The $1.9 Billion World Cup Meal: What Technomic's Forecast Means for QSR Operators in 16 Host Cities

The 2026 FIFA World Cup will be the largest sporting event ever held in the United States. Forty-eight teams. One hundred four matches. Sixteen cities across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, with 78 of those matches played on American soil. The tournament runs from June 11 through July 19, giving host-city restaurant operators a five-week window of elevated demand that Technomic says will add $1.9 billion to U.S. food-service revenue.

That $1.9 billion figure needs context. It represents just 0.2% of the total U.S. food-service industry, which Technomic forecasts at $1.2 trillion in 2026. It will not move national numbers. But for operators in the 16 host cities, the concentration of spending will be anything but marginal. The money flows to specific zip codes, specific dayparts, and specific formats. The operators who capture it will be the ones who planned for it months in advance.

Where the $1.9 Billion Comes From

Technomic breaks the food-service impact into three distinct channels: international visitor spending, sports-venue traffic, and watch-party occasions.

The visitor spending piece is the most quantifiable. Tourism Economics projects 1.24 million international visitors will travel to the U.S. for the tournament. Of that total, 742,000 are incremental visitors who would not have come to the country otherwise, according to Forbes' reporting on the data. These are not business travelers adding a match to an existing trip. They are purpose-driven sports tourists who will eat, drink, and spend for days or weeks at a time.

Tourism Economics further estimates that hotel room revenue in U.S. host cities will surge by up to 25% in June 2026. When hotel occupancy spikes, restaurant traffic in surrounding areas follows. Stadium-adjacent restaurants, sports bars, and fast-casual spots within a two-mile radius of each venue will absorb the heaviest traffic.

The second channel is sports-oriented venue traffic. Bars and restaurants with large-screen viewing setups will see increased visits even from Americans who are not traveling to a match. Soccer's U.S. audience has grown substantially since the last time the country hosted the World Cup in 1994, and the 2026 tournament will be the first with 48 teams, expanding the number of countries (and diaspora fan bases) with games to watch.

The third channel is informal. Watch parties, office gatherings, and neighborhood events create incremental food-service occasions that would not otherwise exist. These are the hardest to forecast but historically represent a meaningful share of sports-event-driven spending.

The Host City Map

The 11 U.S. host cities are New York/New Jersey (MetLife Stadium), Los Angeles (SoFi Stadium), Miami (Hard Rock Stadium), Dallas (AT&T Stadium), Houston (NRG Stadium), Atlanta (Mercedes-Benz Stadium), Philadelphia (Lincoln Financial Field), Seattle (Lumen Field), San Francisco (Levi's Stadium), Kansas City (Arrowhead Stadium), and Boston (Gillette Stadium). Canada hosts in Toronto and Vancouver. Mexico hosts in Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Monterrey.

For U.S. operators, the practical question is how many matches your city gets. The group stage distributes games across all venues, but the knockout rounds concentrate in the largest stadiums. MetLife Stadium hosts the final on July 19. SoFi Stadium and Hard Rock Stadium host semifinals. These later-round cities will see the most intense spending spikes, because the matches draw larger crowds, more media, and higher per-visitor spending as the tournament narrows.

The Los Angeles World Cup 26 Host Committee has confirmed that the historic Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in Exposition Park will serve as the official FIFA Fan Festival for the city, with match screenings, concerts, and food vendors running from June 11 through July 15. Every host city will have a similar fan zone. Operators located near these zones face a separate demand surge independent of the stadium itself.

What Bernstein's Analyst Team Flagged

Wall Street is paying attention to the restaurant-level impact. Bernstein analysts specifically highlighted Cava, Wingstop, and Starbucks as restaurant companies likely to capture higher customer visits tied to fan gatherings and tourism in host cities, according to Yahoo Finance's reporting on the analysis. The common thread is urban footprint density. Chains with heavy concentration in downtown cores of host cities will see disproportionate lift, because that is where visitors cluster.

