ARLINGTON, Texas — It was a coup for the city of Arlington.
AT&T Stadium will host nine World Cup matches in 2026.
The economic implications for the city are enormous since it will basically be nine Super Bowls spread out over a month. But it’s also going to cost Arlington.
Arlington Mayor Jim Ross told us on Inside Texas Politics that they don’t have all the numbers yet, so they’re not quite sure how large the price tag will be. But he did say he expects some help from the federal and state governments.
While safety is the city’s top priority, many of those dollars will also be spent on infrastructure.
“We’ve already started to move money around to better some of the roadways that surround the entertainment district there,” Ross said. “We have more and more hotel space. At the end of this year, we’re going to have the Drury Hotel open as well here in Arlington. That’s another 250+ rooms in Arlington.”
Ross tells us Arlington is adding more than 1,000 hotel rooms this year alone.
Transportation is another critical issue.
Ross says moving people around within the city is no problem and that Arlington already has a great ride-share program in place.
The question then becomes how to move hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people into and out of Arlington.
“We’re working hand-in-hand with the regional transportation commission, working hand-in-hand to have buses that run back and forth to CentrePort so that we can get people on the T to get to and from the Dallas-Fort Worth area,” he told us. “Every city in the metroplex has systems that gets around the city pretty well. But every city struggles when it comes to regional transportation issues.”
The World Cup matches will take place in Arlington in June and July of 2026.