{"id":346290,"date":"2026-07-20T18:17:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T18:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/346290\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T18:17:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T18:17:10","slug":"miami-dade-leaders-say-fifa-world-cup-drew-over-500000-people-to-south-florida-wsvn-7news-miami-news-weather-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/346290\/","title":{"rendered":"Miami-Dade leaders say FIFA World Cup drew over 500,000 people to South Florida &#8211; WSVN 7News | Miami News, Weather, Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">MIAMI GARDENS, FLA. (WSVN) &#8211; Miami-Dade County leaders touted the success of the FIFA World Cup as one of the host cities for the soccer tournament, saying the event brought more than 500,000 people to South Florida. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Seven of the 104 matches that took place during this year\u2019s World Cup were held at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, known as Miami Stadium during the event that welcomed hundreds of thousands of fans from across the globe to the Sunshine State.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIf the World Cup really taught us all anything, it taught us ultimately that we\u2019re all on the same team, and as a person who loves Miami, it\u2019s really very emotional to say that we were certainly very much on the same teams,\u201d said Alina Hudak, President and CEO of the FIFA World Cup 2026 MIami Host Committee.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Several of those games featured some of the tournament\u2019s biggest moments, including a nailbiter pitting Argentina against underdogs Cape Verde that went to extra time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">County leaders said <a href=\"https:\/\/wsvn.com\/news\/local\/miami-dade\/i-love-seeing-everyone-out-here-united-fifa-fan-festival-opens-its-doors-in-downtown-miami\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">FIFA Fan Festival<\/a>, a fan showcase at Bayfront Park in downtown Miami, as a major hit, and they also singled out the way parks across the county transformed into gathering places where thousands united over their love of soccer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Officials said that while the final economic impact is still being calculated, FIFA provided a major boost to local businesses, and they believe its long-term benefits will continue well after the final whistle was blown.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cSo many businesses did record-breaking days and weeks thanks to World Cup, but it\u2019s not just the short term it\u2019s the long term,\u201d said Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe had a fantastic experience moving over 200,000 people on our game match shuttles, very exciting, and over 830,000 people on Metromover for our Fan Fest, and hope that we end up with some new patrons,\u201d said Stacy Miller, CEO of the Miami-Dade Department of Transportation and Public Works.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Organizers said they\u2019re certain these local events resulted in many locals and visitors becoming new f\u00fatbol fans.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 Sunbeam Television Corp. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.<\/p>\n<p>\tJoin our Newsletter for the latest news right to your inbox<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI GARDENS, FLA. (WSVN) &#8211; Miami-Dade County leaders touted the success of the FIFA World Cup as one&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":346291,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-346290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}