HOUSTON β Having H-Town chosen as a host city for the 2026 FIFA World Cup is a huge deal so the people who made it happen are throwing a party to celebrate and everyone's invited.
The Houston 2026 World Cup Bid Committee is hosting the victory party today in EaDo, just east of downtown.
It's from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. at Pitch 26 at 2120 Walker.
The World Cup is expected to pump an estimated $1 billion into the local economy.
Houston was one of 12 U.S. cities chosen to host the world's biggest sporting event. Six matches will be played at NRG Stadium.
Experts said it will be like hosting six Super Bowls in a month's time.
"Unlike the World Series or NCAA Final Four or even the Super Bowl, we're talking about bringing in international dollars, money that otherwise wouldn't be spent here," said Dietrich von Biedenfeld with the University of Houston-Downtown.
Houston will welcome visitors from over 100 countries here to cheer on the world's best soccer players.
"They'll be spending money, which then of course helps business owners who have mortgages, car notes, it just trickles out to neighboring communities," von Biedenfeld said.
Imagine packed restaurants and hotels booked at mass capacity. And don't forget about everyone else tuning in on TV. The 2018 World Cup in Russia had an average audience of 191 million people -- 1.1 billion tuned in to watch France beat Croatia in the final. That's a lot of eyes on Houston.
The energy in and out of NRG Stadium will be unlike anything Houston has ever experienced. It's the next step for a city that's proven time and time again that it can pack a stadium full of soccer fans and knows how to host the biggest events.
"When those fans are cheering in the city, we're going to have a huge injection of positive energy in the city and a huge injection of dollars," von Biedenfeld said.