A World-Changing World Cup?

The World Cup is supposed to unite the world. Sports are meant to bridge our differences. Millions of people—regardless of language, religion, race or politics—tune in to watch their nation play football on the global stage. The United States, Canada and Mexico jointly hosted this year’s World Cup in 16 different cities. The gameplay did not disappoint; there were major upsets, nail-biting matches and heartbreaking disappointments (like watching my England team lose again). This year, an expanded 48-team format of 104 matches culminated in the final between defending champions Argentina and Spain on July 19.

There are several important angles to this year’s World Cup.

The biggest winner was not Spain—it was online gambling websites. “We’re just over halfway through fifa World Cup 2026, but there’s already one clear winner—sports betting companies,” cbc reported July 4. “This year’s World Cup is expected to become the biggest betting event in history, surpassing the 2022 World Cup and the record-setting 2025 Super Bowl, with more than $50 billion projected to be wagered worldwide, according to a recent report by Macquarie.”

Ismail Vali, president of Gaming Compliance International, estimated that a total of $593 billion was wagered, 69 percent of which was illegal or unregulated. He called it a “World Cup of Crime.” Sports are becoming a convenient venue for gambling.

A gargantuan amount of online content was created. World Cup video and social media content has generated over 146 billion views, on top of billions of impressions and social media engagements. Seven percent of global internet traffic has been generated by the World Cup. fifa and other sponsors have emphasized giving streamers and influencers chances to create content. Nearly everyone who attends a game makes a social media post about it. “More than 90 petabytes of direct tournament data are expected to be generated during the event,” Sports Business Journal wrote. “Total data creation could top two exabytes once AI, simulations, streaming and social platforms are included.”

What does two exabytes mean? I had to look it up: It is 1 quintillion bytes, or a 1 with 18 zeros. Modern computers generally come with 1 terabyte of memory. There are a million terabytes in one exabyte. That is a ridiculous amount of content generated from this event. How much of it has any value?

This was the most expensive World Cup ever. It seems each World Cup gets more expensive than the last. Hosting the World Cup in North America may have cost over $12 billion. For Canadians, it cost taxpayers $1 billion total, or $82 million per game. You can feel these costs in the ticket prices. For the finals, tickets prices averaged $13,700, with premium tickets going up to $200,000.

Ticket prices were already high from the opening kick off. Business Insider wrote:

Tickets for the World Cup were up to seven times as expensive as organizers first said, and compared to previous tournaments. …

For this year’s final, a Category 1 ticket cost $10,990 in the April open sale.

During the previous seven World Cups, the same ticket cost between $988 and $1,783 when adjusted for inflation, according to contemporary news reports and fifa press releases.

Can we afford this?

The experience was funded by credit cards. The high costs didn’t deter most fans, who paid for flights, hotels, tickets and food with cards. Some data hasn’t been compiled yet, but Mexico News Daily reported that Mexican soccer fans were spending nearly $2000 per game:

• 38 percent of survey respondents paid their expenses with debit cards, cash or planned savings.
• The rest (62 percent) used financing options.

A similar survey in Britain found that “almost a quarter (23 percent) of Brits expect to rely on credit cards or borrowing to fund World Cup-related spending.”

The World Cup united the world against America. As our March 2026 Trumpet cover depicts, controversy at this tournament intensified anti-Americanism. While many fans enjoyed America’s materialism, they were incensed when President Donald Trump bragged about having American striker Folarin Balogun’s red card reversed, which allowed him to play in the knockout game against Belgium. When Belgium won, the world united in bashing President Trump and the U.S. team. The entire tournament happened in the shadow of President Trump.

The World Cup always has controversy and geopolitics. This year, an Egyptian player displayed a Gazan flag, while Argentina held up a banner claiming the Falklands Islands after beating England. National sports teams can never be separated from the politics of their nations. The world has become more dangerous, divided and violent since the last World Cup. A sports tournament will not change that.

The World Cup highlights an important truth about human nature. In August 1962, the late Herbert W. Armstrong wrote a classic article “Crucify the False God of Self” explaining that human nature is inherently selfish. Why do we love our country and our sports team? Mr. Armstrong wrote:

This very human nature—vanity, self-love, self exaltation—implants within the self the basic spirit of rivalry—the “party spirit.” That is why students of one college are loyal to their team in sports, but against their team’s opponents. It is natural—according to nature—that people are loyal to their political party, opposed to the opposing party— patriotic toward their country, willing to fight against and kill people of another country in war. Their sports team, their political party, their country, all these are part of their own empirical self.

People want to belong. People want to be part of a group, a club, a team, a party. And why is this?

That is a good question. Mr. Armstrong explained: “Man was made carnal, material—but he was made to need the spirit of God. Without this spiritual life from God, man experiences a sense of emptiness hunger and thirst for that which will satisfy.”

There is a God-shaped hole in every human being, but we try to fill it with anything but God. This World Cup showed mankind seeking to fill this void with football, only to be disappointed in the end.

There is nothing wrong with enjoying sporting events in the right balance. However, this World Cup highlighted the lifestyles and divisions that cause so many problems in this world. We seek after pleasure to fill the void in our lives, instead of a developing a relationship with our spiritual Father.

You can read more about this in our August 2026 Trumpet article “Bread, Circuses and Violent Delights.”