Michigan’s ‘The Big House’ Deserved A 2026 World Cup Game

Last week, #10 ranked Michigan Wolverines, hot off their National Championship victory, played their first home game of the 2024 season against #3 Texas Longhorns in front of a sold-out crowd of 111,170 thousand fans. The wave of yellow in that crowd, as always, was an insane image to comprehend.

Seeing this view while watching the game got my dad and me talking: with such a large crowd like this, it is pretty mind-boggling that Ann Arbor was not chosen as a location for the 2026 World Cup taking place around North America.

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I'm sure there are closed-door reasons, but in 2024, it seems silly to not have a game there. I could understand if the location not being near an airport was a contributing factor. But we already know soccer fans are more than capable of selling out the Big House.

Take a look at the Real Madrid vs Manchester United exhibition game back in 2016. A sold-out crowd for two teams based in Europe that have no ties to the US other than the fans. The nearest venue for Michiganders will be in Toronto, CA at Toronto Stadium (BMO Field), which can hold ~30,000 fans, and 40,000 on special occasions.

Ann Arbor's Secret Weapon

However, there has been one major change since locations were announced that could massively influence Ann Arbor's bid for a location: alcohol sales. 

Hear me out.

Before the start of the 2024 season, the Big House was awarded a Class C liquor license allowing, beer wine, mixed spirit drinks, and spirits to be sold on the premises. If you sell a beer for $12 (conservatively), and you say 75% of the audience is capable of buying one single beer, that's already $1 million in revenue in drink sales alone.

These are incredibly rough estimates, but money talks. Realistically it is far too late for there to be any change, but it is a major bummer not having a game of this caliber take place at the country's biggest stadium.