For QSR operators, the implication is straightforward. If you operate multiple units in a host city and some of those units sit near the stadium, the fan zone, or major hotel corridors, those locations need a different operational plan for June and July than the rest of your portfolio.

The Operator Playbook

Staffing. The tournament creates demand surges that will be predictable by date and time but unusual in magnitude. Group-stage matches at a given venue will spike traffic for four to six hours around each game. If your city hosts three group-stage matches and one knockout-round match, that is four days of 150% to 200% normal traffic in a concentrated radius. Build the schedule around the match calendar, not your typical seasonal plan. Hire temporary staff now. The labor market in most host cities is already tight, and every bar and restaurant within five miles of a stadium will be competing for the same workers.

Inventory. International visitors have different consumption patterns than domestic QSR customers. The 2026 tournament fields teams from every FIFA confederation. European and South American fans index heavily toward beer, and they drink more of it per occasion than American sports fans typically do, according to prior World Cup consumption data. QSR operators with beverage programs should plan for higher per-transaction beverage attach rates. Operators without alcohol should plan for higher volumes on shareable food items, because international visitors in groups tend toward shared platters and combo formats.

Extended hours. Several host-city matches will kick off at times that create unusual demand windows. Morning and early-afternoon kickoffs, adjusted for time zones, can push breakfast and lunch traffic into patterns operators rarely see. A 1 p.m. Eastern kickoff at MetLife Stadium means pregame traffic starts at 10 a.m. A West Coast group-stage match at 4 p.m. Pacific means pregame traffic at 1 p.m. Map your match schedule to your operating hours and adjust.

Digital visibility. International visitors will search for food using Google Maps, Uber Eats, and DoorDash in unfamiliar cities. Operators who have not updated their Google Business profiles, verified their hours on delivery platforms, or ensured their menus are current on third-party apps will be invisible to the highest-spending visitor segment. This is basic digital hygiene, but it matters more during a five-week tourism surge than at any other time of the year.

Promotions with purpose. Themed promotions tied to the World Cup can drive traffic, but they need to be credible. A taco brand running a promotion around Mexico matches has an authentic tie-in. A pizza chain offering a "Goal Deal" during the final has cultural relevance. A burger brand slapping a soccer ball on its signage does not. The best promotions connect the food to the occasion, not just the branding.

The Casual-Dining Angle

Technomic's broader 2026 forecast highlights an interesting dynamic that the World Cup amplifies. Casual-dining restaurants, particularly sports-bar concepts, have been gaining share against QSR by leaning into the social dining occasion. Chili's "3 for me" deal, which starts at $10.99, has "successfully redrawn the affordability equation," according to Technomic's characterization reported by MediaPost.

During the World Cup, the social occasion advantage widens. Watching a match is inherently a group activity. Casual-dining and sports-bar formats are purpose-built for it. QSR operators who want to compete for that occasion need to create a reason for groups to gather in their locations, whether through large-screen installations in dining rooms, viewing-party promotions, or temporary outdoor setups in markets where weather and permitting allow it.

Sizing the Opportunity Honestly

The $1.9 billion figure is real, but it distributes unevenly. Most of it flows to the 11 U.S. host cities. Within those cities, most flows to operators within a short distance of stadiums, fan zones, and hotel districts. Within that subset, most flows to formats that naturally capture group dining, beverage occasions, and tourist traffic.

For a QSR operator with locations in a non-host city, the World Cup is background noise. For an operator with three locations in the MetLife Stadium corridor, it is potentially the highest-revenue five weeks of the year.

Technomic's overall forecast projects U.S. food-service growth of $49.82 billion in 2026, a 4.3% increase from 2025. The World Cup's $1.9 billion contribution is a sliver of that total. But the entire U.S. food-service industry grew only 0.2% in real terms after adjusting for inflation in recent quarters. For operators in the right locations, the World Cup is not a rounding error. It is the difference between a flat year and a strong one.

The tournament starts June 11. The staffing, inventory, and promotion decisions that determine whether an operator captures this demand need to be made now, not when the opening ceremony airs.