The Heat Stroke World Cup (TM) in Miami 2026?

by philg

The mostly corruption-free folks at FIFA say that seven World Cup 2026 matches will be played in Miami (source):

How will this work given that the World Cup is set for JULY? All the games will be at night? They’ll accept a 70 percent player attribution rate due to heat stroke? My bet is that the games are scheduled for 8 pm in Europe, which means 2 pm in Miami. This will maximize TV viewership.

(Miami isn’t actually hotter than many northern cities in July, but the humidity is reliably close to 100 percent. In fact, the New York Times says that Floridians are constantly on the verge of “extreme danger”. See Floridians brave Extreme Danger heat levels (July 2023), for example. And, as a loyal follower of The Science, I wouldn’t pay to sit outdoors on a summer afternoon in Miami and watch soccer, Taylor Swift, or anything else that people pay big $$ to watch. The Formula 1 spectators apparently don’t care. The Miami race is held in May during the hottest hours of the day and sells out.)

7 thoughts on “The Heat Stroke World Cup (TM) in Miami 2026?”

  1. The Heat Stroke World Cup (TM) in Miami 2026? Yes!
    How will this work given that the World Cup is set for JULY? It will work regularly.
    All the games will be at night? No.
    They’ll accept a 70 percent player attribution rate due to heat stroke? Yes!

  2. The summer olympics was held in Atlanta in July and August, 1996. It was extremely hot, but I don’t remember folks dropping dead.

  3. They should have held it this year on the 40th Anniversary of the 1984 Dallas Grand Prix, which was scheduled with similar climate-science informed wisdom.

    The track disintegrated in the heat (Goodyear reported 150 °F (66 °C) and Nigel Mansell collapsed trying to push his car to the finish line.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_Dallas_Grand_Prix

    • Mata: the baseball stadium in Miami is covered and blessed with A/C (tax dollars are free!), but not the NFL stadium where World Cup soccer will be played.

  5. > My bet is that the games are scheduled for 8 pm in Europe, which means 2 pm in Miami. This will maximize TV viewership

    Based on past experience, kickoff will be at 3:30 so the game will end just before midnight in Europe. On July 5 one of the quarterfinals will be played in Mexico City, which not only 15° cooler but is also five percentage points less humid. At least Miami is at sea level!

  6. The last time we hosted the World Cup (1994) the Miami stadium was being used for baseball so couldn’t host (even though the stadium was specifically built with soccer in mind). Therefore games were held in Orlando at the Citrus Bowl.

    Orlando hosted a first-round knockout game on July 4 where the Netherlands defeated the Republic of Ireland* 2-0. Kickoff was at noon, but the temperature cooperated at 85°.

    *FIFA uses their full name as the Irish football team represents the northern 6 counties, not the southern 26.

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