Arlington is one match away from wrapping up its role as a host city for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, with next week’s semifinal marking the final match in the city.<\/p>\n
As the tournament winds down locally, Arlington leaders say the event has already delivered historic economic results, strengthened international relationships and positioned the city for future opportunities.<\/p>\n
Mayor Jim Ross has attended every World Cup match at Dallas Stadium so far, meeting with diplomats and dignitaries from each visiting country.<\/p>\n
“Lord, I don’t even know where to start,” Ross said.<\/p>\n
Ross said those meetings have included conversations with world leaders, including the king of Jordan, which he believes could lead to long-term business partnerships.<\/p>\n
“When the king asks to meet you and visit with you, you say, ‘Absolutely, yes!'” Ross said.<\/p>\n
“For Arlington, that’s special. We’re the most diverse city in all of Texas. We’re third most diverse in the country. So that diversity really is our heart and soul,” Ross said.<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNBC 5 sat down with Arlington Mayor Jim Ross to discuss the impacts the World Cup has had on the city so far.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
The mayor also said June was a record-setting month for the city’s hospitality industry.<\/p>\n
“This June, we had over 31 million dollars in hotel revenue,” Ross said. “That’s not including restaurants, retail shops, and everybody.”<\/p>\n
Ross said the city also received praise from FIFA President Gianni Infantino during the tournament.<\/p>\n
“And he introduced me, and he goes, ‘This is the mayor that has the city with the best stadium in the world,'” Ross said. “Now I hope I don’t get him in trouble for sharing that. Maybe he tells every mayor that, I don’t know. But I was bursting at the seams with pride.”<\/p>\n
Looking ahead, Ross said Arlington plans to pursue additional opportunities to host future FIFA events, including the FIFA Women’s World Cup.<\/p>\n
“You better believe that we’re gonna be putting forth a major effort to not only get the Women’s World Cup here, but to get the final of the Women’s World Cup here in Arlington,” Ross said.<\/p>\n
This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC DFW. AI tools helped convert the story into a digital article, and an NBC DFW journalist edited it again before publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arlington is one match away from wrapping up its role as a host city for the 2026 FIFA…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":366045,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[3691,150,152,151],"class_list":["post-366044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arlington","tag-2026-world-cup","tag-arlington","tag-arlington-headlines","tag-arlington-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366044\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/366045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}