For organizers of the 2026 World Cup, Friday’s tournament draw is a like the bell lap of a long-distance race, the moment when the slow slog turns into a sprint.
“This is going to be huge,” said Kathryn Schloessman, president and chief executive officer of the Los Angeles Sports and Entertainment Commission. “This is going to be a big deal.”
Schloessman has been preparing for that big deal for most of the last eight years. Together with the local host committee and civic leaders, she helped secure eight games for SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, set up fanfests throughout the region, organized public transportation, found training centers for visiting teams and worked to establish a legacy program that will ensure the tournament’s influence continues well beyond the final match.
All that effort will take on a new urgency on this weekend. The tournament draw on Friday in Washington, D.C., determines which of the 48 nations taking part in the largest World Cup ever played will be grouped together. And on Saturday, FIFA will announce which teams are coming to L.A. and when they’ll get here.
“There’s a lot of good information that’s coming,” Schloessman said. “We’re excited to hear what countries are playing when, which will help us a lot in our tourism planning. It’s going to have a big impact going forward.”
Scott LeTellier, who mortgaged his home to help bring the 1994 World Cup to the U.S., said Schloessman and her staff, as well as the organizing committees in the other 15 host cities, face a daunting task over the next 190 days.
“The fan festivals themselves are huge undertakings,” said LeTellier, the chief operating officer of the ‘94 tournament, the first one played in this country. “To simply put on the transportation arrangements that they’ve been asked to do is also a significant element. Not to mention security.
“Everything about it has gotten bigger.”
FIFA, the World Cup organizer, has already announced the U.S. will play two of its three group-stage games at SoFi, including the opening match of the U.S. phase of the tournament on June 12. The stadium will also host three other first-round games in the tournament’s first 10 days.
And for Schloessman and her team, it will make a huge difference if South Korea and England are chosen to play here over Senegal or Uzbekistan.
“There’ll be interest from different parts of the city depending on what country is coming and what [fans] do if they’re here,” she said. “We have planned, right after the final draw, a call with the consulates who are here to dig in and understand what the opportunities are for their constituency to engage and participate.”
Nearly 2 million tickets to the World Cup have already been sold, according to FIFA, with most going to people in the three host countries, the U.S., Mexico and Canada. After that the greatest demand has come from England, Germany, Brazil, Colombia, Spain and Argentina, whose fans are known to travel and spend money.
Landing one of those countries could could skew the economic impact of the tournament in Southern California, so Schloessman is planning to order a new study after the draw. A report by Micronomics Economic Research and Consulting issued in June 2024 estimated the World Cup would be worth $594 million to Los Angeles County.
That’s more than double the most conservative estimate for the 2022 Super Bowl and nearly double the value of six sold-out Taylor Swift concerts in the summer of 2023. Both events were also held at SoFi Stadium and served as a test run for the World Cup’s 28-day run in Inglewood.
“We know how to do big events. We know how to be on the world stage,” Schloessman said. “We’ve done it and we do it well and that’s why events continue to come.”
But big events can also mean big traffic, which would make the World Cup an unwelcome visitor for people who have no interest in soccer. Softening that impact has become a major focus of the local organizing committee and its partners.
And that will give people who get no closer to the World Cup than a TV screen something to cheer about too.
“You don’t have to be a soccer fan to enjoy the World Cup,” Schloessman said. “We’re going to have millions of people here who aren’t here for a match but want to be part of the World Cup excitement. There’s going to be fan festivals, which are major viewing parties. Very family friendly, very inexpensive.
“I don’t think L.A. knows what’s going to hit them.”
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