Potential 2026 WC Hosts (Update: Morocco Sole Challenger to CONCACAF Bid)

How is AT&T/Dallas different from NRG/Houston? NRG has the retractable roof. When I was there for USA-Argentina for the Copa semis the roof was closed for the match.

I don't think altitude is a big consideration. Azteca will be in the mix for sure and it's higher than Denver.

 

For a 1st Buli license you need to have covered ALL of you stadium with roofs. I see plenty NFL stadiums not getting their 1st Buli license. Not even talking about a world cup

 

That is due to tradition. And I am referring to USA venues.
But as I said it is my own opinions and arbitrary list.

 

Arlington is different from Houston because I have not heard as many complaints about the playing surface when friendlies and International competitions are played there.
As I said in the previous post I was referring to USA stadiums not Mexico.

 

Augsburg, Freiburg, Köln, Mainz and Bremen don't have roofs covering their stadiums. Not full roofs including covered pitches, anyway.
Unless you mean roofs over seating/fans only (?)

 

I meant seating/fans. Whole stadium like a gymnasium is bad for a soccer field as Schalke can tell. And the clubs you mentioned have stadiums covering all of the stands.

 

Canada list of candidates

Calgary, Alberta - McMahon Stadium



Edmonton, Alberta- Commonwealth Stadium




Montréal, Québec - Stade Olympique




Montréal, Québec - Stade Saputo




Ottawa, Ontario - TD Place Stadium




Regina, Saskatchewan - Mosaic Stadium


Toronto, Ontario - Rogers Centre



Toronto, Ontario - BMO Field




Vancouver, British Columbia - BC Place

 

I think that's a non-factor in the decision process. The WC is 9 years from now, surely by then they'll be even better at laying grass over turf. I don't know what happened the last game at AT&T but the bad surface could have been attributable to many factors, and I would think those factors will be corrected. Maybe it was the first time those grass guys tried it. They will have the best team of grass-layers available to do it for WC26, and by then the process will be close to perfect no matter which stadiums they choose. I doubt there is something intrinsically different about the field in Dallas that makes it worse than any other stadium for putting a grass surface on it. The fact they screwed it up once in the past is irrelevant. They have 9 years to perfect it.

The fact that they can squeeze in well over 100,000 fans makes this a top of the list venue in my opinion. More butts in seats = more money. Plus it's an amazing stadium by most measures.

There are also a lot of hidden factors I don't know about. Which stadiums give the best financial deal (so more $) to the organizers? Which may have some cumbersome rules, or local laws that make things difficult? Maybe some odd concession contract, or union labor clause that decreases profits for the organizers. Or just a stadium that's difficult to negotiate with. I don't know any of that, and those examples and a bunch of stuff I can't even guess at now may all be big factors too.

 

This is one of two legitimate concerns with NFL stadiums: the playing surface and the roof. I can't recall exactly, but I don't think every seat needs to be covered, but most do.

IMO, constructing a roof over an existing stadium/seats is a helluva lot cheaper than building a whole new stadium. I think this can be easily managed. Plus, some of these already do this:

• Atlanta
• Dallas
• Phoenix
• (New) LA
• (New) Vegas
• Houston
• Miami
• Indianapolis
• Detroit
• Minneapolis
  
• New Orleans
• San Antonio

Others already have roof structures that could be extended:

• Philly
• Pittsburgh
• Cleveland
• Cincinnati
• LA Coliseum (based on Olympic upgrades)
  
• Seattle (which may already meet requirements)

While the roof is a legitimate concern, if needed, we could see a number of stadiums add roofs (which would be welcomed by most NFL fans, as I am sure they don't enjoy baking in the sun).

 

All I have to say is there are reasons it was not highly considered for the Copa America Centenario.
The surface is part of it.

 

that's a good point, but did you read that the reason was because they don't know how to lay down a good grass surface? There could have been a lot of other reasons too.

In any case, I still think it's going to be at or near the top of the list for 2026. Personally, I don't want it to be because I don't want to go to Dallas.

 

I'm curious why you say a domed stadium (I think that's what you mean by "like a gymnasium") is bad? Is it because the elements/weather should be part of the game?

When I watched USA-Argentina at the Copa last year, it was a hot, humid, miserable day in Houston. But inside NRG Stadium it was perfect because the retractable roof was closed with controlled conditions inside. Enclosed stadiums get louder too, so the atmosphere is louder.

Curious as to what others think too about domed vs. partially covered vs. totally open stadiums. I know I don't want to sit uncovered in the hot sun in the afternoon in June, but I don't think it's that big of a deal to me.

 

I dont care about the weather and if a stadium is domed or not. Like said above a field cares about it. If we want to keep turf out of the game we will need open stadiums. Now you can immitate the needed sunlight but you cant do that with air that a pro field needs to breathe. It's not a coincidence the most used soccer stadium type in the world is all roof for the stands and open in the middle.

 

OK got it. The thing is, the majority of the NFL stadiums (maybe the vast majority, I didn't look them all up) that seem to be the front runners for WC26 have artificial surfaces, so for the World Cup they'd need to put dirt and grass over the artificial surface and let it take hold over a course of many weeks before it gets played on. In the past this has been less than ideal as there have been noticeable seams in the grass, uneven surfaces, and the grass tends to come up easier.

So, I think this favors the open stadiums and the ones with retractable roofs. The pure domes seem to be less likely to be able to grow good strong grass after it gets laid down, but I'm not an expert. I hope that by WC26 the grass guys are a lot better at doing it and that for WC26 they'll get the grass installed way before the first match so it has a chance to settle in much better.

