They have to install playing surfaces that meet exacting standards. They have to change the names of the facilities. They have to shut down all other business (such as major concerts) for the duration of the World Cup.
Given the hoops through which the 11 NFL stadiums will have to jump in order to placate FIFA, it’s fair to ask whether it’s worth it.
Ben Volin of the Boston Globe recently took a look at that question. Said an NFL official from a team that won’t be hosting any of the World Cup games, “I know more than a few teams weren’t disappointed to lose the bid.”
That could be sour grapes, because those who won the right to host the matches are crowing about it.
“Can’t sleep,” Cowboys owner and G.M. Jerry Jones said recently, per Volin. “This is a great chance to associate with the worldwide love with soccer, and lets us put a little notch on our belt and share it with what soccer’s about, too. They’ll never be able to take away that we held those games in that stadium.”
Cowboys executive Stephen Jones echoed the sentiment: “We’ll be shut down all summer. But it’s worth it. I mean, this is about brand and, you know, being a part of something special.”
The Joneses wanted to host the matches badly enough to give up their suite for the matches.
“I think I’ve got to go someplace else, but that was a part of it,” Jerry Jones said. “We did a lot of things to make this work.”
The Cowboys, Patriots, Falcons, Texans, Chargers/Rams, Giants/Jets, Chiefs, Seahawks, 49ers, Dolphins, and Eagles will be hosting World Cup games in their stadiums.
The total revenue is projected, per Volin, to be roughly $11 billion. FIFA will pay rent for the stadiums, while keeping the revenue from sponsorships, tickets, suites, merchandise, concessions, and parking.
So how much will the teams get for hosting the World Cup? Per Volin, the terms “have been kept under wraps.”
Given that folks like Jones are not known for doing bad deals, they’ll surely be making more money to host the World Cup matches than they would have made in a normal summer.
Still, it’s a headache. Extra work, extra expenses, extra hassles.
Not to mention the P.R. bruise that comes from the perception/reality that NFL owners who are giving FIFA the surfaces it demands while stubbornly refusing to do the same for pro football players.
Osa Odighizuwa was drafted by the Cowboys in 2021. The defensive tackle re-signed with them in 2025 despite a higher offer from the Commanders as one of the top free agents.
All for the Cowboys to trade him to the 49ers this offseason.
His new team plays his old team this season, and Odighizuwa is very much looking forward to the meeting.
“It’s the game that you got a picture on the dartboard, and you’re throwing a knife at the picture,” Odighizuwa said recently on The Richard Sherman Podcast, via Calvin Watkins of the Dallas Morning News. “Now, I just take down the picture and I put up the other picture, and I’m on the other side of it, but the energy is exactly the same.”
Odighizuwa became expendable after the Cowboys traded for Kenny Clark and Quinnen Williams. The 49ers sent a third-round pick to Dallas for him.
“I’m definitely happy to be [with the 49ers],” Odighizuwa said. “It’s a great organization from top to bottom. I feel like it’s definitely just a winning mentality over here, so it’s definitely cool to be a part of that and go from one good organization to another one, and just being in a great space.”
Odighizuwa recorded 216 tackles, 81 quarterback hits, 34 tackles for loss and 17 sacks in his five seasons with the Cowboys. He expects more. He will make his return to AT&T Stadium on Nov. 15.
“For the past five years, I haven’t scratched the surface of the player that I am,” Odighizuwa said. “It hasn’t been put on full display, so I just plan on putting that on display.”
With the World Cup coming soon, multiple NFL stadiums have torn up their artificial turf and installed high-quality, FIFA-compliant grass pitches. Then, after the tournament ends, the grass will be removed and replaced with artificial turf again.
49ers defensive end Nick Bosa, whose team will play five 2026 games at stadiums that perform the turf to grass back to turf transformation, was asked about the decision to switch the surfaces at those venues to grass before putting the fake stuff back in.
“Yeah, it’s a little bizarre,” Bosa said, “but what can you expect?”
That says it all. It’s all about money. It’s cheaper to have turf for NFL games. And it’s expensive, but necessary, to install grass in order to make the extra money that comes from hosting World Cup games.
The 49ers will play this year at Seattle (Week 5), at Atlanta (Week 7), at Dallas (Week 10), at the Giants (Week 13), and at the Chargers (Week 15). All five stadiums will have grass for the summer before returning to artificial turf.
In 2020, Bosa suffered a torn ACL on artificial turf at MetLife Stadium. (He tore the ACL in the other knee on grass in 2025.) And while the fact that he has torn an ACL on each surface will prompt some to say there’s no difference, the difference between playing on grass and fake grass is obvious to anyone who does it — which is why 92 percent of players prefer grass.
The 49ers ended up with not one but two international games in 2026 — one in Australia and one in Mexico. Even though the trip to Melbourne will be much longer than the trip to Mexico City, the Mexico trip will likely keep them away from home even longer than the season-opener down under.
“We haven’t finalized it yet, but we’d love to stay here and go there,” Shanahan said of the travel plans for the Week 11 game against the Vikings in Mexico City. “It’s a shorter flight, but that’s not really the issue. The main thing with Mexico City is it’s 2,000 [feet] higher than Denver. And so, we like to get adjusted to that altitude. So, we’ll probably go to Colorado Springs again like we did last time to get ready for that altitude and then probably go to Mexico City the night before.”
The 49ers play their Week 10 game at Dallas. Shanahan was asked whether the team would go straight to Colorado from Texas.
“We haven’t decided that yet, but most likely,” Shanahan said. “We’ll probably end up, the Mexico City trip will probably be a longer one than the Australia one, just because of that.”
The two international trips impose a significant burden on the 49ers. And it potentially creates a competitive disadvantage. Those issues, however, have taken a back seat to the league’s efforts to globalize the game.
The NFL wants to secure the ability to play 16 international games per year, with the idea of having every team make one international trip per season. That would be the fairest way to handle it. If every team has to leave the country once, the disadvantage levels out.
For now, with a maximum of 10 international games, it would be far more fair for no team to be expected to travel to another country for a game more than once per year. In the ultra-difficult NFC West, having the 49ers make two separate trips to play in another country won’t make it an easier to successfully compete with the Seahawks and the Rams.
49ers edge rusher Nick Bosa tore the ACL in his right knee in a Sept. 21 win over the Cardinals.
He isn’t fully participating in the team’s organized team activities this week, but Bosa said it’s realistic to expect his return at the start of training camp or soon after.
“I’m pretty far along,” Bosa said, via Nick Wagoner of ESPN. "[I’m] out on the field doing a lot of stuff, trying to just take it slow because I tend to push things quicker. I got injured pretty early last year, so there’s plenty of time for me to really kind of lay the groundwork to be ready for a long season. It’s going really well, and I plan on being ready.”
Bosa has done his rehab and recovery in Santa Clara, and he’s doing some work on the side this week as his teammates go through OTAs.
Bosa tore his right ACL as a high school senior and his left ACL in Week 2 of the 2020 season.
“When I did it in ’20, it was just like balls to the wall, get back, push every milestone as hard as you possibly can and I probably dealt with some stuff that I didn’t need to deal with in terms of just kind of the bumps in the road of recovery,” Bosa said. “Now, I’m taking it slow and I kind of have references to go back and look at.”
Defensive lineman Mykel Williams, the 49ers’ first-round pick in 2025, is working his way back from a torn right ACL, and defensive end Keion White is recovering from a gunshot wound to his ankle.
“They’re coming along,” Shanahan said. “They’re all in there rehabbing with a number of other guys. A couple of those guys will have chance of training camp. We’ll see with Mykel as he goes.”
