ARLINGTON, Texas — Dallas-Fort Worth’s long-anticipated 2026 World Cup story came to an end Tuesday afternoon when Spain earned a spot in the World Cup final with a 2–0 win over France at Dallas Stadium.
La Roja’s F Mikel Oyarzabal, RB Pedro Porro and a passionate contingent of fans from Spain helped end France’s dream to win a third World Cup (and on Bastille Day, no less). Still, that didn’t stop Spanish fans from partying like it was 2010 throughout and outside the stadium as French fans headed for the exits, with some in tears.
While Spanish fans celebrated, North Texas officials are already beginning to imagine what will come next for the region. Tuesday’s crowd of 70,176 pushed Dallas’ World Cup attendance to 631,843 across nine matches and helped reinforce a belief inside Arlington, Dallas and the organizing committee that North Texas is just getting started in its fight for soccer’s future in the region.
Across those nine games, Dallas hosted more matches than any other World Cup venue, filling AT&T Stadium with roughly 70,204 fans each match (approximately 99.3% of its total soccer capacity) and turning group-stage and knockout dates alike into event days for Arlington’s entertainment district and beyond. Had the U.S. advanced out of its quarterfinal, it would have played its semifinal there; instead, local organizers got Kylian Mbappé, Lamine Yamal and one of the tournament’s marquee matchups.
In the eyes of local officials, staging more matches than any other venue, moving hundreds of thousands of fans through public transportation, running a 34‑day fan festival at Fair Park and hosting the International Broadcast Center show North Texas is ready to bid for the 2031 Women’s World Cup and make DFW a permanent stop on soccer’s global map.
Organizers are still separating forecasts from reality when it comes to numbers. They say they still are months away from a full accounting of hotel, sales, rental car and alcohol tax collections across the region, along with wrapping in costs and revenue tied to venue move-outs that stretches into late August.
Still, Arlington Mayor Jim Ross said early returns are looking strong, with June hotel revenue topping $31 million, up from about $23.5 million in November 2024, when the city hosted three Cowboys home games and the Mike Tyson–Jake Paul fight. He said preliminary estimates put Arlington’s World Cup economic impact around $160 million, roughly half of the city’s typical annual impact from AT&T Stadium.
The next phase
Monica Paul, president of the organizing committee, said the World Cup was another chance to show off North Texas’ competitive advantage. The next phase runs through the North Texas Sports Foundation, which is intended to turn the region’s World Cup infrastructure and experience into mini-pitches, programs and entrepreneurship opportunities that outlast 2026.
Paul also pointed to local Gainbridge Super League women’s team Dallas Trinity FC as a key piece of “intentionally growing the game on the women’s side” if the region wants to be credible in a 2031 Women’s World Cup bid.
On the club side, FC Dallas President and co-owner Dan Hunt said the tournament has already produced a halo effect.
“We’re already starting to see from a ticket sales and sponsorship standpoint at FC Dallas. It’s just really added awareness, having three guys in the tournament too, especially with [FC Dallas striker Petar] Musa scoring, and that’s an awareness thing for the club,” Hunt said. “If you have a strong national team program, it trickles down. I think this will be the next step forward. It will catapult MLS, USL and the NWSL. I hope that this creates thousands of more jobs and provides opportunities.”
Stadium situation
Fred Ortiz, global director of sports and entertainment for HKS Architects, said the World Cup has largely validated how AT&T Stadium was originally conceived, with no major operational misses surfacing as the tournament went on.
He said the venue is performing much as it did on the drawing board, “flexing and morphing” from Cowboys games to a FIFA setup without major friction.
Even with 17 years of hindsight, he said there is little he would change about the venue beyond continuing to layer in new technology and amenities as fan expectations evolve.
For the Cowboys, Chad Estis, EVP/business operations for the team and EVP/chief revenue officer for Legends, said international fans arrived much earlier and stayed longer than typical NFL crowds, which helped push general concession sales higher than a typical Cowboys game. He said the stadium’s $350 million refresh covered every suite, the entire center-hung board and roughly 3,000 televisions. The cost was separate from that of the temporary World Cup grass pitch.
Despite the World Cup’s different crowd, natural-grass setup and occasional need for curtains, he said the experience has not prompted the Cowboys to rethink how they operate AT&T Stadium for NFL games, saying he has confidence in their model that “already operates incredibly well” for its core business.
Estis said the Jones family accepted covered signage, displaced suite holders and even gave up Jerry Jones’ midfield suite to serve as FIFA’s VVIP box because “at the end of the day, we’re a part of this community, and we need to do our part for the community.”
The next challenge is taking FC Dallas’ World Cup bump, Dallas Trinity FC’s growth, a further validated AT&T Stadium playbook and the North Texas Sports Foundation and turning them into a serious 2031 Women’s World Cup case and a reliable pipeline of major soccer events returning to the region.
