The FIFA World Cup 2026™ is the largest sporting event in the world. The numbers are staggering: over half of the world’s population are soccer fans, 1.5 billion people tuned in for the 2022 final, and millions are expect to attend the 2026 tournament in person. The math continues: 48 countries are participating, games are in 16 different stadiums, all located across three nations. That’s a lot of moving pieces for a lot of passionate fans, creating a nearly-unheard of logistical puzzle. Or as FIFA President Gianni Infantino put it, “a World Cup is 104 Super Bowls in one month.”
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How do you bring the FIFA World Cup™ to the world?
How can billions of fans get as close to the action as possible? Technology.
To solve that puzzle requires a strong technology backbone. As sports fans demand more access, more information, and more ways to share their excitement, communications networks face increased pressure. In 2026, it will be Verizon, the telecommunications sponsor of the FIFA World Cup™, facing the logistics of those billions of viewers and millions of in-person fans.
“FIFA always wants to make sure that each World Cup is better,” says Abraham Arencibia, the Vice President of Technology and Product Development at Verizon. “Do we use new technology? Can we make it much more exciting? How do we bring it closer to the people, make it more immersive? So that’s exactly what we want to do with technology as well.”
Just as with the game itself, everything starts on the field. Miniature sensors have proliferated over the past few years and ball and player tracking data has advanced. But the network to collect and share that millisecond-to-millisecond data has to be utterly reliable, and uninterrupted by, say, tens of thousands of people trying to upload a video of the stunning goal they just saw from the stands. Viewers at home have come to expect more access, too, and referee cameras are starting to provide that eye-level view - without buffering or dropping the ref’s video stream, if the network is set up right.
In order to prepare for this staggering increase in bandwidth demand, one of the stadiums that will be hosting FIFA World Cup 2026™ games - MetLife Stadium, just outside of New York City - has seen around 6 million feet of fiber optic cable installed. That’s enough to stretch across New York State four times, and it’s still just the starting point. Since over fifty terabytes of data are expected to be used by fans within a stadium for each match as they upload selfies and monitor apps, Verizon installed a 5G network made up of over 2,400 antennas. Again, this is just one of the 16 stadiums that will be hosting games in the summer of 2026, with fans coming from all around the world to experience it.
“It’s putting a puzzle together for all the different ecosystems from phones out there, the different carriers that come from across different countries,” says Arencibia. “But as soon as they step into the US, what you want to give them is a unified, immersive experience, a unified connectivity experience where we can delight all of them.”
Verizon is investing in the fan experience, and the 2026 FIFA World Cup™ will be about more than just the winners and losers on the pitch. After all, as Arencibia notes, “it really does sound silly because at the end of the day this is just a game, but it does unite people. It gets people together from different countries, different cultures, different backgrounds, just to talk, to connect, to communicate. And if we have a little part in that, that’s something to really be proud of.“