Philly’s 2026 World Cup bid officials plan for the scale of hosting the world

Dan Hilferty, the chair of Philadelphia’s 2026 men’s World Cup host committee, has taken a simple but strong message everywhere he has talked about the spectacle.

If you think you know how big the World Cup will be here, think again.

On Wednesday morning, he took the message to a gathering of local business leaders in Center hosted by the Philadelphia Business Journal. And two days after an Eagles win that electrified the region, he had an apt analogy ready.

“We here in the States tend to think of the Super Bowl as the be-all and end-all of sporting events,” Hilferty said. “I have come to describe the World Cup as the Super Bowl over and over and over again, for a month-plus.”

Union president Tim McDermott, like Hilferty, came to soccer from a background outside the sport. (And like Hilferty, he’s a big Eagles fan). The former chief marketing officer at the 76ers, Eagles, and Washington Capitals, and reflected on what he has learned from working in the world’s game.

“I hadn’t really until the last six, seven years really understood and absorbed the sport of soccer,” McDermott said, with that time span being how long he’s been with the Union. “It is truly magnificent. It is so unusual. The traditions of the sport, I think people now here in the Delaware Valley will get a chance to see and understand what it means, what it represents: at a national level, this concept of civic pride.”

» READ MORE: Philadelphia will host 2026 men’s World Cup games, bringing a global sports spectacle to America’s birthplace

He compared the passions of American sports fans to those of international sports fans, and measured the gap between then.

“In America, we focus so much on our American sports, obviously with the NFL being at the top of that,” McDermott said. “But when you think of the world’s sport, a global sport, in almost every other country, soccer is that sport, and we, I think, sometimes here don’t quite understand that. The passion that in the United States we might have for an NFL game or an Eagles game, Imagine that times two, times five, times 10, for a World Cup game — that’s some of what we should expect.”

This being an event for the business community, there was plenty of conversation about how the business community can get involved. A key piece of the puzzle right now, Hilferty said, is fundraising to pay for facilities that will be used beyond Lincoln Financial Field. That means practice venues, such as the proposed one at FDR Park that has generated controversy; and the fan fest site, the site for which Hilferty said hasn’t been finalized yet.

Hilferty said that when FIFA’s delegation visited the city last fall, local organizers had “raised a little over 50% of what we need to raise” to run events and facilities during the tournament. The goal is to have all of the sites confirmed next year. And while he politely dodged questions on where the fan fest will be, he hinted that it could be on Penn’s Landing, where a big park is planned for the planned cap over I-95.

“Along the river might be a logical choice,” he said. “FIFA would like to be closer to Center City. So I’d like to just leave it at stay tuned.”

» READ MORE: What being a potential World Cup training site means for South Philly’s FDR Park

Comcast’s senior vice president of political engagement Michelle Singer praised FIFA its “flexibility in allowing us to be creative” with fundraising, “because we do have experience. And they are waiting on us, just like they are the rest of the American cities, to raise the capital needed to put on a world class event.”

She also revealed something new: that as the bid competition unfolded, a lot of other cities’ committees were rooting for Philadelphia to win. They told her so when she attended a FIFA-led conference for local host committees in New York this summer.

“Which was so cool,” she said.

And Hilferty said something that has made the rounds widely in American soccer circles: that when FIFA executives visited the city last September, they really liked what they saw. The word went out a few weeks afterward that Philadelphia’s stock rose more than almost any other bidder.

“We put together this feeling like, ‘Wow, these people, not only do they want it, they can do it,’” Hilferty said. “‘And a number of the FIFA people, off the record [at the time], said to our folks … ‘You know what, you guys really differentiated yourselves.’”

» READ MORE: A soccer dream comes true for the Union’s Alejandro Bedoya and Jim Curtin — and Comcast’s Brian Roberts

The most important thing for fundraisers and taxpayers alike is that the stadium where games will be played already exists. And it really helps that Lincoln Financial Field won’t need the kinds of renovations that other 2026 venues will need, especially those with artificial turf or playing surfaces that are too narrow for soccer’s rules.

(Philly fans might like to know that the Dallas Cowboys’ stadium is among the worst offenders.)

That will help local organizers focus on the fan experience outside the Sports Complex and Center City.

“We’ll have a lot of folks here that, this might be their first time to the United States, it might be their first time to Philadelphia,” Angela Val, Visit Philadelphia CEO, said. “We have a chance to also, for those folks that might be thinking that Philly is only a place for cheesesteaks and running the ‘Rocky’ steps, to show them another side of our city.”

» READ MORE: Philly celebrates win as World Cup host: ‘The world is coming to Philadelphia and we are ready’