{"id":205379,"date":"2026-03-26T09:45:35","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T09:45:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/economic-impact-of-world-cup-will-go-beyond-tournament-in-atlanta-usa-today\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T09:45:35","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T09:45:35","slug":"economic-impact-of-world-cup-will-go-beyond-tournament-in-atlanta-usa-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/economic-impact-of-world-cup-will-go-beyond-tournament-in-atlanta-usa-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Economic impact of World Cup will go beyond tournament in Atlanta – USA Today"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is less than 100 days until the world’s biggest soccer tournament comes to North America, and while stadiums enter their final preparation stage<\/a>, the towns around event spaces are finalizing plans of their own.
Officials with the FIFA World Cup estimate an economic boost of $30 billion to the U.S. economy<\/a> by hosting 78 of the total 104 tournament matches. An estimated $500 million of that will be poured into the economy of Atlanta, one of eleven host cities.
Teams will play eight matches at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta<\/a> this summer, starting with Spain (a tournament favorite) versus Cabo Verde (in their first appearance in a World Cup) on June 15 and ending with a to-be-determined face off semifinal match on July 15.
But the City of Atlanta isn’t the only municipality that will benefit by the sudden influx of domestic and international soccer fans. The greater Atlanta metro has dozens of neighborhoods and cities with their own plans to celebrate the tournament.
Tom Smith, an expert in sports economics and professor at Emory’s Goizueta Business School, co-authored a new report<\/a> outlining the economic impact of the World Cup on the City of Decatur as the city prepares for its own “WatchFest 26.”
Smith said the event could bring millions of dollars to the city, but the benefits will stretch far past the tournament itself. Here’s what Smith found.
Decatur WatchFest 26 is a 34-day event where matches will be streamed<\/a> from historic downtown Decatur and paired with concerts, games and events.
“(Decatur) reached out to FIFA to get approval to put this big screen, they don’t need the approval for the big screen in their square, but they need approval to broadcast the games in the square,” Smith said in an interview with USA TODAY.
The city has gone through a sort of facelift, particularly in their downtown area, and is now described as “cute,” “functional,” “welcoming” and “inviting,” by Smith. There is a MARTA station directly off the square, so fans coming from around Atlanta could take public transportation to the event.
Smith’s analysis found scenarios where anywhere from 3,500 to 10,000 people could visit Decatur on any given day of the event, likely on the higher end on match days. With the influx of visitors comes the influx of vistors’ money.
“Overall, the World Cup and WatchFest will bring Decatur between $62.6 million to $142.5 million in total spending, 475 to 1,139 new jobs, $2.4 million to $5.9 million in wages and $1.8 million to $2.6 million in tax revenue,” according to the report.
Additionally, the report found an estimated $19.6 million in hotel revenue, $37.2 million in direct shopping revenue and $20.6 million in indirect shopping revenue.
In order to bring in the revenue, however, the city has to foot some major spending ahead of the event. Smith said while there won’t be necessarily be a direct return for the City of Decatur, the prioritization is really on the local businesses.
“There will be some fiscal money that will flow back to the City of Decatur, probably through a combination of hotels and restaurants and alcohol sales, but it’s pretty clear that the city is spending money to prep the event and give business owners an opportunity that they wouldn’t have otherwise,” Smith said. “I don’t always think in situations like this that it’s such a bad thing for a city to say, wait a minute, what are some things that we could do that could directly impact the ability for our local businesses to make money.”
Smith said spending like this by the city is “thoughtful” and a way to show off what the revamped downtown space can do. The City of Decatur has spent time in recent years bringing new life in their city square and the surrounding historic area.
“A fair number of people are going to be (visiting) from the Alpharettas and the Marriettas … or even Atlanta proper, right, or part of the Fourth Ward or someone might say ‘Oh, we got a cool thing going on here, but let’s see what they got going on over there.’ Any new money that you bring into the area is going to have an economic impact,” Smith said. “I suspect that there are people in the Decatur group that said, ‘You know what, we should make sure that people know that we’re here.’ Even after this event, they might find a restaurant that they really like or a cool shop that has really neat stuff that they want to come back for, and hey, why don’t you come by on a Saturday afternoon? We’re not going to turn you away.”
Irene Wright is the Atlanta Connect reporter with USA TODAY’s Deep South Connect team. Find her on X @IreneEWright or email her at ismith@usatodayco.com.<\/em><\/p>\n

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It is less than 100 days until the world’s biggest soccer tournament comes to North America, and while stadiums enter their final preparation stage, the towns around event spaces are finalizing plans of their own.Officials with the FIFA World Cup estimate an economic boost of $30 billion to the U.S. economy by hosting 78 of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":205380,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-205379","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}