the before the water break and the after the water break.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Do you think they'll keep them around? Have they already pledged to keep them around in future World Cups?

[Roger Bennett]

This is the greatest fault line in football, Sean. And I'm not. I do not have prophetic powers. But. But ultimately, the whole game of football is currently in a battle between its roots and its authentic essence and just the commercial imperative that comes from being as big as it is. You know, the super bowl and American sports in general are brazenly commercial. I found it. It's not funny because it's been a bit dark, but the whole brouhaha about the ticket prices for this World cup was really global football. Again, finding American sports culture and seeing that you have floating ticket Differential supply and demand. And falling in love with that being like, wow, what? We can charge different prices for our tickets, let's go. And the working class cultures of European football being like, hang on a minute, we've traveled everywhere of our team for generations. How are you charging this? And then American fans caught onto it and was like, wow, those tickets are expensive. Same Americans who were paying $20,000 to sit in the nosebleed seat to the Knicks game in the finals. But 5 billion people watch the World Cup. 200 million people watch the Super Bowl. It is so big. It is the last megaphone which is faintly audible around the world is. And when you have something that big, it becomes deeply desirous to make as much money as you can out of it. And that's the tension.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

So this is kind of about capitalism and the American version, contra perhaps the European version. This is a question about European vacation policies. And you sound like you may have been a European in a previous life.

[Roger Bennett]

So born to be an American, Sean. So I don't know if I can answer what you're gonna ask me, but go on both.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Here it is. I've been noticing the Scottish fans, the Norwegian fans, the Dutch fans especially, just traveling from city to city to city. And I've been, I've wondered how much vacation exactly do these people have? And then I saw someone online put it even better. They said, do Europeans get issued eight weeks of vacation, unlimited airline miles and a trust fund at birth? Because every match I turn on, there are 40,000 fans following their team to a different state or country on a Tuesday afternoon while Americans are hiding in a work bathroom checking scores.

[Roger Bennett]

Yeah, whoever's hiding in the work bathroom is a liar. They're pulling this up and hiding it behind spreadsheets. Look, we've always joked that part of the reason reason that football has taken off in this nation is because Americans love an excuse to daytime drink and cut work. GDP plummets. Seriously in Europe during the World cup at an enormous clip. These fans, by the way, many of them sell houses. They sell off everything they save for this. Remember World Cup's every four years. That's why it's such a powerful experience. It is the spine to my life. When I meet someone and they tell me they met me in like 1997, my mind goes to the nearest World Cup, 1998. And I remember that so viscerally. And then I can locate myself in time and space and know exactly where I was. It's the spine to my life. It's the spine to Millions of human beings lives. So it's a. It's not a. Should I go? Can I go? It really is a compulsion. I think it's been the joy of this World Cup. I have to say, when you look back in 40 years, any world cup you can name people. Oh, that's the Pele World Cup. Oh. Oh, that was a Maradona. This one will be remembered probably for Messi, just, you know, defying Father Time. Please, God, for the United States going deep. But it will be remembered for the Scottish fans. The joy, their wonder, their just absolute, the openness, the love that they brought to our nation. So thank God they take the time that they did. There is a funny story of a number of them, like being caught on camera at games and having their boss see them and being recalled to work. That's happened on many, many, many occasions. But I think the world is better for them. Cutting work for the decrease in productivity, for the utter shamelessness, ditching their families, their occupational growth. And that's the joy of the World cup, too. Sean.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Roger Bennett is the author of We Are the World Cup, A personal history of the world's greatest sporting event, Soccer's triumphs, heartbreaks and the passion that unites fans worldwide. Ariana Espuru and Kelly Wessinger are producers at Today Explained. They made the show today with help from Aminah Al Saadi, Gabriel Donatov, Patrick Boyd, David Tadashore and myself. I'm Sean Ramasvoorham. Congratulations, Canada. We've all been there. You pop into the shop for five

[Roger Bennett]

minutes and all of a sudden you've

[Sean Ramaswamy]

forgotten where you parked.

[Child Actor]

Car.

[Roger Bennett]

Car.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Unfortunately, that lost feeling is what it's like trying to manage your policy with other insurers here.

[Roger Bennett]

Car.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Come out, come out, wherever you are, please. With geico, you can use the app to easily manage all your policies in one place. Did this parking lot have a waterfall? I think you've wandered too far, mate. It feels good to find what you're looking for. It feels good to Geico.

[Announcer]

Support for this show comes from Fetch Pet Insurance. Do you have a pet? Every six seconds, a pet owner in the US gets hit with a vet bill of over $1,000. And it's almost always an unwelcome surprise. That's where Fetch Pet Insurance comes in. Fetch is the most complete pet insurance. Rents get paid back up to 90% of vet bills. You can use any vet in the US and Canada. All vets are in network. Go to fetchpet.comsave right now for your free quote. That's fetchpet.comsave.