 

AT&T is considerably larger.

 

the thought of a World Cup match at Lambeau is absolutely hilarious to me

 

dallas is a bit larger, and with temporary seats, unless local fire-sheriff decides the opposite , it gets significantly bigger. it does not go over 100.000 as someone here wrote, but it goes up to 90k. cowboys stadium gets over 100k only if you count those endzone party standing areas, which are very unlikely to be approved by FIFA. at the world cup every ticket holder has its own seat!

furthermore, roof opening is about the same size on both stadiums, but dallas can also slide the walls away (glass walls behind the endzones), which makes it semi-open stadium. still, cowboys hardly ever open these doors/walls. they even do not open the roof often!

 

That would be the worst possible decission USSF could make. Lambeau is in the middle of nowhere, no real infrastructure there, and stadium is probbaly too small, if they remove those bleachers and install single seats with FIFA space requirements (no clue why Packers would accept this, even temporarily) and add all those huge media sections as in every world cup stadium, Lambeau would probbaly offer 50k seats. On the top of that I am not sure if one community owned stadium has a selection chance versus mighty NFL owners

 

ok, USSF listed 37 potential stadiums in 34 cities today, so nearly every significant stadium, therefore it all still means nothing. capacity numbers are current maximum configuration american football digits. very interesting, only NFL stadium left out is bufallo!
here the list:
Atlanta, GA Mercedes-Benz Stadium 75,000
Baltimore, MD M&T Bank Stadium 71,008
Birmingham, AL Legion Field 71,594
Boston, MA Gillette Stadium (Foxborough, MA) 65,892
Charlotte, NC Bank of America Stadium 75,400
Chicago, IL Soldier Field 61,500
Cincinnati, OH Paul Brown Stadium 65,515
Cleveland, OH FirstEnergy Stadium 68,710
Dallas, TX Cotton Bowl 92,100
AT&T Stadium (Arlington, TX) 105,000
Denver, CO Sports Authority Field at Mile High 76,125
Detroit, MI Ford Field 65,000
Green Bay, WI Lambeau Field 81,441
Houston, TX NRG Stadium 71,500
Indianapolis, IN Lucas Oil Stadium 65,700
Jacksonville, FL EverBank Field 64,000
Kansas City, MO Arrowhead Stadium 76,416
Las Vegas, NV Raiders Stadium 72,000
Los Angeles, CA Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum 78,500
LA Stadium at Hollywood Park (Inglewood, CA) TBD
Rose Bowl (Pasadena, CA) 87,527
Miami, FL Hard Rock Stadium 65,767
Minneapolis, MN U.S. Bank Stadium 63,000
Nashville, TN Nissan Stadium 69,143
New Orleans, LA Mercedes-Benz Superdome 72,000
New York/New Jersey MetLife Stadium (East Rutherford, NJ) 82,500
Orlando, FL Camping World Stadium 65,000
Philadelphia, PA Lincoln Financial Field 69,328
Phoenix, AZ University of Phoenix Stadium (Glendale, AZ) 73,000
Pittsburgh, PA Heinz Field 68,400
Salt Lake City, UT Rice-Eccles Stadium 45,807
San Antonio, TX Alamodome 72,000
San Diego, CA Qualcomm Stadium 71,500
San Francisco/San Jose, CA Levi's Stadium (Santa Clara, CA) 72,000
Seattle, WA CenturyLink Field 69,000
Tampa, FL Raymond James Stadium 73,309
Washington, DC FedEx Field (Landover, MD) 82.000

After cities declare their interest, the United Bid Committee will review the submissions and intends to issue a shortlist of cities by late September!!!
so we will know much more in a month or so!

 

yeah there are some long shots on that list. I agree Lambeau makes little sense for many reasons. Also, what's up with Qualcomm on the list? They're supposed to shut down that relic in 2 years. I hope it isn't still standing in 2026! And Legion Field in Birmingham, really?

Interesting, but not surprising that 31 of 32 NFL stadiums are on the list and no US MLB stadiums. Rogers Center in Toronto though is on Canada's list, which has hosted soccer before and from the looks of the pictures I just looked at, the seats reconfigure somehow. Though this is usually less than ideal for sightlines.

The newer ones are all NFL stadiums but I don't necessarily count out some of the older non-NFL venues like the Rose Bowl or even the LA Coliseum (will be non-NFL again soon). As I said, we don't know the full selection criteria and there could be some surprises.

What I would love to see is pitch dimensions (especially pitch width) for each of these stadiums. I'm assuming that each city/stadium submitted some sort of proposal to allow for an informed downselect, and that info must have been included.

 

That design is most prevalent in England, Netherlands, Germany, etc. because the weather is shite. lol They don't have roofs over the stands in Spain.

But yeah... I get your overall point.

 

Again, there are well over a hundred stadiums with capacity above 40k. Somehow I think that they will be able to find ten or twelve that will be very comfortable. In 1994, one of the issues was field temperatures. The newest stadiums have done a lot to fix this issue.

 

This month, one of the candidate stadiums, Atlanta's Mercedes Benz Stadium will be opening with the first games. Here is a virtual view of the stadium in a soccer configuration:

http://atlutd.io-media.com/web/index.html#/

 

IMO, this is fantastic.

 

Probably because they don't want to leave SD off the list if they can avoid it. San Diego, in addition to being a gorgeous market, is consistently one of the best markets in the US for international soccer viewership, and by extension attendance. The issue is the stadium as you say, is a relic. They're probably hoping SD will have replaced it by then. But I wouldn't hold my breath. SD may get a new stadium in the future, but it won't be 71,000 seats that's for damn sure.