World Cup games, state's 250th anniversary could mean big tourism numbers in 2026

Take this as either an advertisement or as a warning: next summer will be like no other.

In a six-week span starting in June, Massachusetts will celebrate the 250th anniversary of July 4, 1776, host seven men's World Cup matches, and welcome dozens of tall ships back to the waters around Boston for the first time in nearly a decade.

That combination, in the mind of the state's tourism chief, is "unprecedented."

"It is certainly a once-in-a-generation opportunity," said Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism Executive Director Kate Fox. "I can't think of a time when all of these things have happened at once."

The convergence of one of the most iconic international sporting events, a multi-day nautical showcase and a historical milestone is forecast to bring millions of people to Massachusetts and generate more than $1 billion in economic impact, all on top of the typical summer swell the region typically enjoys.

That has also created a gargantuan task for organizers, public safety agencies, tourism leaders and elected officials, who are coordinating not only with the multiple entities hosting events here but also with other host cities across North America.

The events will be somewhat staggered, fueling a stretch of megatourism rather than a more concentrated period with everything happening at once.

On June 13, 2026, Gillette Stadium in Foxborough will host its first match of the 2026 men's World Cup. That will be the opening salvo for a summer of celebration, and five more group-stage matches will follow over the subsequent two-plus weeks.

Then, Boston Harborfest will run from July 1 to July 4, culminating with an Independence Day celebration -- always a buzzy day in Boston thanks to the fireworks show along the Charles River Esplanade scored by the Boston Pops -- that marks a quarter-millennium since the Declaration of Independence was adopted.

Gillette will host one more soccer match, a quarterfinal on Thursday, July 9 that will send one nation forward and one other home. And two days later, with white sails billowing in the wind, roughly 75 massive ships will anchor in Boston Harbor.

Those different events came together largely as a coincidence, organizers say. Bidding for the World Cup involves many other cities and happens years in advance, and Sail Boston is part of a larger national program unfolding over a weekslong period.

"And, well, we couldn't move 1776," Fox said of the 250th anniversary.

Back in the U.S.A.

The soccer matches will be the first on American soil for a men's World Cup since 1994, and the first for either a men's or women's World Cup since 2003. They will also be the first men's World Cup matches ever hosted at Gillette Stadium -- the six matches held in Massachusetts in the 1994 iteration took place at Foxboro Stadium, which was demolished in 2002.

America has hosted plenty of international soccer in the ensuing years, a combination of qualifying and smaller, regional tournaments. But the energy and demand for those pales compared to the World Cup itself, which only happens every four years.

It won't be clear until this winter, when FIFA hosts the World Cup draw, which national teams will play at Gillette Stadium. Regardless, tourism and transportation officials expect every match will likely sell out the match capacity of roughly 62,000 fans. (The 1994 tournament in the U.S. still holds the record for total attendance and average attendance per game at a men's World Cup, per Statista.)

More soccer fans -- or football fans, depending on which part of the world they call home -- will spend time in Boston, where FIFA plans to host a "fan festival" throughout the tournament.

Next year marks the first time Sail Boston will return since 2017, bringing vessels and crews from locations such as India, Peru, the Cook Islands, Spain and the distant port of Plymouth, Massachusetts.

T.K. Skenderian, a spokesperson for Sail Boston, said the arrival of the ships will be "a nice little continuation of the excitement" started by July 4 and the World Cup.

"There is a voltage that runs through a city when a great event occurs within it, and we expect that that buzz will grow as the games are played in Foxborough in June and July, and to really culminate as the ships tie up around the city for everyone to enjoy," he said.

Boston is the final port for "Sail 250," a multi-stop maritime tour for what organizers call "an epic peacetime gathering" of tall ships and military ships marking 250 years since the Declaration of Independence was adopted. They'll start in New Orleans on May 28, then make their way up the East Coast.

Skenderian said he "totally see[s] it as a plus for this city and this region" for several marquee events to take place in quick succession.

The landmark American anniversary will be more of a flavor marbled throughout other spring and summer activities than a source of standalone programming, at least in Massachusetts, where the most significant key historical milestones like commemoration of the Battles of Lexington and Concord happened this year. March 17, 2026 will mark the 250th anniversary of Evacuation Day, when British troops fled Boston, and the July 4 celebration could be supersized.

Meet Boston CEO Martha Sheridan said next year's Independence Day celebration along the Charles River will be "sort of the topping-off of our 250th celebration."

The major events will have some spillover effects on more regular fare, too. On June 20, 2026, the Boston Red Sox will play a road doubleheader against the Seattle Mariners to accommodate a World Cup match at Lumen Field -- directly next to the Mariners' home stadium -- a day earlier. 

While baseball and soccer will be quite a bit more separated in distance here in Massachusetts, there could be some scheduling overlaps: the 2026 Major League Baseball schedule has the Sox with two homestands in June that coincide with several World Cup matches.

"Pretty much a daily thing"

The incoming burst of tourism poses a heavy lift for organizers, who need to coordinate logistics, transportation, security and more across several different stakeholder groups. That has resulted in, as Fox put it, "a lot of meetings."

Public safety officials including the Mass. Emergency Management Association have been working with FIFA organizers since last fall, a wide-reaching effort that features more than a dozen planning groups each focused on a specific aspect such as transportation or medical response.

