Dec 20

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Hey Friends,

Argentina won the 2022 FIFA World Cup on Sunday, beating France 4-2 in penalty kicks after a 3-3 draw in a thrilling final at the Lusail Stadium in Doha, Qatar.

Lionel Messi scored two goals and was named MVP of the tournament, while fellow superstar Kylian Mbappé scored three in the match and won the Golden Boot for most goals — and it was objectively one of the greatest World Cup finals ever.

The Argentinians captured their third World Cup (the first since 1986), and they now trail only Brazil (5), Germany (4), and Italy (4) for the most World Cups of all time.

But rather than break down the strategy and stats of the final itself, today’s email will explore a few of the tournament’s business results that we know so far.

The World Cup Sees Record TV Viewership

We are still waiting on viewership numbers for the final to trickle in, but television executives must be thrilled with the results so far, particularly in the United States.

The semifinals averaged a record 6.53 million viewers on FOX (up 27% from 2018), and the USA-England match in group play averaged 15.4 million viewers (20 million when you add Telemundo), making it the most-watched men’s soccer match in U.S. history.

So we’ll see where the final number ends up. But considering more than 40 million people watched the final match in the UK and France and Twitter was seeing 24,400 tweets per second, I imagine it will probably set another US viewership record.

Attendance Numbers Fall Short Of Expectations

While the play on the pitch was spectacular throughout the tournament, there were fewer people to see it in person than expected. For example, tourism reports indicate that Qatar received 765,000 visitors during the first two weeks of the World Cup.

That’s below their initial estimate of 1.2 million visitors, less than Russia in 2018 (3 million) and Brazil in 2014 (1.7 million). Of course, this report was made public nearly two weeks ago, so the comparison isn’t exactly apples-to-apples. But still, it should be directionally correct as fewer fans trickle in for the tournament’s final matches.

The one caveat to all of this is that fans in Qatar didn’t leave their wallet behind — FIFA’s payment partner Visa says that fans had already spent 89% of what they did at the 2018 World Cup in Russia before the quarterfinals even began.

The Budweiser-Qatar Alcohol Controversy

The alcohol ban Qatar placed on the World Cup two days before the first match perhaps hit nobody harder than Budweiser — the official beer of the World Cup.

In addition to their $75 million sponsorship contract not being properly fulfilled, Budweiser is estimated to have lost $5 million from the planning and operations to bring so much beer to a country with such strict regulations on alcohol.

“There is a lot of work that needs to happen to be able to sell beverages,” sponsorship expert Ricardo Fort told the NY Times. “This country doesn’t manufacture or bottle beer locally. They would have to bring trucks from different countries to be able to transport the beer. They would have to bring in a disproportionate amount of refrigerators to store the beer at the concessions.”

But Budweiser made the best of a difficult situation and promised that all the beer that wasn’t sold in Doha would be sent to the winning country for free.

FIFA’s Revenue Surpasses Russia’s and Lionel Messi Beats An Egg

FIFA faced backlash (deservingly so) for how the tournament came together and played out in Qatar. But from a financial perspective, it was undoubtedly a success.

FIFA says it brought in $7.5 billion in revenue for the 2022 World Cup cycle (2019-2022), which is over $1 billion more than the previous cycle (2018 Russia World Cup).

But more importantly (lol), a new “most-liked” record has been set on Instagram.

Lionel Messi’s first post after winning the World Cup has already received more than 61 million likes, making it the most-liked picture in the history of Instagram.

An anonymous egg set the previous record in 2019 with more than 56 million likes.

Looking Ahead To The 2026 World Cup

Now that the 2022 World Cup has officially wrapped up, it’s time to start looking forward to 2026. The next World Cup will be held in North America (the US, Canada, and Mexico), and it will be the first World Cup held in three different countries.

New Format: 48 teams will qualify for the 2026 World Cup — 16 more than the original format of 32 teams — and teams will play in three groups of 16 before going to a 32-team knockout round.
Host Cities: 60 matches will be played in the United States, and 20 will take place between Mexico and Canada (Mexico and Canada will only be in the group stage).
- United States: Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Seattle.
- Mexico: Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey.
- Canada: Toronto and Vancouver.

This tournament will only use existing stadiums in each country (no new ones will be built). The economic impact of the 2026 World Cup is expected to be $5 billion, and FIFA is projected to make $11 billion in revenue during the 2026 World Cup cycle.

I hope everyone has a great day. We’ll talk tomorrow.

Ps. This drone video of the celebration in Buenos Aires is one of the best I’ve ever seen.

Joe Pompliano @JoePompliano

This drone shot of Buenos Aires is INCREDIBLE 🔥 (🎥: Ale Petra)

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