2026 World Cup Host City Insights – New York / New Jersey

2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup Countdown

In the seventh edition of our series highlighting 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup host markets, we’re putting New York / New Jersey—host of eight games, including one Round of 32 game, one Round of 16 game, and the Final—under the microscope. Whether you’re a marketer, a brand, or just a fan, we’ve gathered a sampling of insights to help you capitalize on New York World Cup soccer interest.

Market Overview

Before we dive into soccer-specific info, let’s start with a snapshot of the demographics of the New York metro area in comparison to the rest of the United States. Below are insights into population, age, race, family size, education, and income via the U.S. Census Bureau.

Category	United States	Houston
Population	334,914,895	8,258,035
Persons <18 years old	21.7%	20.4%
Persons 65+ years old	17.3%	16.0%
White, alone	75.5%	35.9%
Black, alone	13.6%	22.7%
Hispanic or Latino	19.1%	28.4%
Persons in HH	2.57	2.51
Language other than English spoken by age 5+	21.7%	47.5%
Bachelor's degree or higher	34.3%	41.0%
Median HH income	$75,149	$79,713

Soccer interest in New York / New Jersey

Using 2024 data from the U.S. Census, MRI-Simmons, and Esri’s Market Potential Index, below is a table illustrating the percent of the DMA’s population who participated or is likely to participate in several soccer-specific categories. Also included are the respective indexes, highlighting the amount the DMA over-indexes relative to the general U.S. population.

Category	% of Population	Index
Participated in Soccer/12 Mo	3.49%	111
Watch World Cup Soccer	10.31%	125
Watch International Soccer	7.62%	126
Watch the U.S. Men's National Team	5.28%	120
Watch the U.S. Women's National Team	4.16%	114
Watch MLS	5.56%	115

Putting New York-Area Zip Codes under the soccer microscope

With background on the DMA and the relationship of its residents to soccer, let’s now combine the two and dive a bit deeper by identifying key zip codes with residents who over-index in soccer-specific engagements.

Using similar data referenced above, below is a map of the New York DMA that highlights specific zip codes meeting the following criteria:

• Over-index in participating in soccer in the last 12 months
• Over-index in likely demand for watching the World Cup on TV

Of the 1,110 zip codes within the DMA, 384 (35%) meet the above criteria. Curious which individual zip codes over-index most in both criteria? Check out the scatter plot graph below for more insight.

For ease of sorting and discovery, here are the top 20 zip codes for each category.

Searching for “2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup“

We’ve still got some time before the tournament kicks off in June of 2026, but it’s interesting to note the search volume trends within the New York area. Below is the volume of Google searches for “2026 FIFA World Cup” since January 1, 2022.

Two notable spikes in searches are in June 2022 and November-December 2022. The former was the period during which FIFA announced the host markets for the 2026 tournament. The latter is during the 2022 FIFA Men’s World Cup when searches were likely increased due, in part, to preview discussions around 2026.

The next notable spike in search volume is from when the full schedule of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World cup was announced in early February.

Note: the embedded graph may not populate if you use Safari as your browser. To view the graph, click here.