MOTT and other tourism entities have worked with Sail Boston and Boston '26, the local World Cup organizing committee, as well as with a legislative commission tasked with overseeing 250 anniversary celebrations.

"There's a lot of overlap, and fortunately, we're all pulling in the same direction," Fox said. "The goal is to make 2026 as successful as possible."

"It's pretty much a daily thing for us here, our involvement, particularly in World Cup," added Sheridan.

The Healey administration is eyeing tens of millions of dollars in state funding to help usher the activities to success. A spending bill the governor signed in June included $5 million for World Cup transportation, and measure she filed this month seeks $20 million for various costs related to the soccer tournament.

Healey in the spring proposed $15 million for "grants and marketing supports related to the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution," but that line item did not survive legislative negotiations.

Her office said this week that officials expect to deploy $20 million toward the semiquincentennial from a combination of state money, sponsorships and private donations, including $10 million from the convention center fund.

Organizers say the economic benefit for the region will be much larger than the taxpayer contributions. Skenderian said Sail Boston expects more than 7 million people to participate in the six-day event, generating about $140 million in spending.

According to the MBTA, local World Cup hosts forecast a more than $1 billion economic impact with more than $60 million in tax revenue and thousands of jobs created.

T leaders are also hopeful about securing federal funding toward transportation costs as well.

The confluence of events will attract hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of people to a region already notorious for traffic even in the offseason. Those travelers will add crowds to streets, trains and highways.

"It's frightening and really exciting at the same time," said Middlesex County Sheriff Peter Koutoujian, a member of the MBTA Board of Directors.

Massachusetts also has one of the longest trips between where most visitors will flock and where the games will actually be played. Gillette Stadium in Foxborough -- dubbed "Boston Stadium" in the official FIFA branding -- is about 25 miles from downtown Boston, a trip that can regularly take one to two hours by car depending on traffic.

Among the 15 other match sites, only one stadium is further from the ostensible city center: Levi's Stadium is located in Santa Clara, more than 42 miles southeast of San Francisco. (Similar to the Foxborough-Boston blurred line, FIFA materials refer to the host as the "San Francisco Bay Area" rather than the city proper.)

Foxborough's opening match lands on a Saturday, and the six subsequent games are all on weekdays. T officials say the kickoff times could be 12 p.m., 4 p.m., 6 p.m. or 9 p.m. -- meaning much of the commute to and from the stadium could coincide with rush hour.

"Many of these matches are on a weekday. That is a different animal than a Taylor Swift concert at eight o'clock on a Tuesday or a Patriots game on a Sunday or an Army-Navy game on a Saturday," Rod Brooks, the T's senior advisor for capital, operations and safety, said during a T board meeting. "It has its own separate challenges. While you're trying to accommodate a rush hour, you're also trying to accommodate record-setting demand."

Officials and organizers say they feel as prepared as possible to absorb the added demand on infrastructure.

The MBTA has committed to transporting 20,000 passengers per game -- just shy of one-third of the maximum possible attendance -- to Gillette Stadium via commuter rail. Crews are working to upgrade the nearby commuter rail station with a full-length, accessible, level-boarding platform.

A temporary platform update should be completed in October, and the final project should be done in May 2026, officials said, leaving behind permanent changes after the international tournament ends.

MBTA General Manager Phil Eng said the Kraft Group, which owns Gillette, paid for the design of the updated station.

"We're continuing to discuss with them the final cost, and there's still ongoing discussions with potential contributions for construction," he told agency overseers. "This is a legacy infrastructure that will provide benefits to the MBTA long-term. This is not just building it for [the] World Cup, although it has a need for World Cup."

"They are contributing right now," Eng said of the Kraft Group. "How much more is still under discussion."

The T has already improved some amenities at the Blue Line's Airport station with advertising for the World Cup, plus fresh paint and better lighting.

One of the most important dates for spectators will arrive next spring, likely in April: the start of sales for MBTA "special event" train tickets from South Station to Foxborough.

"The only thing that sells out faster, evidently, than a Beyoncé or a Taylor Swift ticket is an MBTA ticket," Brooks said. "We are well aware that the demand is going to be there, so just stay tuned on that."

Voices that had been skeptical of previous megaevents eyed for Boston are more confident this time around.

Chris Dempsey, a former transportation advocate and one of the primary opponents to the Boston 2024 Olympics bid, said he does not expect the soccer matches at Gillette to produce much more congestion than other regular events at the stadium.

"The alarmist way to say it is this is seven Super Bowls. The less alarmist way to say it is it's seven Patriots games, or seven Patriots preseason games," Dempsey said.

Dempsey and other community leaders mounted vocal resistance to a short-lived attempt to host the Olympic Games in Boston. They argued that the event would have required too much public investment with little permanent benefit once the athletes and tourists left town.

These days, Dempsey said, he gets asked every now and then if he also opposes the World Cup coming to the region. His answer to that: "a definitive no," despite concerns about FIFA's integrity.

The soccer matches can be played at an existing stadium with comparably minor work to replace artificial turf with grass, Dempsey said, a much lighter lift than building additional stadia and venues for Olympic events. Then there's the price tag.

"Hosting a World Cup, or [being] one of the sites of the World Cup, comes with costs that are two orders of magnitude smaller than the Olympics. So the Olympics is going to be roughly a $10 billion exercise. This is more like a $100 million exercise," he said. "There's just a lot less to get worked up about."