When you see a Uruguay-Egypt game that drew 27K or a Spain-Portugal game that drew 43K: that's 50,000 tickets less than they could have sold at a big venue in the USA (or England or similar).
Let's say the average is 25,000 more a game in bigger stadiums (not every game is as attractive as those two)....
Call it $200 a ticket, that's $5M a game. There are 64 games (there will be 80 games in 2026). All the later stage games will be in big venues, so say 40 of those games are candidates for decisions, where you have a choice between a big or small venue.
That's $200 million. You may not think they should care about that, they get billions from TV, but I think they will care. This World Cup bid was all about max dollars everywhere, on every front.
Of course Toronto may get games. Someone up here has to, and the difference between the Big O or Edmonton and an expanded BMO is only 15,000-20,000 seats. So the cost is only, call it, $2.5M a game at BMO. But it's not certain that we will, and I think it's more uncertain than people think.
If I am John Tory, I'd rather find a way to somehow cut a check to FIFA for $10M for 4 games, than do something stupid on the stadium front.
It's not like anyone is going to rise up at the injustice if Canada gets cut back, or if Toronto is somehow left out. Quite the contrary, we are rather vulnerable...
https://globalnews.ca/news/4274994/m...sts-criticism/