The World Cup Has Become the World’s Largest Pop-Up Store

The Super Bowl is a one-night luxury product; the Olympics is an infrastructure project with medals. The FIFA World Cup 2026 is a roaming retail platform: 48 teams, 104 matches and 16 host cities across three countries. Through 44 matches, attendance had topped 2.85 million, with stadiums averaging 99.6% full, according to a Reuters analysis .