The largest sporting event in history, a six-week, 104-episode action drama performed live in 16 cities across three countries, has its grand finale Sunday afternoon in the little hamlet of East Rutherford, N.J., several miles west of the Manhattan skyline.
Much of the Earth’s population will be focused for two hours on MetLife Stadium, where 80,000 spectators, along with an estimated 1.8 billion people watching on television and livestreams, will witness the final game of the 2026 World Cup, between Lionel Messi and Argentina and Lamine Yamal and Spain. There have been 103 games so far, but none quite like this.
“The final is a different animal,” said Alex Lasry, the chief executive of the New York New Jersey World Cup Host Committee. “It’s going to be like the United Nations crossed with the Oscars.”
Some have labeled this World Cup, the first with an expanded field of 48 teams, the best ever, a Mundial de Mundiales full of thrilling highlights, dramatic comebacks, controversial calls and daring upsets. Whether it has been the best tournament can be debated, but it is certainly the biggest, with more games, goals, fans in attendance and television viewers than any other World Cup.
Two years of planning have gone into Sunday’s game, since FIFA awarded the final to New Jersey on Feb. 4, 2024. It is expected to feature not only two great teams, with Argentina going for its second straight title, but an extensive list of celebrities and politicians, including President Trump, the prime minister of Spain, the king of Spain, and Madonna. It will be the first World Cup final to include a halftime show, with Shakira, BTS, Justin Bieber and others set to perform.
But not even the world’s most-watched sporting event is enough to monopolize the entertainment atmosphere in the New York City area. MetLife Stadium hosted its first Cup match, between Brazil and Morocco, on June 13, the same day the Knicks won the N.B.A. Championship, and the final will close out a weekend showcasing Yankees-Dodgers games in the Bronx, Ariana Grande concerts in Brooklyn and a Jon Bon Jovi concert at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan.
“There is probably only one region in the world that can do all those things at once,” Mr. Lasry said.
The economic impact to the New York-New Jersey region from the World Cup has yet to be fully tabulated, but the eight games played there surely provided a boost for some businesses. The teams stayed in New Jersey before the match, with Spain at the MC Hotel in Montclair and Argentina at the Hilton in Short Hills, and attracted crowds of children in Messi and Yamal jerseys hoping to snag autographs.
The final will be the first between two primarily Spanish-speaking countries since Uruguay beat Argentina in the first World Cup in 1930 — a game that, as some outlets have declared, “hablará totalmente en español” (“will speak entirely in Spanish”).
As with most World Cups, the buildup included many questions and some anxiety, this time about transportation, heat, government interference, hotel accommodations, ticket prices and visa restrictions.
Some controversies and disruptions occurred, like traffic bottlenecks before some matches, a Somali referee being barred from entering the United States and government pressure to suspend a red card for the American star Folarin Balogun. And Iran complained that U.S. travel restrictions hurt them on the field. But the games were played largely without incident, and it was the soccer, the breakout stars and the colorful legions of international fans — like Scotland’s Tartan Army and Norway’s Viking rowers — that captured attention at games and watch parties in North America and around the world.
“I think it’s been unreal,” Erling Haaland, Norway’s towering striker, said of the fans’ rowing cheer after he scored twice to help his team upset Brazil in the round of 16 in New Jersey. “It is maybe the one thing that touches me the most. We put Norway on the map.”
While ticket prices were extraordinarily high, pricing out many fans, a record 6.6 million attended games (though not every stadium was fully packed). For the final, FIFA’s original ticket prices ranged from about $2,000 to $6,000. Now many are listed for about $8,000 to $47,000 on the resale market.
“FIFA’s variable pricing ticketing approach aligns with industry trends across various sports and entertainment sectors,” FIFA said in a statement, “where the price is adapted to optimize sales and attendance, ensuring fair market value for events.”
A FIFA spokesman noted that more than 1,000 tickets for the final were made available to both team’s federations at $60 per ticket, and that 130,000 tickets over all were distributed at that price for other games.
But some, like Harihara Prasad Natarajan, a University of Miami business school professor who has studied sports and entertainment ticket pricing, have argued that FIFA’s lack of transparency over ticket distribution, and their cost in the secondary market, has left many bitter about the exorbitant prices.
“Maybe they did it fairly, but who knows?” he said. “We don’t know anything about it.”
And yet, MetLife Stadium is still expected to be filled on Sunday. It will be the first World Cup final held there, as the final of the previous tournament held in North America, in 1994, was played at the Rose Bowl in California.
New Jersey hosted seven games at the old Giants Stadium during that World Cup, including Ireland’s upset against Italy in brutal heat, and Bulgaria’s surprise win over Germany in a quarterfinal. This year, fans at MetLife got to see Ecuador upset Germany, 2-1. They also witnessed four goals from Kylian Mbappé of France and four more by Mr. Haaland.
By most accounts, the logistics and production went smoothly in East Rutherford. All eight games were sellouts, for a total of about 640,000 spectators — the rough equivalent of an entire season for the New York Giants crammed into a five-week period.
“It has been incredible to see the world come together in New Jersey,” Gov. Mikie Sherrill said in a statement, “and for New Jersey to show our best to the world.”
Transportation issues weren’t entirely avoided around the stadium, with high prices for trains and other inconveniences for regular commuters and some traffic jams. But there were few reports of the kind of chaos that surrounded Super Bowl XLVIII at the same stadium in 2014. According to the host committee, 97 percent of spectators at the games were scanned into seating areas before kickoffs, and the property around the stadium was cleared of fans within two and a half hours after the final whistle, sometimes in under two hours.
That could change on Sunday, with extra security planned for President Trump’s visit. Gates will open an hour earlier than they did at the first seven games — four hours before Sunday’s scheduled 3 p.m. kickoff — and dedicated transportation will also begin an hour earlier, starting at about 10 a.m.
Mr. Lasry, the host committee chief, said that his team had been constantly assessing the fan experience. After the first two matches, they reassessed and made small adjustments, including more signs directing fans on where to go as they made their way from transportation areas to their seats.
Mr. Lasry said that he personally took various forms of public transportation, including school buses designated for the event, to every game from New York City to see firsthand how things were running. From that experience, he directed his 30-member staff to add television screens in the shuttle waiting areas so that fans could watch games that were taking place in other cities while they waited for buses. And from last summer’s Club World Cup final, which was held at MetLife and served as a kind of test event for this summer’s extravaganza, they learned the value of cooling stations, with mist machines and free bottles of water.
Still, nothing could quite prepare them for the magnitude of Sunday’s final, which will be packed with more superstars, dignitaries, celebrities and celebrations than the previous 103 games, and could make it the most watched game ever.
“On Sunday, we will watch a great game,” said Luis de la Fuente, Spain’s coach. “Two great national teams, two super teams. It’s going to be an amazing final.”
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