Got a ticket to the Brazil-Morocco World Cup soccer game on June 13? Just head to New York New Jersey Stadium.
Wait, where?
The 80,000-seat edifice in the Meadowlands Sports Complex in New Jersey is known as MetLife Stadium when the Giants and the Jets play there. It was MetLife Stadium for the Army-Navy game and MetLife Stadium for Taylor Swift and Beyoncé. But it is changing its name for the duration of the World Cup.
Why? FIFA, the organizers of the World Cup, which will be held in the United States, Mexico and Canada, don’t want the companies the stadiums are named after to overshadow its own sponsors. The Olympics has enforced a no-corporate-naming rule for years, but for the 2028 Games in Los Angeles, it has said that sponsors of major venues, like SoFi Stadium and Intuit Dome, can keep their names on the arenas, if they pay for that right.
World Cup games this year will be held at the slightly clumsy “San Francisco Bay Area Stadium,” not Levi’s Stadium; “Mexico City Stadium,” not Estadio Banorte; and “Toronto Stadium,” not BMO Field.
MetLife, the insurance company, has four large illuminated signs bearing its name around the stadium, as well as signs inside, that will have to be removed or concealed. The stadium is also routinely referred to by name in news articles (including this one) and on broadcasts of games, giving the brand further exposure. That’s why MetLife was willing to pay $17 million to $20 million a year, over 25 years, beginning in 2011 for the stadium’s naming rights.
“In line with its brand protection policy, FIFA safeguards its brands and the exclusive rights of its sponsors, including clean zones in and around FIFA World Cup,” a FIFA spokesman said. “Enforcing brand protection measures to safeguard the exclusive rights of its sponsors is a priority for FIFA.”
A FIFA spokesman declined to discuss how the costs of rebranding are handled, but said FIFA is “working closely with stadium authorities and host cities to implement these requirements.” MetLife Stadium referred all questions to FIFA.
When the World Cup last came to the United States, in 1994, the trend toward selling naming rights to stadiums had not yet begun in earnest. So the Rose Bowl Stadium, Soldier Field and RFK Stadium kept their names for the games. Recent Cups in Qatar (2022) and Russia (2018) also did not require much renaming. In 2010, FNB Stadium in Johannesburg, named for a bank, was renamed “Soccer City” for the tournament.
But in 2026 nearly every major American stadium has a sponsor. That means much more sweeping renaming is needed for the FIFA World Cup 2026.
MetLife’s two most prominent tenants, it should be noted, are called the New York Jets and the New York Giants, even though their stadium and most of their corporate offices are in New Jersey.
That incongruous billing is being used again in the temporarily christened New York New Jersey Stadium, which is a traffic-clogged drive or an expensive train ride away from New York.
Victor Mather, who has been a reporter and editor at The Times for 25 years, covers sports and breaking news.
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