Mae West, the American actor and provocateur, had a line that went something like this: "If a little is great, and a lot is better, then way too much is just about right!"
Welcome to the 2026 World Cup: the embodiment of unprecedented excess.
In many ways, this summer's competition isn't full of new things. Yes, sure, there are elements that are wholly original: It's the first time we've had three countries hosting, for starters, and it's the first World Cup with 48 teams. But as we've inched closer to the tournament beginning, the storylines that have swirled around this event have to do with magnitude -- everything connected to this tournament is just ... more.
"It's hard to find a precedent for this one," said Tim Sisk, whose job as a historian, author and professor at the University of Denver makes him among the best at finding precedents when it comes to global sports. Sisk shook his head. "This one's got an extra sort of layer of complexity, let's say."
That phrasing might be kind. The narrative running up to this World Cup is quintessentially American: The U.S. has sucked up nearly all the oxygen (bonus points if you remembered that Canada and Mexico are also welcoming the world) while simultaneously taking something and making it bigger and louder than one could imagine. What does the movie trailer voiceover guy always say? You've NEVER seen it quite like this?
Frankly, we haven't.
Ticket prices? Nearly every previous World Cup had questions about the availability or costs. But was the gouging ever to such a degree that seats to the final were going for upward of $40,000 before the tournament even began? Was it ever so egregious that a local authority launched an investigation into whether fans were being duped by FIFA's new ticketing platform (which, by the way, gives the organization a commission on original sales and every secondary market transaction)?
Did any other host country's head of state ever look at the prices and reportedly say, "I wouldn't pay it either, to be honest with you?"
Put simply: no.
How about immigration and visa concerns for foreign fans and players? Again, not new. It happens at tournaments. But not in a country that has seen nationwide civil protests, sporadic and violent targeting of foreigners, increased phone searches of visitors in search of anti-government social media activity and severe restrictions on entry for citizens of four of the participating World Cup nations.
It's the same with travel worries; no one loves flying all over a massive country. But instead of concerns over just delays, this World Cup has massive, gas-related price inflation for airline bookings and is taking place largely in a country with a safety and security agency that routinely has system-crippling staffing shortages and an aviation infrastructure that regularly melts down, especially during summertime bad weather conditions.
Then, of course, there's the whole Iran situation and the will they or won't they regarding their participation. Have there been previous World Cups where a qualified team might choose not to play? It has happened plenty, mostly decades ago when transoceanic travel costs weren't necessarily feasible for every soccer federation. But was it ever because a qualified country was attacked by one of the hosts and was actively engaged in a military conflict with it? Definitely not.
"It has been very, very difficult for the players," a former Iran soccer federation official told ESPN recently. "To play a World Cup is their dream. But not like this."
Now, criticism of a World Cup host is also far from unusual. Whether it's human rights concerns, economic worries or cultural intolerance, the buildup to tournaments in places such as Russia and Qatar were similarly divisive.
But again: This feels different, mostly because the U.S. positions itself in the world as being very, very different from all the rest.
"Previously we've seen protests, boycotts, a lot of internal conflict -- those are the more common things," Sisk, the professor, said. "But to see this kind of polarization and, you know, potential human rights abuses from a democracy, and particularly the world's largest, ostensibly most established democracy, I think is what really raises the biggest difference from what we've seen in prior events."
It should be said: Many of these realities are just the cost of doing business in the United States at this moment in history, and there is no doubt that the benefits of staging a World Cup in North America are similarly grand.
There will be no concerns about wasted public resources on one-off venues here, no "white elephants" as we've seen in previous host nations. Remember the arena in Brazil's capital of Brasilia that was finally turned into a $900 million bus depot because there were no games to be played there once the tournament was over? Unlikely to happen to SoFi Stadium. The venues at this World Cup, many of which are NFL fields, were designed to host exactly these types of moments, and they're largely fresh and modern.
Booze? Legal and readily for sale at stadiums and in fan zones. Hotels? There won't be any need for spectators to sleep in shipping container villages, as happened in Qatar, because there is lodging everywhere (though expensive). Transportation? OK, fair enough, a bit of a mixed bag on this one, but where it works -- hello, Philadelphia, where every fan can go home from every game on the subway for free -- it's amazing.
Where it doesn't? Well, we're back to the "oversized" concept, with New York fans being charged around $100 to take a train 18 miles there and back from Manhattan to the Meadowlands in New Jersey, a near 700% markup on the normal cost of about $13.
Throughout any moment of consternation (on really any subject), FIFA president Gianni Infantino -- who runs soccer's governing body -- has quickly pivoted the conversation toward the $871 million that will be distributed to the teams participating this summer, including at least $12.5 million to each nation simply for qualifying. For smaller nations such as Haiti, Curacao or Cape Verde, these windfalls are massive, potentially funding grassroots soccer programs for years.
Beyond that, FIFA is projecting a record budget of nearly $14 billion for its next four-year cycle -- much of which, Infantino will brag on request, is invested back into soccer initiatives around the world. Infantino has largely staked his work at FIFA on the principle of directing more and more money toward as many national federations as possible (regardless of size or historic interest in soccer), and it's a principle which has, not coincidentally, kept him in power in FIFA's structure where every nation has just a single vote. The success of the men's World Cup is the most critical part of this enterprise.
So, to consider the familiar premise: Have we seen this before? Has Infantino, who often acts like a head of state himself, spent plenty of previous World Cup cycles genuflecting toward divisive world leaders who happen to be hosting a big FIFA event? Clearly. It wasn't that long ago he was praising Vladimir Putin's "professionalism" and saying, "We all fell in love with Russia" during the 2018 World Cup.
But has Infantino ever done it quite as shamelessly as he has this time with U.S. President Donald Trump? It's debatable, though some might argue that the hurried creation of a FIFA Peace Prize, which had no discernible criteria or voting procedures and which Infantino summarily awarded to Trump in December -- about three months before the U.S. attacked Iran -- speaks for itself.
"Everything will be better," one tournament organizer said recently, "when the matches begin."
That, of course, is always the mantra, particularly when it comes to a big, complicated event such as a World Cup or an Olympics. The games always win. So it was in Qatar and Russia and Brazil before that, and so it will be here. On Thursday, when this tournament kicks off at the Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, the wonder and beauty of the world's most popular sport will take over. And it will almost surely be captivating.
Lionel Messi leading the defending champions. Cristiano Ronaldo still trying to muster his magic. The U.S. with perhaps the most talented collection of players in its history. England trying to finally get over the line. Underdogs such as Colombia and Ecuador, hoping to pull off a stunner. Rising stars such as Spain's Lamine Yamal, arriving with style on the biggest stage.
There will be magic. There will be goals. There will be upsets and drama and theater.
It will be the biggest show in World Cup history. In every way possible.