What does the 2026 World Cup Mean for Sports Jobs? Work in Sports Podcast e90

If North America secures the bid for the 2026 World Cup - what does that mean for sports jobs seekers? A lot. 

Hi everybody I’m Brian Clapp Director of Content for WorkinSports.com and this is the Work in Sports podcast.

Happy Monday everyone, we’ve got a pretty big week ahead – later this afternoon I am interviewing Dr. Samuel Todd from the University of South Carolina. The reason Dr. Todd and I are talking is because his research is focused on the differences between sports job seekers and other industry job seekers.

In fact, he helps sports employers streamline their hiring process, has studied how happy people are in sports careers and how people find their right fit in the sports industry.

I’m very excited about this, and I think you should be too. That’ll publish this Wednesday so keep an eye out for that.

In the meantime, today’s QA question comes from an expert in their own right. For the last 10 years Karl Keating has worked for adidas in their Brand Marketing department…then shifted over to Nike moving to the Netherlands to be their global brand manager.

He wrote to me on Linkedin asking me a question… which I’ll be honest, took me back a bit for obvious reasons.  Karl is going to be an expert guest on the show, but first I owe him an answer to his question.

Karl asks -- if North America gets the 2026 WC on Thursday, what do think the immediate impact will be on sports jobs in the US?

Karl I love the immediacy of this question.

For those of you who are not soccer buffs a bit of background. The World Cup is the largest sports event in the world. Period.

Let’s add some perspective: the 2014 World Cup final was watched by 1.01 billion people.

The 2014 super bowl was watched by 114 million.

That was just the World Cup final – there were 64 games total in 12 venues throughout Brazil.

This is a huge event.

For more on Brian's perspective on the sports jobs related to the 2026 World Cup listen to the podcast!