Vancouver FIFA World Cup costs balloon to twice original estimate
It’s the biggest sporting event in the world and comes with it a big time profile. When you have a month long commercial on the City of Vancouver with the equivalent of 30 to 40 Super Bowls, guess what? You create demand for hotel rooms. It also comes with a big cost. On Tuesday, the BC government taking its first kick at laying out the FIFA 2026 World Cup budget. Seven games played at BC Place, up from 5 when estimates were originally outlined back in 2022. The province thought the price tag was going to be between 240 and $260 million. That has now been pumped up to between 483 million and 581,000,000 dollars. Shocking and unacceptable that here in BC the cost to host just seven of these World Cup games has more than doubled. But for the first time, a look at expected revenues and recoveries pegged between 383,000,000 and $436 million. Including a $116 million from Ottawa, $230 million from the major events, municipal and regional tax. And between 37 and $90 million for facility rental fees and the new FIFA commercial revenue program, meaning the World Cup cost could come in between 100 and $145,000,000. When we got the initial numbers, it was before we had a full understanding of the requirements. We didn’t know how many games we were going to get. There was a lot of things that have changed. BC Place needs a big upgrade, World Cup or no World Cup. This includes new and bigger elevators, considering currently there are only three a new big screen, new hospitality space, new locker rooms and moving the BC Sports Hall of Fame storage to open up fan space. All of the projects that are undergoing and and will be undertaken at the stadium are projects that we had at least thought about or had in our mind. All right. Richard Zissman joins us now live. Richard, we talked earlier about Canucks ticket demand, World Cup tickets demand is global. Is there any commitment to ensure that people here have first crack at these? I asked Minister Problem exactly that, Chris, and not good news for fans here in BC, Popham said. There will be fan zones across Metro Vancouver and Cross Province where fans can walk outside the stadium. But for now, there’s no specific strategy to ensure the British Columbians get access to inside the stadium. So if you think the Canucks tickets are expensive tonight on resale, wait until World Cup 2026 comes or you may get lucky when you can buy them. Late 2025. Early 2026, But no matter what, Chris, it’s going to cost you no doubt two years to save up. Richard, thanks very much. Yeah.