Was the recent World Cup experience worth the effort for North Texas?
For economic development and hospitality leaders, the answer was a resounding yes. But they also say they learned — and continue to learn — a lot from the experience.
“The economic impact is something that is important and it’s significant,” said Jennifer Wichmann, deputy city manager for the city of Arlington. “But when we look at our entire region, we have a very big economy.”
Wichmann was one of four panelists speaking Aug. 6 at the Fort Worth Report’s latest Candid Conversation, held at Texas Wesleyan’s Nick and Lou Martin University Center. Participants shared their insights on the impact of the World Cup on the region, both wins and losses for Tarrant County.
While many predicted an economic tsunami from the World Cup, it was more of a ripple effect, Wichmann said.
“Did we enjoy having it? Was it helpful? Absolutely,” she said. “It was very exciting and very impactful economically.”
Before the tournament, regional organizers projected the nine World Cup matches in Arlington would generate between $1.5 billion and $2 billion in economic impact, and help bring more than 100,000 visitors to North Texas each day.
Expectations were high, but the results may tell a different story, said Drew Hays, executive director at the Fort Worth Sports Commission and vice president of sports at Visit Fort Worth, another member of the panel.
“We heard the question all the time, ‘Is this going to be nine Super Bowls?’” he said. “No, it was not nine Super Bowls. But the effects of this event are going to be lasting forever.”
Recent hotel data indicated some of the impact on Fort Worth, Hays said.
“Over that 35-day span, we saw a 23% increase in hotel revenue. That’s about $63.1 million in hotel revenue over the course of those 35 days,” he said. “Our occupancy was also up, but it wasn’t up significantly.”
While Fort Worth may not have been the center of attention for the World Cup, with Dallas and Arlington getting most of the limelight, not being a host city did have an advantage: Fort Worth was able to continue with its usual events, even hosting an FFA convention the week leading to the games.
“Being able to keep that baseline piece of business going in the lead-up to the World Cup and also during the World Cup really helped boost tourism,” Hays said. “There was the incremental impact we got from the fans coming in as well.”
The bus to Buc-ee’s
Transportation was a key concern leading up to the event. On the Tarrant County side, Trinity Metro approved a contract of up to $6 million to lease as many as 40 buses a day. Officials also added Trinity Railway Express cars and used charter buses to carry fans from CentrePort/DFW Airport Station to a parking lot near the stadium.
More than 40,000 passengers used World Cup public transportation, according to officials.
Transit officials worked hard to prepare for the event and it paid off, said panelist Anette Landeros, chief strategy officer at Trinity Metro.
“We’re really grateful that we did overprepare,” she said. “We provided top-notch service and ensured that Fort Worth and DFW shined and proved that we are capable of hosting global events.”
Trinity Metro ended up with excess capacity during the games and could have carried more passengers, but that showed what area transit could do, Landeros said.
“Do we hope that next time more people lean into transit because they saw and heard how great and easy it was? Absolutely,” she said.
The nine-match World Cup window in North Texas left Trinity Metro with 23 off-days when it had charter buses that could have been sitting idle.
Instead, the marketing team came up with the idea of Cowtown Shuttles that were offered to visitors during those off-days, Landeros said.
Trinity Metro was able to test shuttle ideas they were already considering, such as a green line to the Fort Worth Botanic Garden and the Fort Worth Zoo. That one did not turn out to be so popular, but the shuttle to the Alliance area, including the Tanger Outlets and Buc-ee’s travel center, proved popular.
So, too, was the shuttle to the Stockyards.
“I say this as a Fort Worthian: If you’re coming to Texas and you don’t go to the Stockyards, what are you doing?” Landeros said.
Trinity Metro also added a temporary bus stop in Arlington at Texas Live!, giving the city bus service.
“We shuttled people from the Stockyards and downtown to Texas Live! and then the reverse to enjoy the Fort Worth experience,” she said.
One nugget from the panel discussion was the impact of Buc-ee’s.
“That route actually generated national news about how a Texas city and a transit agency were taking people to Buc-ee’s,” Landeros said. “Some of us thought, ‘Oh my God, what if this route doesn’t work?’ And then the news picked it up, and it just went wild, and we were astonished.”
According to Landeros, the route generated $13.4 million in earned media, which is the value placed on news articles, customer reviews, social media shares and word-of-mouth related to an event.
“That means everybody was talking about Trinity Metro, and it was because of things like Buc-ee’s or the events that we were hosting, or whatever it was,” she said. “Hands down, it was a great investment.”
Fort Worth also saw a big media impact from the World Cup, Hays said.
Some of that was, he admits, pure luck.
When the Host Committee chose downtown Dallas as the media center for the games, Fort Worth officials weren’t sure how to get the attention of international reporters coming to the area to cover the games.
The North Texas FWC Organizing Committee solved that problem when Fort Worth was asked to host the official media party in advance of the World Cup.
“And we said, excuse my language, ‘Hell yeah,’ because we knew getting the media here before the event started was going to have this snowball effect, and it did,” Hays said.
Hays said Fort Worth benefited from more than 4,000 articles written specifically about Cowtown from the event.
“That’s not FIFA Dallas, that’s not FIFA Arlington, that’s Fort Worth,” he said.
The impact was also felt at the Cowtown Coliseum, which saw 55,000 rodeo tickets sold over 39 days, Hays said.
“That’s a record,” he said. “To come out with our brand to lean into that authentic, true Texas experience was definitely a win for us.”
The Fort Worth Stockyards welcomed 1.8 million visitors during the tournament, a 44.7% increase from the same period a year earlier. Overall, the city welcomed 3 million visitors during the World Cup.
While bus service “ran like a top,” as Arlington’s Wichmann said, there were issues in other areas, in particular ride-sharing services.
“We tried a million different ways to figure out how to get the drivers in, in an organized way to match up with the riders,” she said. “So rideshare, we’re still trying to figure that one out. It’s a challenge, but we adjusted.”
The area learned a lot from the World Cup, said panelist Michael E. Nalley, director of hospitality management and professor of practice at the University of Texas at Arlington. Those lessons will prove invaluable in the future.
“There was a lot of coordination, a lot of logistics and a lot of stress that wasn’t necessarily seen from a public perspective,” he said. “Being able to adapt the offerings that we have, and then also being able to pivot, when the demand changed or when the trends changed in a way we weren’t expecting, that was very positive as well.”
North Texas now has a template that it can use going forward for events as large as this, Nalley said.
“I think that will be a great advantage for us to be able to get those other signature events in the future as well.”
Bob Francis is business editor at the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at bob.francis@fortworthreport.org.
At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
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