As 11 U.S. cities host the largest World Cup ever staged, the third-largest city in the country is watching from home — and eight years later, the decision that kept Chicago out of the tournament is looking less like a missed opportunity and more like a calculated act of fiscal restraint.
The Deal That Broke Down in 2018
Chicago’s absence from the 2026 FIFA World Cup traces back to a single negotiation that collapsed in March 2018, when then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel withdrew the city from the joint U.S.-Canada-Mexico bid after concluding that FIFA’s contract terms placed disproportionate financial risk on local taxpayers.
The terms, as Emanuel has described them in multiple interviews since, were structured so that FIFA would collect all revenues from ticketing, broadcasting, concessions, and parking, while the host city would absorb costs for public transit, police and fire staffing, medical services, and security. But the provision that ultimately ended the discussion was a clause giving FIFA the unilateral right to demand that a dome be built over Soldier Field — a lakefront landmark that has operated as an open-air venue since its reconstruction in 2003. When Emanuel asked FIFA to remove the clause, the organization responded that it rarely exercises such demands but refused to strike it from the contract. Emanuel estimated the potential exposure at $50 million to $100 million or more, with the decision resting entirely outside the city’s control.
Emanuel summarized the dynamic in a recent interview with The Athletic, published as the tournament got underway. He described the deal as one where the city was “on the front end of the bad side and the back end of the good side,” and said he was unwilling to treat Chicago taxpayers as what he called “the dumb money at the table.” In a separate NBC Chicago interview, he was more blunt, saying he “told them to take a hike.”
The mayor’s office issued a formal statement at the time citing “FIFA’s inflexibility and unwillingness to negotiate” and concluding that “further pursuit of the bid wasn’t in Chicago’s best interests.” It was the second time in a decade that a Chicago administration had walked away from a World Cup bid — Mayor Richard M. Daley’s office pulled out of the 2018/2022 hosting process in 2010, declining to commit an estimated $10 million in required expenditures.
What Host Cities Are Learning the Hard Way
The costs Emanuel warned about in 2018 are now materializing across the 11 U.S. host cities. New Jersey has committed $48 million in transit infrastructure for eight matches at MetLife Stadium, including expanded rail service and shuttle operations. NJ Transit round-trip fares from Penn Station to the stadium were initially set at $150 before public backlash forced a reduction to $98 — compared to a standard fare of $12.90. After the opening match at MetLife on June 13, school buses contracted for fan transport were trapped on West 42nd Street in Manhattan, with five destroyed in vandalism and one set on fire. Regular NJ Transit service into and out of New York is suspended for four hours before each match, disrupting daily commuters.
In Atlanta, where Mercedes-Benz Stadium is hosting eight matches including a semifinal, the FAA has imposed temporary flight restrictions over downtown through July 21, and federal authorities confiscated 15 drones on the first match day alone. Host cities are also navigating the two-month exclusion zones FIFA requires around stadium venues, during which no other events can be held — a restriction that carries significant opportunity cost for multi-use facilities in dense urban areas.
Axios Chicago reported that these developments suggest Emanuel’s concerns were well-founded. The economic benefits are real — Atlanta projects $503 million in visitor spending, and Dallas anticipates $1.8 billion — but they come with public costs that are borne locally while FIFA retains the commercial upside. Sportico, which examined the three cities that withdrew from the bid process (Chicago, Minneapolis, and Montreal), noted that the Chicago Sports Commission declined to discuss the World Cup decision, saying only that the organization wanted to “focus on the business that we are bringing in this year.”
A Soccer City Without the World Cup
The absence stings in part because Chicago’s soccer credentials are deep. Soldier Field hosted the 1994 World Cup opening ceremony and five matches, including a Round of 16 clash in which Germany defeated Belgium 3-2. The USMNT has played at Soldier Field 18 times since 1973 and lifted two CONCACAF Gold Cup trophies there, in 2007 and 2013. Chicago Fire FC has competed in MLS since 1998, and the city’s immigrant communities — Mexican, Polish, South American, and others — sustain one of the country’s most active grassroots soccer cultures, with hundreds of amateur leagues operating across the metro area every weekend.
The city’s only direct connection to the 2026 tournament came on June 6, when the USMNT hosted 10th-ranked Germany in a sold-out Coca-Cola Send-Off Match at Soldier Field. The match — a final tune-up before the Americans opened group play in Los Angeles on June 12 — drew a capacity crowd and underscored the demand for high-level international soccer in Chicago. Head coach Mauricio Pochettino deployed Christian Pulisic, Tyler Adams, Weston McKennie, and Folarin Balogun against a German squad featuring Jamal Musiala and Florian Wirtz. The atmosphere demonstrated what tournament organizers already knew: Chicago’s fan base was never the issue.
A Week That Speaks for Itself
Whether by design or coincidence, the week of June 15 is offering Chicago a rebuttal to the idea that the city needs the World Cup to command national attention. The 2026 James Beard Awards returned to the Lyric Opera on Monday night for the 11th time. The Obama Presidential Center opens on the South Side this Thursday on Juneteenth. Both events position Chicago at the center of American cultural life without the public cost burden, exclusion zones, or transit disruptions that host cities are currently managing.
The question now is whether Chicago reconsiders its posture before the next major international hosting opportunity arrives — or whether the 2026 experience reinforces the calculation that walking away was the right call.
