WATCH: Why hosting World Cup has 'no financial benefit'
July 15, 2026
4,771
55
1.15%
Search the Record
IndexedEvery word spoken in this episode is indexed. Type any phrase to jump straight to the moment it was said.
Type any word or phrase that may have been spoken. Click a result to seek the player to that exact moment.
Try a name, a topic, or a quoted line
Amna Nawaz Episodes Around July 15, 2026
See what was published immediately before and after this episode.
2:18Now PlayingWATCH: Why hosting World Cup has 'no financial benefit'
YouTube Description
as posted by the channelThere is "no financial benefit" to hosting the World Cup, sports journalist Simon Kuper says.
"World Cups don't boost the economy," he told PBS News' Geoff Bennett. "That's a very clear and consistent finding by academic sports economists over the decades ... So they don't increase GDP. They don't increase the number of jobs. They don't increase tourism to your cities."
"Then you're left with the costs because FIFA's model is, it takes all the money from the World Cup," he added. "The host city can't even charge sales tax on ticket sales, and the hosts have to pay the costs."
Kuper, author of “World Cup Fever: A Soccer Journey in Nine Tournaments," joined Bennett for the latest episode of PBS News' Settle In podcast. They discussed the World Cup, the politics of FIFA and where soccer goes from here.
For the full episode, click the link in our bio.
Sign up for Here's The Deal with Lisa Desjardins
Subscribe for exclusive content in our newsletters
PBS News podcasts
Stream your PBS favorites with the PBS app
Find more from PBS News at
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Guests & Subjects Covered
Sentinel Indexing in Progress
Metadata and chapters are available. Claim extraction for this episode is pending.
All video content is delivered via YouTube embedded players in accordance with the YouTube Terms of Service. Sentinel provides research tools that promote discovery and accountability across political media.