In the month since the FIFA World Cup 2026’s first whistle blew on June 11, soccer fans have ruled Los Angeles.
Jersey-clad hoards have packed roaring bars and restaurants at gametime, spilled out onto streets from Santa Monica to Inglewood for post-game celebrations, and spent big at local chains for a taste of California.
Early sales, foot traffic and public transit ridership figures confirm what L.A.’s retail and hospitality sectors knew all along: Fandom is good for business.
But economists say it’s too soon to tell whether the tournament, which wrapped on Sunday, packed as big an economic punch as organizers expected. The latest projections ballpark the tournament’s impact in L.A. County at $892 million, well above the $594 million forecasted in 2024.
Only complete hotel, tax and spending data published in a few months’ time will reveal how the Cup measured up, said Shannon Sedgwick, vice president of research at the L.A. County Economic Development Corp.
“The final answer will depend on how much additional visitor spending occurred, how widely it was distributed and how that benefit compares with the public and private costs of hosting the event,” Sedgwick said.
Early data points hopeful
While, for now, a conclusive picture of the Cup’s benefit to L.A. sits out of reach, preliminary data from county agencies and businesses help fill in the frame.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Hollywood Park, the 300-acre development at the heart of L.A.’s World Cup festivities, reported a strong showing. The mixed-use complex is steps away from SoFi Stadium, which hosted more than 560,000 fans across L.A.’s eight World Cup games between June 12 and July 10.
“(It was) essentially like having eight individual Super Bowls in a 30-day window,” said Otto Benedict, the development and stadium’s senior vice president of facility and campus operations. “All of our retail district, the restaurants we have on site … had seen a significant uptick in the number of guests that were coming to their locations, pre-event and post-event.”
Attendance wasn’t limited to ticketholders flocking to Inglewood to see games at SoFi, Benedict said. The neighborhood also came alive with fans wanting to watch game streams at the center of the action, he said. June and July sales doubled at stadium-adjacent Tom’s Watch Bar, which landed opened in December, said Brooks Schaden, the bar’s co-chief executive and co-founder.
The crowds that piled in, especially when high-interest teams played, were a far cry from the slow summers Tom’s Watch Bar usually sees at its longer-standing location at downtown’s L.A. Live, Schaden said. About 3,000 fans gathered to see Spain challenge Belgium on the bar’s screens, only a third of whom could fit inside.
Fans posted up for hours before and after games and spent freely, he said.
“People were out for entertainment, and so they were less sensitive about pricing,” Schaden said. “They came out and stayed for a while and ordered what they wanted and drank what they wanted.”
In preparation for the Cup, the bar moved serving staff up from its San Diego outpost, he said, and struck up partnerships with local soccer fan clubs and country-specific groups for themed watch parties.
Metro, hotels see bump too
Businesses on the mega-event’s frontlines weren’t the only ones capitalizing on the flood of fans it brought to the area. A 22% bump to Los Angeles Metro rail ridership this June compared to last year suggests spectators moved throughout L.A County.
For the City of Santa Monica, capturing the influx of visitors – and their money – meant putting on six weeks of soccer-friendly programming, including game viewings, an oceanfront fun zone and free kids’ clinics.
Local businesses in the tourism-reliant city raked in benefits, said Mayor Caroline Torosis. The Third Street Promenade shopping esplanade saw 20,000 unique visitors on the first Saturday of the Cup, she said, and an estimated 75,000 festivalgoers packed the city’s downtown yesterday to celebrate the tournament’s end at COAST 2026.
“The World Cup has been extraordinarily helpful for Santa Monica because it’s really allowed us to showcase the renewed and refreshed Santa Monica,” said Torosis, who spearheaded a realignment plan, approved in March, that aims to draw businesses back to the city’s struggling downtown.
Preliminary numbers show a “significant increase” in consumer spending in Santa Monica during the tournament’s run, the mayor said.
And though L.A. hotels saw worryingly low bookings ahead of the Cup, Santa Monica Travel & Tourism reported strong hotel sector results: revenue per available room, a key metric combining occupancy and room rates, was up 38% year-over-year between June 11 and 20.
Last-minute bookings were a lifeline for hotels across L.A. left confounded after receiving fewer tournament-time reservations than they typically do during the early summer months, according to a report by the American Hotel and Lodging Association.
Temporary or lasting boost?
Measuring the Cup’s economic impact on L.A. means putting the projected $892-million boost in perspective, said Jay Hawkins, a senior economist at PNC Financial Services Group.
Since the figure represents just 0.1% of the county’s total economic output last year, “it doesn’t really amount to much, it’s temporary, and it doesn’t change the trajectory of the economy,” Hawkins said.
Sedgwick of the LAEDC agrees. However positive, most of the Cup’s direct hospitality benefit will be short-lived, she said.
“Hotel rooms, restaurant meals and event staffing are consumed during the tournament and cannot be repeated once visitors leave,” she said. “What can be sustained are the improvements in transportation operations, interagency coordination, public familiarity with transit, business relationships, international exposure and Los Angeles’ reputation as a host city.”
Whether the Cup brought as many dollars as expected to L.A. or not, the grand hope for organizers, city leaders and business-owners are the ripples the tournament could send for months – or even years – to come.
“It’s about economic impact, but it’s also about using the exposure to bring people to the city to experience this event and giving them a broader experience of what the city has to offer, so that they want to come back, bring their families and spend more money in our city,” said Kathryn Schloessman, president and chief executive of the Los Angeles Sports & Entertainment Commission.
The LASEC, which serves as the lead organizer and host for local high-profile sporting events, is ready for the spotlight to stay on L.A.
The Cup kicked off a historically busy three-year period for the area, which will be the site of Super Bowl LXI in February and the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
As the soccer tourists that descended upon L.A. head home, the Cup’s payoff lingers not only for businesses whose sales saw a lift, but also the commercial landlords cashing in on surging interest in retail leases at both Hollywood Park and Santa Monica’s downtown core.
“We’ve been touting this story for years, that this three-year run is putting Los Angeles on the international stage nonstop,” Schloessman said. “We want to tell people, ‘L.A. is alive and well and open for business.’”
